The connective thread running through the journalist and documentarian David France’s work may be queer activism, and yet he doesn’t see himself as an activist. “That was not my skill set.”His strength, it turned out, was as an observer, someone who functioned as a megaphone for those on the front line. “I’ve always been interested in studying the people who are able to step up and launch transformative activism from the outside,” he says. His latest film, “Welcome to Chechnya,” premiering June 30 on HBO, builds on this theme. It follows an underground group of activists who risk their lives to provide sanctuary and safe passage for L.G.B.T.Q.

Source: New York Times June 29, 2020 20:37 UTC