The language of enmity is reproduced by everyone

An interactive film about hatred has been shot in St. Petersburg

The St. Petersburg director of interactive media, the head of the workshop of interactive art, Ksenia of the Brave, shot the documentary "Word" dedicated to the language of enmity.

This film is short - only six minutes - and also interactive. The viewer sees on the screen of actors pronouncing sharp, insulting, aggressive and simply dismissive phrases in relation to different groups of people-women, migrants, full people, gays and lesbians, people with the so-called non-Slavic appearance, HIV-infected, homeless. The viewer can interrupt the actor at any moment by pressing the “gap” key on the computer - and then instead of words he will see the scenes of violence against women, migrants, homeless - those whose address just sounded unkind words.

We are talking about the problem of the language of hatred with Ksenia of the brave , the author of the interactive film "Word", Olga , one of the actresses, and Igor Kochetkov , the head of the Russian LGBT network , who acted as the customer of the film.

- Ksenia, the first question for you - how did the idea of such a film arose, where the word is a curtain that can be pulled out at any moment and see the action hiding behind it?

The film lasts six and a half minutes, and it took half a year to create it

- I have been working with interactive technologies for ten years, interactive documentary is very close to me. I have been working in the ethics field for a long time, I work with human rights organizations. And in winter, the Russian LGBT network turned to me: it was necessary to create a work of art within the framework of the campaign to counteract the enemy language.

Ksenia Brave

It was difficult to come up with the concept-it is difficult to create something capacious, but short, elegant, extremely expressive and at the same time limited by a small budget on this topic. As a result, this form was born, which is not as simple as it seems at first glance. The film lasts six and a half minutes, and it took half a year to create it. It is interactive - the viewer can touch the screen or press the "gap" key and switch from one video to another. In the first stream, he sees several representatives of different social groups - those that in the Russian context are more often subjected to aggression, rhetoric of hatred. These people read out real cases of hatred from social networks, forums, phrases that are pronounced in the media, including politicians.

In the process of working on each of the selected groups, we analyzed more than a thousand texts, of which we created a twenty -minute text for each hero, and only then we collected a film from these texts. People with HIV-positive status, full people who do not fit into the media standards of beauty, people of non-Slavic appearance, gay and lesbians, elderly people, homeless people and women participate in it. A gender balance was important to us, but in the film there are still more women - I think to be a woman is always an additional stigma, except for those that are in the film. For example, being a complete woman is harder than being a complete man, and so in everything.

- Olya, how did it happen that you became a member of the film "Word"?

- Ksenia is my friend, she called me and said that she has such a project, and she would be interested to work with me. I liked the idea, I knew what I was going to, it seems to me very important.

-During the work, your attitude to the project somehow changed, deepened?

I thought it would just be read to me, but it turned out that after the first phrases I could not speak, I had a lump in my throat

- No, everything was very rapidly, they called us and set a filming date. We came, I prepared and went out under the cameras, and this was a special experience - it turned out that I overestimated myself. I thought I would just read it, but it turned out that after the first phrases I could not speak, I had a lump in my throat. I did not think it would be so difficult.

- Igor, why did you decide to order Ksenia such a film about the language of enmity?

- We are a human rights organization, and we know that hatred throughout the world is not just ugly behavior, they are a source of aggression, break fate. And we are constantly looking for how to talk about it. It is impossible for us to bring anyone to justice for this, the law does not work, because many phrases that sound in this film were born not on the lips of the drunkards behind the bottle - sober politicians pronounced them from the stands.

- Maybe it all started with the famous "to wet in the toilet?"

-All this was before, but, of course, when the speeches of hatred are an instrument for governing the country, it turns out to be very convenient, people easily fall under the power of those who manipulate them, inciting hatred for someone whom they have never even seen.

Speech of hatred is not just ugly behavior, they are a source of aggression, break fate

We are very grateful to Ksenia for her form, because when a person simply reads or watches a video, he is protected, between him and these speeches - a page or screen. Only those guys and girls who read it were not protected, because they read to themselves. When you just sit and look - this is not about you, and when you interact with this, you yourself freely or involuntarily become the object of this hatred, not even referring to those groups to which it is aimed. And you see what is behind the words - those scenes of violence and humiliation that are in the second video stream. We see them in life, but do not associate one with the other, but here they are connected. We often read such phrases in social networks and do not react to them, or even we ourselves can participate, play along - there is such a cheerful trolling with sexist jokes or homophobic jokes.

