goEast_2024_Katalog
THE OTHERQUEERS–CINEMATICIMAGESFROM THEPERIPHERYOF EUROPEFor a long time, queer cinema, art and activism were seenas things that existed predominantly in the “West”, comingto the forefront of Central and Eastern European (CEE),as well as Central Asian (CA) civil and artistic concernsonly after socialism had been replaced by capitalism, andthe supposed conservatism of the aforementioned regionsby European liberalism. This linear trajectory – fromlesser to greater freedom, visibility and creativity – can bereproduced easily, without friction, as it tells a soothingstory that engenders faith in constant “progress”. However,histories, politics, images and lives are rarely so clear-cut.This year’s Symposium guests, the krёlex zentre, animaginary art agency from Almaty, employ a vividpoetic image when describing the complex processes ofbecoming queer in harsh environments: “How to tell astory of us becoming ourselves? Our roots are convolutedlike mangroves /…/”.66This open question – “How to tell a story of becomingourselves?”– has haunted us throughout the process ofpreparing the present Symposium. Before one can tellthe true story of queer cinematic images from the “East”,one must first question basic concepts and assumptions.Though complex and undoubtedly revolutionary,oftentimes the legacies of Western queer experiencesalso erased local points of view, struggles and needs.They were “well documented, easily accessible, and ofteninterpreted as having ‘universal’ relevance” (Takács andKuhar 2007, 11), reinforcing a binary of an open-minded“West” and a homophobic and monolithic “Eastern Europe”always trying (and failing) to catch up. In their volumeDe-Centring Western Sexualities, editors Robert Kulpaand Joanna Mizielińska thus propose the urgent task of“unsettl[ing] Western perspectives in queer studies by providingnew insights in discussions about what constitutes‘queer’” (2011, 3). How then would shifting the perspective,telling different stories from the supposed peripheriesof Europe, serve to widen and restructure the idea ofqueerness? How can we approach non-heteronormativeexperiences as local and politically potent phenomena?
The same problems of simplification can be found inthe concept of Eastern European cinema. As the lateSlovenian film critic Nika Bohinc (2009) wrote: “EasternEuropean cinema is an elusive categorization, andsometimes it seems that even those that use it do nothave a clear idea who and what it represents.” Used as anumbrella term for very different cinemas, “[t]he westerngaze recognizes one strong common denominator inthis rather vast territory of the European ‘East’ whichobviously does not have as much to do with geographyas it does with politics: namely, the social and economicchange each of these countries endured in theirtransitions from their old communist regimes to the ‘New’democratic Europe and its free market.”Pondering the big questions, with an awareness of thelimitations of a single event, it became obvious that it isnot just a matter of making queer stories about non-normativesexualities and genders from the peripheriesvisible – it is also about queering geographies, histories,images, theoretical frameworks and the very formatsof symposiums. To that ends, this event brings togetherartists, activists, archivists, programmers and scholarsexploring the present, past and future of cinematicqueerness to collectively construct a kaleidoscopic vision– a multiplicity of fragments forming an image that is fluid.“‘Zbochenstvo’ [a Ukrainian analogue of “perversion”,something that is “outside the norm”, – authors note] iseven perverting ‘queer’– turning it over and turning theconversation from West to East, from North to South, andupside down.”Syaivo, ZBOKU collectiveThe PresentDuring the Symposium, we will be looking at current practicesand challenges of queer cinema, art and activism inSlovenia, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kazakhstan,Lithuania, Armenia, Croatia, Romania and other countriesand regions, but also engaging critically with the conceptof “Eastern/post-socialist queerness”: What is it exactly?Is it an imitation of “Western” frameworks or somethingdifferent, multiple, potentially disruptive?As Ukrainian academic and activist Olga Plakhotnikwrites, contemporary queer movements in the region aretrying to reframe and critique “Western models of sexualcitizenship”, offering different imaginaries of sexualityand political activism. This also entails experimentingwith language and concepts, reclaiming the oldand inventing new ones to challenge “the dominantposition and epistemic authority of Western knowledge”.Plakhotnik gives an example of a neologism, “heteropryrechenist”(in Ukrainian), which was coined by ananonymous activist collective and first started poppingup in Kyiv graffiti. Translated as “heterodoom”, the conceptis related to heteronormativity, but also has a specificaffective intensity connected to regional concerns ofviolent erasure: “It signifies not just a social regime that isgrasped analytically but the state of mind that determinespeople’s lives painfully and hopelessly.” (2019, 213-214)Representatives of grassroots art festivals and artistshave been invited to talk about local strategies and