The Side By Side film festival, Russia’s only annual LGBT film festival, was interrupted by police and officials from Russia’s ministry for consumer safety (Rospotrebnadzor) on opening night in St. Petersburg. These officials demanded that festival participants leave the space immediately, using “force and rude language,” which caused the organizers to cancel the screening because of safety concerns. According to Alina Pchelintseva, the festival spokesperson, the police did not offer a reason for why they showed up, and Rospotrebnadzor only had permission to “check for coronavirus prevention measures.” Seemingly, their goal was to intimidate festival organizers into shutting the festival down because they lacked legal justification to do so otherwise.
The former director of the “Dukh Ognya” (Spirit of Fire) film festival was fined approximately $634 for screening the film "Outlaw" in March, despite the fact that she was not in charge of choosing the films. A court ruled that this film violated the "gay propaganda" law because one of the main characters was a gay teenager. Interestingly, state prosecutors were first made aware of this situation because there was public outrage over the screening. Now, many venues are refusing to show the film, and the festival organizers even faced threats on social media. This article demonstrates that those who are a part of or support the LGBTQ community face adversity not only from the government, but also from the public due to the prevalence of homophobia in society.