- Here, it seems, there is a thin line. After all, there are, for example, the same Jewish jokes, which, apparently, cannot be called hatred speeches, and gays, too, can probably be joking, like every person ...

We pronounce the words without thinking about the consequences

- You see, we often pronounce the words without thinking about the consequences. Well, they told a joke. But when he repeats many times and the figure of a multifaceted person comes down to one line: say, homosexuality, then an image arises, a certain identity that a person is assigned and with which he lives. Repeating a joke or joke, you do not associate them with the reality that you create in this way, and in this film this reality of violence is just very well shown.

- Ksenia, do you agree with Igor? It seems to me that there were no jokes in your film, everywhere there are so sharp, open speeches of hatred.

- Since the film is interactive, this is a nonlinear narrative structure, each viewer has his own unique viewing experience. You have alone, you saw some frames and did not see others. There are jokes there - from the Camedy Club, for example: rape in the plot of Diana Shurygin is played out.

-And there were any human stories behind all this that touched you most or outraged?

-There is so hard content that something is impossible to highlight. Imagine the director’s day - at first I watch the jokes “Comedy Club” (all this humor is built on sexism and humiliation), then there is a chronicle of amateur Chechen companies, where I see corpses, then - shooting amateur chambers or surveillance cameras, where you can see how children are beaten up, how they break into stores and beat the workers, then I see openly laid out in the network Amateur notes - how children are fighting at school. For six and a half minutes of the film, I watched many hours of such material, including so disgusting that I did not even turn it on.

I also worked with chronicle from Nazi camps

I also worked with chronicle from Nazi camps (these personnel are in the film), and you know what struck me? Just as those shots on which the plane crashes into the twin tower, this chronicle has become part of the media content, it sinks in the general noise, as if everything that was happening there has long been lost. These pictures have ceased to be terrible, we look-and we can’t believe that it was real. And this is really scary.

- Olya, did you also watch these frames? What thoughts did you have?

- I was enough for what I had to read. And these frames come across on the Internet, sooner or later you will see them. It is scary and disgusting, it does not fit in my value system. At the same time, I have already heard reviews about the film: in the world there is so much negativity, why still thicken the colors? But this is a cowardly position: I am the captain of my ship, and if something spoils my life, I do not want to notice this. I understand that this is difficult, it makes it out, but you should not turn away from this - there is a risk of getting into the west of your fierce positive.

They come up to me and say: well, what's the matter, after all, no one beats on the street? In my opinion, people do not really understand what hatred and aggression are, it seems to them: it is when they beat you on the street, but in fact it all starts with ordinary rudeness.

- Maybe we have already crossed a certain threshold of aggression and do not feel it?

The most important thing is sympathy, and it becomes less and less in people

- Yes, the most important thing for me is sympathy, and it becomes less and less in people. And so young people beat on the street of the homeless - simply because there is no one to intercede for them - it means that it is possible.

- Igor, do you think so too?

- The main thing is that all this - and that you can beat homeless people, and that you can humiliate homosexual people, ask them offensive questions - any idea can be clothed in an innocent form. The film "Word" returns these words, these jokes are their original meaning. The message that is packed in this joke can gradually normalize violence, to make this horror not so terrible, to put between a living person who hurts, and a certain screen - jokes or even public discussion: supposedly we just argue here, is it an exchange of views that you are offended?

Igor Kochetkov

I can remind you to the question of whether we crossed the line that this spring a crime has happened in the territory of the Russian Federation, which has not been in Europe since the Second World War: people have been tortured and killed only for their sexual orientation. And what, the Russians noticed it? No. In the best case, this is discussed as one of the incidents of a criminal or political chronicle. People are trying to get away from this reality - including with the help of jokes.

- Ksenia, I did not find in your film one group, which, it seems to me, should have been there - disabled people.

