Gus Van Sant & Dustin Lance Black Head For Russian LGBT Film Festival, Despite Bomb Threats

Vladimr Putin keeps insiting Russia is homophobic and new laws aren’t about adding official backing to the demonisation of LGBT people, but simply ensure ‘non-traditional relationships’ aren’t promoted to minors. However there seems little doubt that the result has been to give carte blanche to those who wish the threaten and commit violence against LGBT people, as well as to chill discussion of gay topics, whether they involve minors or not.

Normally it wouldn’t be news that Gus Van Sant & Dustin Lance Black are heading to a gay film festival – after all, it’s not exactly a rare occurrence for the Milk director and screenwriter. However they’re due to turn up at the Side by Side LGBT international film festival in St. Petersburg on November 30th, despite bomb threats that delayed the fest’s first screening.

There have also been aggressive anti-gay demonstrators outside cinemas that have had screening, but thankfully this doesn’t seem to have kept supporters away.

Milk producer Bruce Cohen also attended, telling GLAAD, “For over a century, our countries have both valued cinema as a means of expanding cultural understanding. Time and again we’ve broken down the barriers between us by sharing our cinematic achievements. Our hope in screening the 2009 Academy Award-winning film Milk — about the late civil rights leader Harvey Milk — is to encourage respectful conversations that might create deeper understanding. Cinema has that power.” The Milk team will lead a discussion about the movie after a screening on the film.

Side By Side isn’t a stranger to those seeking to make it difficult for them to continue, as earlier this year they were prosecuted under controversial ‘foreign agent’ laws, which say any group accepting foreign money must register this. The festival was convicted despite saying they didn’t get any foreign money, and later managed to get the conviction and fine overturned.