On Demand

Children 404

by 2014  ·  1h10m
Produced in secret and on a shoestring budget, this disquieting doc exposes the plight and champions the fight of LGBTQ youth in Russia.
2014  ·  1h10m  ·  Russia
Russian
English subs
About the Film

CHILDREN 404 spotlights the lives of Russian LGBTQ+ youth struggling with decisions to remain in their home country or build a new life abroad, while offering a glimpse at the country’s deeply rooted conservatism. In 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin passed a bill forbidding the “promotion of nontraditional sexual relations to minors.” LGBT youth, now defenseless against insults and intimidation under this “gay propaganda” law, are considered sick, sinful and abnormal. Psychologists, teachers and even parents can be fined or imprisoned for supporting them.

Forty-five Russian teens and tweens share their stories through anonymous interviews and video diaries. They detail their humiliations and discriminations, as well as their courageous stands against bullies. Their testimonies are collected online as the Children 404 project, named after the common “Error 404: Page Not Found” web message.

The support group’s founder struggles within the system to bring public attention and empathy to the victims of this government-endorsed hate, while activist Pasha decides he must leave his homeland altogether if he hopes to find a boyfriend and lead a normal life.

Project Info

In the Fall of 2013 a Russian documentary filmmaker contacted numerous LGBTQ activists and filmmakers from Canada and the United States, including Cinema Politica, who had worked with them in previous years to screen their films. The message they sent was a request to help fund a film that they believe desperately needed to be made: a documentary by Russian LGBTQ identified people about the impact of the recent anti-gay propaganda law on LGBTQ identified young people.  

They reached out to us because this film will be impossible to make without the financial support from the international LGBTQ community since funding for such a project is not only impossible, but illegal within the Russian Federation. In response, Cinema Politica co-founders Svetla Turnin and Ezra Winton, along with CP Board Member and Concordia University Research Chair in Sexual Representation and in Documentary Thomas Waugh and his colleague Ryan Conrad, launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise essential funds for this project. We eventually surpassed our goal and were able to raise $11,575 USD towards the making of CHILDREN 404!

CHILDREN 404’s world premiere was co-presented by Cinema Politica at Hot Docs.

Upcoming Screenings

Stay tuned for upcoming screenings!

Festivals and Awards
1234
World Premiere: Hot Docs, Toronto, 2014
In the Press
Review
Directors
Askold Kurov, Pavel Loparev
Writer
Askold Kurov, Pavel Loparev
Editor
Pavel Loparev, Askold Kurov, Lena Rem
Producer
Askold Kurov, Pavel Loparev
About the Director

Marta Gómez

Screenwriter, director, producer and script consultant. Since 2008, she’s a member of the selection committee for the script residency Plume & Pellicule (Switzerland), where she accompanies throughout the process from writing to screen, projects such as “Una Madre” and “Vestido de Novia”, among others. She has written fiction for film and television and collaborated in the areas of scriptwriting and production of projects in Spain, Australia, Central America and France. She has worked as a jury and advisor for Proimagenes Colombia and has been a teacher of the MA in Creative Writing at the National University of Bogotá. An the beginning of 2020, she joined Al Borde films, where she co-wrote and co-directed with Paula Iglesias both feature films “Fabricando mujeres 2.0” and “Northern Wildness” and the short film “Hondarrak”.

 
Other films by Marta Gómez

Jeremiah Hayes

Jeremiah Hayes is a Canadian Screen Award, an Iris Award, and a Gemini Award winning director, editor, and writer whose filmmaking is honoured by a prestigious Peabody Award. He is most noted as co-director, co-writer and the editor of the film Reel Injun, for which he won the Gemini Award for Best Direction in a Documentary Program at the 25th Gemini Awards in 2010. Hayes is also recognized for his work editing Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, for which he won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Editing in a Documentary at the 6th Canadian Screen Awards in 2018. Reel Injun went on to win a Peabody Award for Best Electronic Media in 2011 and Rumble won the Special Jury Award for Masterful Storytelling at Sundance Film Festival in 2017. In 2020, Rumble received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary. In 2021, Reel Injun is featured in the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures core exhibition of the Stories of Cinema.

