Film about Chechens' deportation forbidden in Russia was screened in the programme of Moscow International Film Festival

The film "It's Ordered to Forget", produced by the Sheikh Mansour "Grozny-Film" Studio, was demonstrated at the 36^th Moscow International Film Festival. The screening of the film earlier forbidden for circulation in Russia aroused great interest of the audience – there were no vacant seats in the hall, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

"The film was banned in Russia; and officials from the Ministry of Culture motivated the ban by the fact that 'its screening will incite interethnic hatred," Ruslan Kokanaev, the producer, quoted after the show the official letter of the Ministry of Culture to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"And after that we received a message of the selection committee of the 36^th Moscow International Film Festival suggesting to hold a special screening of our film," said the producer.

He recalled that the reason for the ban was the episode about a mass burning of people in the mountain village of Khaibakh in the then Chechen-Ingushetia.

The operation under the code name of "Chechevitsa" (Lentils), during which the Chechens and Ingushes were deported en masse to Kazakhstan and Central Asia from the territory of the then Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, was held from February 23 to March 9, 1944. According to the International Society "Memorial", in 1943-44, some 485,000 people were evacuated from Chechnya and Ingushetia.