EVENT: Queer Fighters of Ukraine / @Between Bridges Berlin
Screening and talk by Angelika Ustymenko and Alex King
Participants
This documentary offers an intimate perspective on the Russia-Ukraine war through the eyes of Ukraine’s queer community – who are resisting Russia’s invasion but also fighting for equality within their own society. Before the full-scale invasion, the subversive collective Rebel Queers would defy the heteronormative and patriarchal world that so suffocated them by scrawling slogans on the walls of Kyiv including “Queer Sex,” “Make Queer Punk Again,” and “Be Queer, Do Crime, Hail Satan.” The driving force behind Rebel Queers is Angelika Ustymenko, a non-binary and neurodivergent artist and filmmaker. When their country and their community came under attack, they resolved to document the experiences of queer Ukrainians during wartime. On the first anniversary of the full-scale invasion, Ustymenko began a new phase of their documentary project, collaborating with Huck Docs to collect queer soldiers’ reflections after a year of war and exploring the many forms of queer resistance.