QUEENDOM
(director: Agniia Galdanova; cinematographer: Rusian Fedotov; editor: Anna Zalevskaya; music: Toke Brorson Odin/Damien Vandesande; cast: Gena Marvin; Runtime: 98; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Agniia Galdanova, Igor Myakotin; Greenwich Entertainment-2023-USA/France/in Russian with English subtitles)
“A compelling LGBTQ+ documentary shot over a period of 4 years.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A compelling LGBTQ+ documentary shot over a period of 4 years. It’s competently directed by the Russian Agniia Galdanova. It focuses on the 21-year-old queer, androgynous, performance drag queen artist, Gena Marvin, born in the grim eastern city of Magadan (known for its labor camps and Stalin-era gulag). Later on she moved to Moscow.
Gena protests Putin’s Ukraine war in costume (dressed as an Ice Queen) on the Moscow streets, on Feb. 2022. The brave artist is aware there’s a 15-year jail sentence for protesters, having already been kicked out of beauty school for being a radical political activist .
During Gena’s stay in Moscow, the six-footer goes about daily life (grocery store shopping and riding the subway) in various outlandish freaky costumes and is cursed out, violently attacked and made to feel unwelcome by the public’s mostly homophobic Russian citizens.
The artist tries to come to terms with her identity and her relationship with fellow Russians during these troubling times of war. For safety reasons Gena becomes an exile in France.
Gena’s gained an enormous following on Instagram and on TikTock for showing us how repressive Russian society is. As for her family history, the young boy was orphaned when his parents died. He became a girl when raised by his disapproving grandparents. Her grandfather tried to no avail to get her to change her flashy queer ways and ongoing fight with the hostile government.
REVIEWED ON 10/4/2024 GRADE: B
dennisschwartzreviews.com