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Retaining Humanity with David France and Maxim Lapunov (WELCOME TO CHECHNYA)

We continue our dispatches from last year's festival with the final True/False Podcast episode recorded in-studio during 2020. The guests were filmmaker David France and Maxim Lapunov, who was imprisoned and tortured as part of the Chechen government's persecution of its LGBTQ community. Lapunov and the subjects of France's 2020 film, Welcome to Chechnya were the recipients of the True Life Fund, the festival's philanthropic effort which provides monetary support to those documented in the select film. Welcome to Chechnya co-producer Igor Myakotin provided translation. 

Sebastián Martínez Valdivia was a health reporter at KBIA and is documentary filmmaker who focuses on access to care in rural and immigrant communities. A native Spanish speaker and lifelong Missouri resident, Sebastián is interested in the often overlooked and under-covered world of immigrant life in the rural midwest. He has a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Missouri and a master's degree in documentary journalism at the same institution. Aside from public health, his other interests include conservation, climate change and ecology.