Festival Newspaper

A Secret Tape Gave a Birth of TERROR IN MOSCOW

Dan Reed, the film director: To make a film about-- people waiting to die, and-- what's more, sitting next to their loved ones, and waiting to die with their loved ones was, was, was really --it was an overwhelming emotional experience for me, and to me this film really is about being a hostage and what people are like when they face death and they know that death is coming. (On The Media, New Your, an interview of Bob Garfield)

“A gripping portrait of a tragedy through the victims' eyes that is at once human, universal and touching, and also uniquely, terribly Russian.” New York Times

“They do indeed deserve to be remembered, those helpless victims of the madness of our times, and not only for their own sake. The world forgets at its own peril. "Terror in Moscow ," a great documentary, makes a brilliant contribution to seeing that at least that will not happen.” Washington Post

In October 2002 I got a phone call from George Carey, an executive producer here in London, asking me whether I was interested in directing a film about the Moscow theatre siege, which had only just come to its grim conclusion. A group of 50 Chechen terrorists, the men armed with guns and the women with suicide bomb-belts had held 850 theatre-goers hostage for 57 hours at a popular musical in Moscow. I had watched the live reports from my hotel room in Vietnam, where I was on a recce (reconnaissance) for another film, and had been immediately intrigued.

George had worked with me on “The Valley”, a 70-minute documentary which I filmed in 1998 during the first spring and summer of the Kosovo war. After four months’ getting to know the terrain, I spent weeks at a time in the hills and villages with my crew, filming the terrible events of that summer. Thanks to its powerful eyewitness scenes and its sense of intimacy with the protagonists, “The Valley” has become acknowledged as the definitive documentary about the Kosovo conflict. My involvement in the Moscow story was very different: it began only once the event itself was over. The challenge was very much to find the human face of this story , the thread that would link the experience of the hostages to that of my audience.

I knew this film had to be primarily about the experience of being a hostage, expecting to die at the hands of the female suicide-bombers (some of whom were the widows of Chechen combatants) who calmly sat amongst them for most of the 57 hours of the ordeal. People had gone to the theatre with husbands, sons and daughters. Suddenly they were spending their last hours of life together in the fetid, cramped atmosphere of the theatre, where the lights were never switched off and the orchestra pit served as a latrine, to which access was strictly controlled by the black-clad suicide “widows”.

Finding the right interviewees amongst the 850 hostages, and persuading them to talk frankly and in detail was our first big task. Guy Pugh , an experienced Moscow-based researcher, came on board and started hunting down the survivors, tracing archive material, and figuring out a precise time-line for the events of the siege, hour by hour.

George also put me in touch with Mark Franchetti , the Moscow correspondent of the Sunday Times. A brilliant and daring reporter, he had been inside the theatre twice during the course of the siege, and had shot some video footage as well as interviewed the terrorists/ ringleader Basayev.

At our first meeting, Mark had told me of the existence of a secret video tape, filmed by a Chechen gunman during the siege. The tape was found on the body of a Chechen gunman after the final shoot-out. It was now in the hands of the FSB (formerly the KGB). Short fragments had been leaked to a TV channel loyal to Putin, but no one had seen the whole tape. We set to work trying to obtain a copy, whilst Guy carried out preliminary interviews with the hostages.

Fortunately Mark, Guy and I all speak fluent Russian. We had to work fast (mainly because my wife was expecting our first child back in London !). After five weeks of all-out effort we had researched and shot the film. The interviews with hostages were held in an old TV studio, and I spent nine hours a day continuously sitting on a camera-box tucked under cameraman Valentin Chernovol’s lens whilst the survivors told me their extraordinary and deeply-affecting stories.

Many of the hostages were still recovering from the knockout-gas used by Russian Special Forces in the rescue. The gas had enabled the government troops to save most of the hostages from what seemed like certain death.

The “black widows” were shot where they sat, asleep with their fingers on the detonators of their bomb-belts .

Chaos followed, in the attempt to evacuate 850 people from a building still packed with high-explosives. It was the failure of the city authorities, following this astonishing and successful military operation, to follow elementary first aid procedures such as placing victims in the correct recovery position on the ground, which contributed to the death of more than a hundred hostages, who died after swallowing their tongues or choking on their own vomit.

The story of the 57 hours of the siege contained many enigmas, not least of which was the identity of the “black widows”. We put out feelers in Chechnya but in the weeks after the siege anyone connected with these would-be suicide bombers had gone into hiding. We dug up basic information on the women, enough to tell us that some of them were educated women who only joined an Islamist death-cult after one of more male members of their family had been killed by the Russians, either in battle or in the feared “zachistki” – night-time abductions by masked members of the security forces.

Another enigma was posed by the TV images we had found of what seemed to be Russian civilians walking up to the bullet-riddled front doors of the theatre in the middle of the siege, usually late at night. Two of these had penetrated the theatre auditorium and were shot in cold blood by the Chechen gunmen. We wondered whether they were police agents. It turned out that they were ordinary civilians after all, who had blundered through the police cordon, perhaps after a few drinks, to the disbelief of the terrorists.

