Tag Archives: CUFF.Docs

History gives us company

Posted on November 23, 2023 by Kevin Allen | 1 comment

Thanks to everyone who came out to the queer history presentation last night at the Memorial Park Library. Kevin concluded his talk with a quote from Timothy Snyder’s profound book On Tyranny.

History allows us to see patterns and make judgements. It sketches for us the structures within which we can seek freedom. It reveals moments, each one of them different, none entirely unique. To understand one moment is to see the possibility of another. History permits us to be responsible: not for everything, but for something. The Polish poet Czesław Miłosz thought that such a notion of responsibility worked against loneliness and indifference. History gives us the company of those who have done and suffered more than we have.
—Timothy Snyder

To that end, this Sunday at 8:30 PM, see Queendom at CUFF.Docs. The documentary is about Gena Marvin, a contemporary queer artist from a small town in Russia. Gena stages radical public performances—in a nation hostile to queers—that becomes a new form of art and activism.

Let’s give Gena some company in Calgary.

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Posted in Gay history

Tagged bisexual, CUFF.Docs, Czesław Miłosz, gay, Gena Marvin, lesbian, On Tyranny, Queendom, queer, Russia, Timothy Snyder, transgender

Queendom

Posted on November 2, 2023 by Kevin Allen | 1 comment

It’s time for the 11th Annual CUFF.Docs Documentary Festival. We’re happy to partner with CUFF.Docs to present the Alberta Premiere of QUEENDOM on November 26th at 8:30 PM.

Gena Marvin, a queer artist from a small town in Russia, stages radical performances in public that become a new form of art and activism—and put her life in danger. Dressing in otherworldly costumes made from junk and tape, Gena protests the government in Moscow.

*Gena Marvin a queer artist and activist from Russia*.

Born and raised on the harsh streets of Magadan, a frigid outpost of the Soviet gulag, Gena 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 Gena’s subconscious. But they come at a price.

Director Agniia Galdanova is a Sundance and IDFA-supported documentary film director. QUEENDOM is her second feature film.

“Poignant and raw, QUEENDOM is posed to be one of the best documentaries of 2023.”
– Film Inquiry

“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.”
– Screen International

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Posted in Gay history

Tagged bisexual, CUFF.Docs, gay, Gena Marvin, lesbian, Moscow, Queendom, queer, Russia, transgender

Rebel Dykes @ CUFF.Docs

Posted on November 11, 2021 by Kevin Allen | 1 comment

The Calgary Underground Film Festival has often been kind enough to include queer history in their programming line-up. This year, the documentary festival running November 24-28, 2021, is featuring Rebel Dykes about a pivotal ten year period in London, England’s lesbian community (1981-1991).

Rebel Dykes touches on themes of kink, hedonism, fashion, drugs, nightlife and political activism. This rabble-rousing documentary focuses on the heritage of young punk lesbians who existed on the edge of society in areas like Brixton, Peckham, Soho, and Hackney. The documentary uses archival footage, interviews with members of the movements, and is intercut with animation, to share this untold story.

Director Siobhan Fahey explains the film came out of a queer oral history project that started in 2014. The Rebel Dykes History Project preserves, explores and shares the archive of “a bunch of kick ass post punk dykes who shook up London, UK in the 1980s.”

“This boisterous oral history of a little-known underground London lesbian scene which spawned from a collision between punk and feminism is a blast” —SCREENDAILY

Rebel Dykes is available to stream on demand, or one can catch the in-person screening November 25th, 9:30 PM at the Globe Cinema. Come out for queer history in Calgary!