Queendom (engl. as much as “Queen’s Kingdom”) is a documentary film by Agniia Galdanova. In the film, the director portrays Russian performance artist Gena Marvin, who has captured the attention of the public and the government of her country with her provocative works, in which she transforms her own body into gigantic, menacing silhouettes. The film premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2023.
“I like the idea that people can feel different emotions from anger to fear or joy when looking at my art.”
Gena Marvin comes from the village/town of Magadan on the Sea of Okhotsk coast, but later moved to Saint Petersburg and eventually Moscow. Gena Marvin processes her childhood traumas with her nightmarish drag looks. According to her own statements, she always knew that she was different. Everyone else would have recognized this, which is why she became a victim of psychological and physical violence at an early age: “I was always a kind of whipping boy. I had three concussions and almost all my teeth ended up on the streets of this village.”[2]
Directed by Agniia Galdanova. Her first feature-length documentary One Step Forward, One Step Back about a family’s dream of living far away from civilization in the Altai Mountains, premiered at the Message to Man International Film Festival.[3]
For the filming too Queendom Galdanova worked together with cameraman Ruslan Fedotov.[4]
The premiere of Queendom took place on March 11, 2023 at the South by Southwest Film Festival.[5] A first clip was also presented at this time.[6] Later in the month the film was presented at CPH:DOX, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival.[7]
CPH:DOX 2023
- Nomination for the NEXT:WAVE Award (Agniia Galdanova)
South by Southwest Film Festival 2023
- Nomination in the Documentary Feature Competition (Agniia Galdanova)
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- ↑ Queendom. IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund Grantee. In: documentary.org. Retrieved March 23, 2023.
- ↑ Stephen Saito: SXSW 2023 Review: “Queendom” Artfully Takes on a Kingdom in Russia. In: moveablefest.com, March 20, 2023.
- ↑ Queendom. In: sxsw.com. Retrieved March 23, 2023.
- ↑ Matthew Carey: Dynamic Queer Artist Defies Russia’s Anti-LGBTQ Crusade In SXSW World Premiere ‘Queendom’. In: deadline.com, March 11, 2023.
- ↑ Queendom. In: cphdox.dk. Retrieved March 23, 2023.
