Screening: ‘Mavzhuda’ by Nimasu Namsaren & ‘Exciting Life’ by Anna Yanovskaya

Neither a protest nor a celebration of queer femininities, 8th March in Russia eulogizes, enforces and naturalizes only one type of ‘womanhood’: gender-normative, cishet and ethnically-Russian. To subvert this exclusionary womanhood, we are screening films that uncover the issues faced by national-minority and indigenous women in that country.

We will be screening the following two films:

Mavzhuda (2019), Director: Nimasu Namsaren

“Mavzhuda” tells tells the story of a 12-year-old girl from Uzbekistan who had immigrated to Saint Petersburg with her mother and grandmother. Struggling to fit in in her new cultural environment and to express herself in a new language, Mavzhuda involuntarily starts to reject her own heritage, which causes a conflict with her loving grandmother.

Exciting Life (2018), Director: Anna Yanovskaya

This comedy is based on real events that happened to the Moscow actor Aleksey Yudnikov. A failed Moscow actor travels to the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) for a film job he was promised. Through him, the viewer becomes immersed in the world of the Olonho culture, the Republic of Sakha and its contemporary national cinema. All of three appear mysterious to Yudnikov, who does not know the rules of the game. Expecting an easy job, Yudnikov must embark on a long voyage, geographical and metaphoric, meeting old wise men, shamans and even magical deer on his way.