Cannes Film Festival will NOT BE SILENT about Chechen Atrocities
The ongoing detention, internment and torture in attempts to purge of gay and bisexual men in Chechnya for the last two months has been likened to the holocaust. Now activists at the renowned Cannes Film Festival are using ACTUP’s rallying cry to call attention to the crisis.
SILENCE=DEATH
According to LGBTQnation.com,
At the Cannes Film Festival, jurors for the Queer Palm made a statement calling attention to the dire situation for gay and bisexual men in Chechnya.
The six jurors, including Lidia Terki, Travis Mathews, and Yair Hochner, held up signs reading, “Chechnya,” “No More,” “Enough,” “Silence = Death,” “Unified,” and “Still?!”
The protest took place on the red carpet of the premiere for 120 Beats Per Minute, a film about the early days of ACT UP and HIV/AIDS activism in ’90s Paris, which became a top contender for the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, upon its premiere at the festival.
Read the full article via LGBTQnation.com HERE
120 Beats Per Minute has become the reviewed film at the film festival this year and looks at the ACTUP movement in France during the early ‘90s. From LGBTQnation.com,
“120 Beats Per Minute, a French AIDS drama with a full heart and a pounding rhythm, debuted at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday and quickly joined the shortlist of favorites for the festival’s coveted Palme d’Or prize.
The film’s docu-drama retelling of that painful period, combined with a burgeoning spirit of unity for the gay community, earned it some of the best reviews of the festival thus far. Vanity Fair called the film “a vital new gay classic.”
