Join the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center for a screening of Queendom (2023). This screening is free and open to the public.
The film screening will be followed by a discussion with producer Igor Myakotin.
Synopsis: Jenna (she/her, non-binary), a queer artist from a small town in Russia, dresses in otherwordly costumes made from junk and tape, and protests the government on the streets of Moscow. Born and raised on the harsh streets of Magadan, a frigid outpost of the Soviet gulag, Jenna is only 21. She stages radical performances in public that become a new form of art and activism. By doing that, she wants to change people's perception of beauty and queerness and bring attention to the harassment of the LGBTQ+ community. The performances - often dark, strange, evocative, and queer at their core - are a manifestation of Jenna's subconscious. But they come at a price.
Igor Myakotin is an Emmy-nominated BAFTA-winning filmmaker who produced the feature-length documentary Queendom (2023), which had its world premiere at SXSW 2023 and won the NEXT:WAVE Jury Award at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen. Igor also co-produced Welcome to Chechnya (2020), which HBO acquired before its world premiere in a 2020 Sundance Film Festival documentary competition. Welcome to Chechnya has also been awarded the Peabody Award and BAFTA and received an Emmy nomination. Igor is a 2022 Sundance Producing Fellow and was named as one of the “40 Under 40” working in the documentary industry by DOC NYC. He believes that cinema is not a way to escape reality but a way to embrace it with all its peculiarities and its darkness.
If you have any questions about accessibility or wish to request accommodations, please contact us at reec@illinois.edu. Typically, a two weeks' notice will allow us to provide access.