“Terror in Moscow ” was never broadcast in Russia ,

though it has been screened privately to the former hostages, who gave it a very warm welcome.

Ethiopian Famine Energized

Ordinary People Raise Money

Twenty years ago a shocking BBC news report was shown across the world. It fused the concern of the First World with the need of the Third World in a way that had never happened before and has never happened since. The coverage of famine in Ethiopia prompted an unprecedented wave of sympathy that raised $130 million from private individuals and more than $1 billion from governments, reshaping the rich world’s aid policies. This film shows what has happened to some of the players of this extraordinary event – and some of the survivors. It also asks whether Ethiopians are better off today than they were in 1984.
In early 1984, the US and England ’s governments shunned Ethiopia because of its cruel Marxist regime. They largely ignored the warnings that millions of people were going to starve. But under pressure from their citizens stirred by the television reports, these governments were forced to act, thus saving an estimated seven million lives. Nobody knows for sure how many died – “only” 500,000 – 1 million?
The Ethiopian famine energized and empowered ordinary individuals: farmers set up charities, raised millions and sent ship loads of grain. Countless ordinary people did extraordinary things to raise money. You and I felt for once, we could make a difference, and we did.
Thanks to Bob Geldof, who speaks movingly of his reactions to the news that day, the world of rock music got involved? “Do they know its Christmas” remains the most successful UK disk ever. The US version “We are the World” raised even more. Live Aid, a 16 hour rock concert by practically all the leading stars of the late 20th century, went out from Wembley and Philadelphia to 108 countries and remains the biggest single concert (and, perhaps, public event) ever held.
Ethiopia remains a place out of time, literally. Its clock starts at dawn, its calendar remains in the twentieth century, life itself, outside the capital, remains stuck in a pre-industrial age, unchanged from the 4th century AD. In the highlands this summer, twice as many people are hungry as in 1984. Eleven million people are being fed; five million more may have to be by the autumn. The Ethiopian government and the aid agencies are hoping the West’s generosity will hold out.

Clifford Bestall has been making documentary films in Southern Africa over the past 25 years. As a white South African he found that making films about his black countrymen during their struggle against apartheid was a personal way of bridging the gap between the races. He became politicised by the process and more effective as a film maker. He has made two series of films about Nelson Mandela. Being a film maker after apartheid has not necessarily been easier. The search for new subjects has brought him into some conflict with the new ANC government at times as he turned his attention to documentaries about change and transformation. Today his work takes him to Angola , Zambia , Mozambique , and Ethiopia . He has been commissioned by the BBC to make a film about the run up to the American elections this September and October.

More People are Concerned about Making Their Own Living

One interview with Joakim Demer, a film director of Tarifa Traffic. Today he is working with a film about the murder of the Swedish foreign-minister Anna Lindh

How did you get aware of the theme featured in the documentary? How many years are you following it?

Then there was a photo from the beach of Tarifa published a photo which was really incredible. In the foreground is a young couple tourist, tourists, laying on sand, in the background you could see the corpse of a drowned refugee. It was so repulsive so I decided to get there and have a look myself and so it started.

How did you shoot the film?

We where just a little team, Carolina Ormazabal - the assistant and researcher, Hoyte van Hoytema - the cinematographer and myself, staying there for 7 weeks.

Do you think documentaries on refugees' issues could influence any amendments in EU legislation regarding immigration?

Probably not, today we have seen everything - could it get worse? But the real political agenda of EU is about how to try to close our borders completely. So why docs? At least we are capturing this part of history - and nobody could later say we didn’t know.

What is the public opinion about refugees according to you?

This week (August 2004) the German minister of internal affairs, Otto Schily, proposed that EU should "persuade" the countries of northern Africa to build camps where the refugees should be put, to keep them away from trying to reach EU. I suppose he found this idea opportune, and that is not really a good sign or?

What is the social understanding on the problem?

Lots of people are concerned about the problem, but in this time of bad economy and insecurity even more people are concerned about making their own living.

Who is profiting from the refugees’ problems?

I suppose only the criminals.

Do you think the richer North has to put more efforts in improving the life in poorer South? Is this the way for solving the problems of refugees?

Of course, if the people could stay in their countries, they wouldn’t go, and they wouldn’t not have to take all those risks. And its not only a question about improving the life there, just to give them possibility to trade fair could change a lot. Today we demand them to open their markets but keep our markets closed.

Hot Facts about Peacekeepers Involved in Prostitution

Karin Jurschick about her film The Peacekeepers and the Women

"Trafficking” or the trade in women and girls for forced prostitution has become a booming industry in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Members of international armed forces and (aid) agencies posted there are among their solvent customers. Avoiding the usual victim/perpetrator perspectives, the film concentrates on the way the interviewees present themselves before the camera: How is one to talk about it?

A film about how military formations and political organisations try to solve problems for which they are partly responsible. The problem: Trafficking of women for forced sexual exploitation. The military formations: NATO respectively SFOR und KFOR. The political organizations: The United Nations (UN), the International Police Task Force (IPTF) under the direction of the UN, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and others.

