A court in St. Petersburg has ruled that three foreign films featuring LGBTQ themes cannot be legally distributed online in Russia. The banned titles include the 2017 romance Call Me by Your Name, the 2018 coming-of-age film Love, Simon, and the 2013 drama Kill Your Darlings. According to the court, the films contain “destructive ideologies” and attempt to change viewers’ attitudes toward LGBTQ people.
The court said, “It was established that webpages hosting the films contained information that promotes interest in non-traditional sexual relationships and seeks to change negative attitudes towards them into positive ones by disseminating such information.” The ruling follows Russia’s 2023 Supreme Court decision banning the so-called “international LGBT movement.” Russia first outlawed “LGBT propaganda” in 2013 and expanded the law in 2022 to apply to adults as well as minors.
