ALL MONSTERS ARE HUMAN

Helen Spooner & Hugh Davies - 21 mins | UK/Azerbaijan, 2019

In the wake of a vicious anti-LGBT government crackdown in Azerbaijan in September 2017, this documentary film follows the plight of three young LGBT Azeris fearing for their lives. On a journey from Istanbul to Baku, the filmmakers combine animation and video footage to reveal stories of extortion, torture and murder, and discover that for those who have managed to escape, persecution has followed them.

Available in all territories

Competition British Documentary

Helen Spooner & Hugh Davies

Helen is an award-winning producer, with experience working in hostile environments and with sensitive topics and vulnerable contributors. She has worked for major international broadcasters on topics as broad as terrorism, corruption, pedophilia and sexual slavery. She was recently selected by the BBC onto the BBC New Directors Scheme, where she will have the opportunity to direct her first long form documentary for the BBC in the near future. The film she made for the BBC in 2018 (Face to Face with ISIS) was awarded a One World Media award in the same year.

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Hugh Davies is a producer at the London-based documentary production company Insight TWI. He has worked on current affairs, observational, historical and investigative programmes for the BBC and Al Jazeera English. He is currently producing a three-part series for the BBC, involving access to a number of UK police forces and criminal trials across a three year period.