‘Queendom’: CPH:DOX Review

Dir: Agniia Galdanova. US/France. 2023. 98mins

Unfolding in the heart of Russia, both geographically and ideologically, Agniia Galdanova’s debut documentary feature begins as a profile of an extraordinary individual and becomes a communal howl of protest. Profiling queer Russian performance artist and activist Gena Marvin, Gladanova is unafraid to follow her subject into the widening cultural fissures of their volatile homeland. As Gena attempts to live an authentic life in a place which is dangerously prejudiced against her, so Queendom takes shape as a damning portrait of state-sanctioned intolerance and suppression.

Gena could never simply blend in: it is not in her nature to conform.

Arriving at CPH:Dox after its SXSW world premiere, this Sundance Institute-supported film’s combination of vibrant protagonist and timely political commentary — LGBTQ+ rights are under threat not just in Russia, but around the world — should see it travel further. It has a solid selling point in Gena, a strikingly creative individual who already has a substantial social media following. The immediate nature of the film, which shot in Russia until February 2022, will also draw attention.

Gena is captivating from the moment her fellow countrywoman Galdana first captures her teetering across the bleak landscape of eastern Russia in a cream fur coat, lacy ruff and vertiginous transparent heels, her face and bald head painted white. Only her long black PVC gloves and Kohl-rimmed eyes and mouth really stand out from the icy backdrop against which she is photographed by her friend Yulia. But Gena could never simply blend in: it is not in her nature to conform.

This defiance comes not, at least in the first instance, from any overt tendency to activism, but in Gena’s need to be herself. Twenty years old at the start of filming in 2019, Gena knows exactly who she is, but struggles with a lack of support and acceptance. Her ageing grandparents, with whom she lives in the Russian port town of Magadan, clearly love her, but their advice — that she should prioritise her education, or join the military, or settle down and start a family — is peppered with homophobic slurs and accusations that she is deliberately embarrassing the family. They cannot fathom why Gena cannot simply be “normal”.

This outdated attitude is perhaps unsurprising in such a place; Magadan is built on top of one of the biggest Soviet gulag camps. “We have fear and subservience in our DNA,” philosophises Yulia, after the pair are escorted from a supermarket for Gena’s supposedly offensive dress. But, as Queendom highlights, such thinking is not just regulated to these rural outreaches. Gena lives and studies (at least until she is thrown out of university for protesting) in Moscow, the epicentre of modern Russia. Here, as in her hometown, she is a target simply because of how she presents herself to the world. As the film progresses and Russia’s military activities in Ukraine escalate, being different poses an increasing threat.

Gena, however, refuses to be cowed. A quietly spoken, focused individual when not “in character”, she transforms into a theatrical force of nature in her spectacular home-made costumes, which she wears on the street as a one-person protest. These incredible, colourful creations — usually skin-tight, often with elongated limbs — have an otherworldly, alien quality that both celebrates Gena’s individuality, and speaks to her anger at the oppression under which she lives.

While most passersby act with curiosity, and her videos go viral, others take aggressive offence. Throughout, Galdanova, herself a member of Russia’s LGBTQ+ community, and cinematographer Ruslan Fedotov place themselves in the line of fire alongside their subject — right up to the heart-stopping moment when, following her arrest for protesting against Putin’s war in February of last year, Gena feels like she has no choice but to flee the country for Paris.

In distilling four years of footage, Galdanova and editor Vlad Fishez have been careful not to make their film a simple soapbox for political activism; Gena is not presented as a poster child for change, but a vulnerable human being. Contrasted with sequences of her resplendent in costume, or performing directly to camera, are many small moments of everyday intimacy which show her fear, her loneliness and the emotional toll of constant “otherness”. That she remains true to herself despite such odds makes the film’s most powerful impact.