 

Jalena Keane-Lee

Jalena Keane-Lee is a filmmaker who explores intergenerational trauma and healing through an intersectional lens. She was named a 2023 Adobe x Sundance Woman to Watch, and is the recipient of the Gotham Documentary Fellowship, Creative Culture woman filmmaker fellowship, Wyncote Fellowship and NeXt Doc Fellowship. Jalena is the winner of Tribeca Through Her Lens 2020 and DocPitch 2022. Her short films have streamed on POV and Criterion Collection, played at over 50 film festivals, and won best short at LA Asian Film Festival in 2020 and the Jury Award at Sundance in 2023. Jalena co-founded Breaktide Productions, an all-women-of-color production company that has won two Cannes Lion awards for branded content. Jalena is currently working on her first feature-length documentary which participated in the 2022 Sundance Edit and Story Lab.

 
Other films by Jalena Keane-Lee

Stephen Maing

Stephen Maing is an Emmy-award winning filmmaker and cinematographer based in New York City. His most recent film UNION is an immersive cinéma vérité account of the historic efforts by workers to unionize the first Amazon fulfillment center. UNION was co-directed with Brett Story and won a Special Jury Award for The Art of Change at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. His feature documentary CRIME + PUNISHMENT which he directed, filmed and edited won a 2018 Sundance Special Jury Award, an Emmy Award for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary and was shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary. His previous films, HIGH TECH, LOW LIFE, directed, filmed and edited over five years, and THE SURRENDER, have screened internationally and were released on POV and Field of Vision, respectively. His film DIRTY GOLD, featured in Netflix’s Dirty Money series, immersively reveals US involvement in the illicit mining and trading of gold and was filmed on location in Peru’s Amazon rain forest & Miami, Florida.

 
Other films by Stephen Maing

Anas Saeed

Anas Saeed, one of the directors of the documentary Khartoum, posing against a plain background.
Director Anas Saeed from the documentary Khartoum.

Anas Saeeda Sudanese media maker, started working as a video journalist for the independent media house, Ayin Network. He has produced several reportage works for international media that focus on human rights issues affecting different communities across Sudan. His work for Ayin Media has focused on covering culture and the recent war. His latest work is Five Meals of Resistance, soon to be released to festivals.

 

Taggart Siegel

Taggart Siegel is an American documentary filmmaker. For 30 years, he has produced and directed Emmy-nominated, award-winning documentaries and dramas that reflect cultural diversity. He is co-founder of Collective Eye Films, a nonprofit media production and distribution organization.

 

Chelsea Greene, Rob Grobman

One Forest was formed with the mission to help people reconnect to themselves and to nature. Comprised of filmmakers Chelsea Greene and Rob Grobman, One Forest is dedicated to creating impactful and heartfelt films and media. They view the art of storytelling as a sacred work, which endows their stories with a deep reverence for the earth and the characters they feature. They have recently produced two award winning short documentaries, BORNEO’S VANISHING TRIBES and GORILLA GIRL. Their commitment to authentic, integral and informative stories paired with their youth, ambition and drive as individuals, make this unique duo and their work exceptional, relevant and inspiring. One Forest lives and works in the mountains of Southern Oregon.

 

Annam Abbas

Anam Abbas
Anam Abbas

Anam Abbas is a Pakistan based Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker. She runs Other Memory Media. As a producer and director of photography, her first feature SHOWGIRLS OF PAKISTAN, premiered in the 2020 IDFA Competition for First Appearance and was released globally on VICE in 2021. THIS STAINED DAWN (DAGH DAGH UJALA) is her award winning debut feature documentary as a director. It premiered in the International Competition section at the 2021 Sheffield International Documentary Festival.

Her first fiction feature IN FLAMES, directed by Zarrar Kahn, premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight section at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Anam is an alumna of 2017 Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors Hub, 2018 Berlinale Talents, 2019 Film Independent Global Media Makers, 2020 Berlinale Talents Project Market Fellow, and 2020 Cannes Producer’s Network. Anam is also one of the founding members of the Documentary Association of Pakistan (DAP).

 
Other films by Annam Abbas

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