Grozny Blues

In Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, the camera follows a group of female human rights activists, a group of musicians and the owner of a blues café. Portraits of dictator Ramzan Kadyrov, his father Achmat and the Russian president Vladimir Putin are displayed prominently on the buildings along the bleak gray promenade in the center of the city. The women wittily refer to the three despots as the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. The decades-long struggle between Chechen freedom fighters and the Russian army has claimed countless victims, but humor keeps the women going. Using home videos, they tell us how they risked their lives in the 1990s to film the aftermath of the ethnic cleansing and bombardments that devastated the city. The barkeeper complains: there are hardly any musicians or fans of music left. He desperately clings onto his café and, as a distraction, takes care of a young singer. After sundown, he accompanies the deliberately unveiled woman home so she won’t be bothered by male locals; increasingly strict Islamic rules imposed by the regime are also impairing the quality of life. In this portmanteau film, director Nicola Bellucci captures brave men and women who are confronting a shady regime.