After the film, viewers are offered access to Russian human rights organizations

- We consciously did not invite them, realizing that this is too traumatic experience. A very important part of our film is the manifesto that sounds at the end, we say that eight categories of people who are presented in us are not all discriminated groups, in fact there are much more. After the film, viewers are offered access to Russian human rights organizations, an open database with a search system, and we will still improve this page.

- Olya, what is the most important thing for you in this manifesto?

- My values are personally voiced there - about empathy, about what it is impossible for people to hurt, that all people are different. These are banal, but very important things in the atmosphere, when people are set on each other, inspire that everything around is enemies. Everyone falls into some group, any person from the street will be in one of them-or he will be a woman, and not a man, or gay, and not by natural, or elderly, and not young, or sick, and not healthy, or old, and not young. This manifesto is about the ability to put yourself in the place of another person. And the one who learns this will never say the words that we had to pronounce in this film will not become a participant in the scenes that we saw.

Olga

- Have you seen the reaction of other actors - the participants of the film, is it the same as yours?

- Yes, everyone was shocked. That is why pauses hang, which is why people leave the frame, refuse to read something. Although, for example, I have already heard all this, some things are addressed to me. Indeed, in the outside world you always live in a state of protection, you learned to live with it, and when you stand in front of the camera and read, you feel it completely differently.

- Igor, you are the customer of the film; Have you received what you wanted?

The world of jokes and ordinary network trolling is not harmless, not white and fluffy, it gives rise to violence

- When I watched this film through the eyes of an ordinary viewer, I felt my involvement, finally realized that the world of jokes and ordinary network trolling was not harmless, not white and fluffy, it is quite obvious that it gives rise to violence. As a representative of the customer, I am completely satisfied - a brilliant form was found in order to convey the main idea: hatred of hatred is packed in harmless forms, and without even participating in violence, you are guilty of it, because you create a discourse with a constant repetition of these words. And we will continue to explain that words have the power of action, what to say and do is the same thing.

- Ksenia, do you also think about the continuation or as an artist you closed the topic for yourself?

- The film "Word" is an independent artistic message that is expressed - and a point. Another thing is that as the author I continue to work with this topic.

-Olya, what do you think, can you do something so that hatred speeches disappear?

The only way to change something is an enlightenment

-No, because this is only a consequence of some other things, and it is necessary to cope with them. You need to fight ignorance. For me personally, the only opportunity to change something is an enlightenment. Of course, this is a very slow way, but still you can’t change anything with any revolutions here. I myself am not an activist, and I can act only with my example - how I live, what I say.

-Igor, do you think you can help something here? After all, the language of enmity, at least in your understanding, has grown into the culture of almost all peoples ...

-This is a common cliche-let's fight with something, as if it are not us, but some evil people say bad things, and we will teach them and enlighten them. But in fact, the language of enmity is reproduced by each of us, and I am no exception.

- Start with yourself?

We can create spaces where people can abandon the language of enmity, realizing what it is

- Yes, start and continue, and end yourself. I am the only one with whom I can do something. And as a human rights organization, we can create some spaces where people can abandon the language of enmity, realizing what it is. And the film "Word" is just an example of such a space.

- Ksenia, but what do you think is it possible to deal with the language of enmity at the household level or is it utopia?

- A difficult question. We call not for censorship, since freedom of speech is very important for us, but to personal responsibility for every word said. The world is a complex system consisting of many elements. Is it possible to imagine a sterile, sealed world without hostility? Obviously no. But I believe that you can imagine a world where there is much less violence than now, and it will clearly be safer and more comfortable than ours.

As for the film "Word", now we can talk about the whole project. The film has groups on social networks. We posted there information about various psychological experiments of the twentieth century, which show how the system affects a person, how even good people can behave terribly. This is the Stanford prison experiment , where people were divided into prisoners and jailers, and some began to torment and humiliate others, and the experiment of Milgram , one of the worst, where some subjects had to give others more and more powerful shocks, and although people attached to the electric chair, most of the “pain”, continued the experiment, obeying their leadership, such a power of authority and the power of authority and the power of authority and the power of authority and the power The ability to subordinate.

We have an informal magazine, which also tells what the language of enmity is. We also post an interview with the project participants, where they talk about their experience in filming, about what the language of enmity is, what is hatred and how to make it less, ”said the director Ksenia Brave in an interview with Radio Freedom.