The locations: Moldavia as one of the countries of origin of the women, Bosnia and Kosovo as countries of destination, where at first military forces, and afterwards the UN and international aid agencies tried to regulate things. The structure: circular.

Karin Jurschick examined the link between the UN peacekeepers and trafficking in women and the increased sex trade in Kosovo. The UN authority took a long time to assume responsibility, particularly as clients included UN staff. Calls for action were made from within by UN staffers, in particular an American UN police officer who was sent home after alerting senior staff members. The UN authority later created a specific team to raid suspected brothels. The appointment of a female journalist, formerly very critical of the UN, to head the team gave the appearance of a political rather than real solution. Furthermore, it targeted sex workers, often trafficked and vulnerable, rather than their clients.

Chechnya: A Few Days Journey

How does one work in Chechnya ? What does one get to see? You go for a few days, you stop in the capital, Grozny , this living ruin whose level of destruction can be compared only with that in some of the most destroyed German cities in the last year of the Second World War. From thereon, you travel to different villages. Chechnya is small. Just 15,000 square kilometres all-together.

Hence, Chechnya is becoming a forgotten conflict zone. And meanwhile, the bloodshed continues. And some people – very few people in fact – collect data on the sufferings of civilians, try to bring it to public attention, try to make a difference, and mostly fail. However, the data remains, and if today no one is willing to listen, sometime in the future this endless tale of human pain and massacre shall be heard.

For several days, you interview people. You travel to all those different localities, but the faces are all the same, and the stories are all the same. Tearful, broken woman. Lost, ravaged men. It’s difficult for them to find the proper words. They took away my son, my brother, my nephew… They came in armoured carriers… In white vans… Without number-plates… Face-masks, automatic guns, camouflage… They were federal soldiers… Federal soldiers together with Chechen police… he disappeared without a trace… Or – in a few weeks, we found his mutilated body. In the latter case, you get to see the pictures of the violated body, broken members, blood, and all.

Those pictures no longer make any impression on you. And that’s probably the most horrific thing about this type of work. Too may corpses. Too much pain. Your eye and year become indifferent. Every next case if just like the previous one. Relatives of the dead, relatives of the disappeared, they all look the same too you – one distorted human face.

They thank you for listening to their stories – so few outsiders are willing to listen, and your own sense of helplessness and shame is familiar and habitual to the point of utter disgust and desperation. The cases are never properly investigated. The perpetrators are never brought to justice.

But for some reason I keep recalling one old man, whom I visited in his home, in Groznу. It was this past May. His younger son, Said-Magamed had been detained – or should I say “abducted?” – by some unidentified enforcement officers in the last decade of April.

The young man was quietly talking to a pretty girl leaning over the fence of a neighbouring temporary accommodation centre – one of those facilities where people who lost their housing in the war now have to live. At the very close of April, his relatives hound his body in a pit full of oil, next to the Russian military base, the Khankala. He was naked. His corpse bore multiple shot wounds. His legs were covered with deep bruises – he indubitable traces of beating by booted feet. His ribs were bruised and crushed. So, nothing unusual.

His father was telling this in great detail, very quietly and matter-of-factly. A cultured, pleasant old man with a soft, polite and somewhat apologetic smile. He spoke Russian very well, beautifully even. He kept asking whether I was comfortable, whether he could get me another chair, whether a wanted some tea or a cold drink. So hot outside, so really hot. Such a beautiful May day…

Finally, he bid farewell and walked me to the door. And then added, almost as an afterthought, “Don’t get me wrong. I understand perfectly well that you cannot do anything about this. And I cannot do anything either. He was killed. Thousands of people like him were killed. It’s not the rebel fighters that kill them. It’s the authorities who do the job. And more and more blood is shed. Our leaders go abroad, speak an some lofty international fora. They are saying, ‘stabilization.’ They are saying, ‘return to normal life.’ They are saying, ‘We’re managing very well. Thank you.’ Very well indeed! Right they are! But I know one thing. There was our Chechen President Dudaev, the separatist leader. His time came and he was gone. There was president Makhadov, elected in 1997. His time came and he, too, was gone. Now, there is President Kadyrov. He’s stained with blood. And sooner or later, his time will come. And then, all the truth about his crimes will come up to the service. And those Chechen boys that sold themselves to him, all those who betrayed their inner essence, their people – they will also pay for all that evil. Everyone partial to this will have to pay.

That was May 8, 2004 . The very next day, Akhmad Kadyrov, President of the Chechen Republic , forced onto Chechnya by the federal center, was killed in a terrorist attack at the “Dinamo” Stadium in the Centre of Grozny. So, his time did come.

I keep recalling the words of that old man, and I know for a fact – those who helping wedge this senseless, gruesome war, those who are content to ignore it will also pay one way or another. Blood only yields more blood. Those who are simply closing their eyes to this horrific bloodshed, be they Russian or European must realize that their very passivity makes them responsible, makes them guilty. Unless this happens, the Chechen war can never end.

Tanya Lokshina, Moscow Helsinki Group, Center DEMOS

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