Song for Chechnya ( Je n ai que trois minutes) Paulo B. Menezes, 2006

The image is taken from a documentary by Nino Kirtadze on Chechnya s occupation by the Russians. It was broadcasted by ARTE TV channel in 2004. At that time, I recorded the documentary and watched it again, moved by its humanism and courage in exposing something so very wrong. Both analogue and digital techniques were used to degrade the image so that, together with the 1964 electronic music by Robert Ashley, it would illustrate the hell Chechen people live in under Russian imperialism and oppression. The year after the release of the documentary, Chechen radical separatists took the Moscow theatre and held hundreds of hostages for twoandahalf days, demanding the Russian withdrawal from Chechnya, i. e. continuous imperialism oppression leading to despair and religious fundamentalism.