Drag as protest in award-winning doc Queendom

“I just hope people get it and don’t think I’m some sort of propaganda freak,” says Gena Marvin, as she prepares to take her performance art onto the streets of her home town Magadan, an old Soviet gulag.

“I think drag’s always been political,” responds her friend, who is filming the performance for social media. “Totally!” says Gena.

Queendom is an award-winning documentary film from Agniia Galdanova that should be seen by as wide an audience as possible.

Gena is a 22-year-old queer artist who was already using her art to make statements against the homophobic, nationalistic Russian regime.

Seeing the film, just days after a ruling by the Supreme Court of Russia stating that the “international public LGBT movement” – whatever that is – is “extremist,” and effectively outlawing any public LGBT-related activity, adds further context.

As Gena discusses the “exaggerated” nature of drag, she observes how that obviously means it draws attention to itself, and how “all important issues deserve attention” – in this case, the Russian war on Ukraine.

Brought up by her grandparents after her parents died, Gena is abused, physically and verbally, by residents in Magadan – and verbally by her grandfather – before leaving to study in Moscow. There, she joins protests against the war.

A scene where she watches through a car window while travelling through the Russian capital, with scores of police in riot gear heading in the same direction, on foot, is just single example of many powerful ones.

She creates her own costumes, largely from junk and tape, often with a resulting otherworldliness. Indeed, early on, she expresses how, even as the film was being made, she was still exploring where she fitted in any kind of the boxes/labels that ‘normal’ society tries to impose on everyone.

In today’s Russia, Putin uses the ‘traditional family’ as a distraction from other issues and to maintain the support of ultra-orthodox Christian leaders in the country. It’s no coincidence either that the Supreme Court statement came on the cusp of a presidential election year.

Thrown off her course for “using” the colours of the Russian flag in a protest costume, on the grounds that that “violated federal law”.

The film offers a great appreciation of what performance art can do. Gena disappearing below a raft of bodies clad in plastic tape colours of the Russian flag is incredibly powerful.

In the course of all the harassment and brutality that faces her, Gena maintains dignity and

The film also illustrates the bravery of anti-war protestors in general, facing baton assaults as police claim that arrests are to “stop the spread of COVID-19”.

Galdanova’s film is, at all times, calm – surprisingly so, given what the camera records. It’s no surprise that it’s been seen at a number of film festivals and has already won a number of awards.

With a limited cinema release, it can be streamed via watch.dogwoof.com.