struggles:making, excavating and/or curating queer art as apolitical act; fighting local nationalisms, homophobia andtransphobia; and thinking about queerness in times of theRussian war against Ukraine. War is a tragic link betweenUkraine and the post-Yugoslav region, where a numberof films have treated the (im)possibilities of queernessin periods of murderous violence. One of the first queerfilms to be realised after the disintegration of Yugoslavia,MARBLE ASS / DUPE OD MRAMORA (1995, Želimir Žilnik)*,which was shot in Belgrade while the country was at warwith its neighbours, is a crucial document from the midstof an armed conflict. The devastating violence serves asthe backdrop of the film, in which two transgender sexworkers attempt to navigate their way around aggressivemen (customers and boyfriends) by establishing theirown queer time and space in an abandoned house on theoutskirts of Belgrade. Writing about MARBLE ASS, DijanaJelača posits that queer films have“the potential […] to intervene in the processes [ofcollective national trauma constructions] by whichthe claiming of trauma is typically made possibleonly for those citizens who successfully re/produce,literally and figuratively, the ‘ideal’ heterosexual bodythat is inevitably linked to ethno-national ideology.”(2016, 104)The admittedly uneasy relationship between regionalethno-nationalistic collective memory and queer traumais the thread that connects most post-Yugoslav queerfeature films. These mechanisms of violent communityconstruction and exclusion are also laid out ratherschematically in one of the region’s biggest hits, atransnational co-production effort involving multipleformer Yugoslav states, THE PARADE / PARADA; (this 2011film, directed by Srđan Dragojević, will not be screenedat the festival). PARADE’s reception was characterisedby ambivalence: a hit among audiences eager for a doseof Yugonostalgia, and praised by Western press as theSerbian equivalent of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, it wasoften reviewed unfavorably by local critics, who saw thecomedy about homophobic former-war-enemies-turnedbuddiescoming together to protect the Belgrade Prideevent as a simplification of the past. In her recent analysisof the film, Anamarija Horvat proposes that THE PARADE“reflect[s] the complexity and contradictory nature ofcertain political approaches to memory” in the region and“presents a complex commentary which both critiques– and perpetuates – politically significant memorynarratives about national culpability, innocence and atransnational solidarity” (Horvat 2023). The author willappear as a guest speaker at the Symposium, addressingthe complicated ways in which films “remember” andco-construct collective memories in her lecture “Memory,Resistance and (In)Visibility: Queer Cinema in the Regionof Former Yugoslavia”.CINEMA ARCHIPELAGO: SYMPOSIUM* MARBLE ASS will be screened during the festival as part ofthe Yugoretten and Symposium programmes.67
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THE OTHER
QUEERS
–
CINEMATIC
IMAGES
FROM THE
PERIPHERY
OF EUROPE
For a long time, queer cinema, art and activism were seen
as things that existed predominantly in the “West”, coming
to the forefront of Central and Eastern European (CEE),
as well as Central Asian (CA) civil and artistic concerns
only after socialism had been replaced by capitalism, and
the supposed conservatism of the aforementioned regions
by European liberalism. This linear trajectory – from
lesser to greater freedom, visibility and creativity – can be
reproduced easily, without friction, as it tells a soothing
story that engenders faith in constant “progress”. However,
histories, politics, images and lives are rarely so clear-cut.
This year’s Symposium guests, the krёlex zentre, an
imaginary art agency from Almaty, employ a vivid
poetic image when describing the complex processes of
becoming queer in harsh environments: “How to tell a
story of us becoming ourselves? Our roots are convoluted
like mangroves /…/”.
66
This open question – “How to tell a story of becoming
ourselves?”– has haunted us throughout the process of
preparing the present Symposium. Before one can tell
the true story of queer cinematic images from the “East”,
one must first question basic concepts and assumptions.
Though complex and undoubtedly revolutionary,
oftentimes the legacies of Western queer experiences
also erased local points of view, struggles and needs.
They were “well documented, easily accessible, and often
interpreted as having ‘universal’ relevance” (Takács and
Kuhar 2007, 11), reinforcing a binary of an open-minded
“West” and a homophobic and monolithic “Eastern Europe”
always trying (and failing) to catch up. In their volume
De-Centring Western Sexualities, editors Robert Kulpa
and Joanna Mizielińska thus propose the urgent task of
“unsettl[ing] Western perspectives in queer studies by providing
new insights in discussions about what constitutes
‘queer’” (2011, 3). How then would shifting the perspective,
telling different stories from the supposed peripheries
of Europe, serve to widen and restructure the idea of
queerness? How can we approach non-heteronormative
experiences as local and politically potent phenomena?
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