The Producers

Paul Rice - Director

Paul Rice is an art director and filmmaker originally from Ireland, currently based in California. He has worked extensively in Dublin, London and San Francisco for agencies and creative studios as an art director or lead creative on award-winning commercial projects for culture, fashion, and music brands. Paul is a 2012 graduate from the Limerick School of Art & Design in Ireland. A WORM IN THE HEART is his feature film directorial debut.

Making The Film

I'm a gay man who is lucky enough to have the freedom to live in socially liberal nations with laws protecting me from discrimination based on my sexual orientation. Although I often do an instinctual glance around me to ensure holding my partner's hand in public won't result in harassment, I'm lucky to have never lived in a nation where holding my partner's hand in public could result in my arrest which is the case in Russia. While western nations were debating marriage equality and workplace protections for LGBTQ+ people, laws like the 'gay propaganda law' were being enacted in Russia making any public display of queerness an arrestable offense.

Growing up queer in Ireland, I witnessed and participated in the dramatic transformation of national attitudes and laws regarding the Irish LGBT+ community. Like many other LGBT+ people, I followed other nations’ stories of transformation, while watching in horror as the situation in Russia violently deteriorated. News reports and books importantly detail the grim facts and highlight the bravery of queer Russian activists, but can lack emotion and dimension. The LGBT+ community has an terrible history of losing its heroes; so many of those who have fought for greater freedoms and stood against social injustices have been lost to assassinations, violence or AIDS. I wanted to meet with and document queer activists in Russia who are currently fighting for their very right to exist. Far too often stories of people who fight for queer rights are lost in surges of violence.

The intended purpose of this documentary is threefold. The first aim of the film is to provide detailed and deeply personal accounts of the current state of the LGBTQ+ communities in Russia— and how they all differ from each other yet have many things unexpectedly in common. Secondly, this documentary depicts the many unsettling parallels from these repressed societies to that of western nations and projects a cautionary message to the western world to remain vigilant against the rise of homophobia and transphobia. Lastly the over-arching message of the film is universal and one of hope, that people should not remain hostage to politicians or governments. The LGBT+ community is not confined to national borders, and I believe it is entirely our global responsibility to use our voices to support the LBGT+ people of Russia and beyond.

– Paul Rice, Director