Imagining October
1984 | Soviet Union | 27 min
by Derek Jarman
In 1984, Derek Jarman joined a British filmmakers’ delegation to Moscow and Baku. There, he began Imagining October, a haunting meditation on the artistic, sexual, and political self. The film reflects on Eisenstein, a queer Soviet filmmaker fallen out of favor; Jarman himself, struggling under Thatcherism; a painter creating a homoerotic Socialist Realist military scene; and soldiers shedding their uniforms and compromises.
Moscow Does Not Believe in Queers
1986 | USA
by John Greyson
John Greyson’s videotape from the 1985 Moscow Youth Festival is a sharp, playful, and politically charged work. Told as an awkward story to a curious friend-with-benefits, it blends memories of underground gay culture, Cold War gossip, and hookups with fictional scenes: Alexandra Kollontai giving a TV interview, clips from Ice Station Zebra starring Rock Hudson—then dying of AIDS—and flashes of gay porn.
The Fall of Communism as Seen in Gay Pornography
1998 | USA | 19 min
by William E. Jones
Comrades in Arms, Men of the Balkans, Young Russian Innocents, The Vampire of Budapest… In the late ’90s, while working at a video store, William E. Jones witnessed a wave of Eastern European gay porn flooding the U.S. market. The industry had turned post-communist cities like Moscow, Prague, and Sofia into sites of sexual fantasy and capital conquest. Eastern boys—handsome, strong, and eager for dollars—performed as Soviet soldiers, KGB spies, and horny Komsomolets, cosplaying history for Western desire. Jones’ found-footage essay explores this collision of Cold War fetish, sex tourism, and image-making as violence—suggesting that sometimes, cinema is little more than sex tourism itself.
- Access to all the films is offered free of charge by the organisers.
- All the films are subtitled in Romanian and English.
- The films can be viewed offline only, during the Festival days.
- Pirating the films is strictly forbidden.
- Certain films will be followed by Q&A sessions.