FILM SUMMARY

This film tells a totally hidden chapter in Soviet regime history : persecutions against male homosexuality in ex-USSR.

It relies heavily on archive images, on ambiguous Russian film archives of famous russians film directors as Eisenstein or Paradjanov, and on rare testimonials from survivors of the oppression in Russia, victims and witnesses. 

PRESENTATION
 
Homosexuality was fiercely suppressed in the USSR during the Soviet regime, backed by an arsenal of legal weaponry, deportations to the goulag and executions.

Persecution started during the Revolution and continued through Gorbachev’s Glasnost period. Victims were famous artists and poor common folk, members of the nomenklatura and deportees condemned to die from deprivation. 

Shame and frustration were even stronger since Communist propaganda focused on the intensly erotic aspects of young men and women proletarians, and the official art replayed the very often ambiguous socialist imagery. 
Group life intensified the notion of the forbidden, yet at the same time favored encounters and temptation.

This film traces a totally hidden chapter in Soviet history. It leans heavily on ambiguous Russian film archives and testimonials from survivors. 

This work is neither defensive nor overdramatic, it is merely a statement about the place for truth, dignity, derision or humor, like in Moscow’s “special clubs” where the “golo boys” sing popular patriotic songs from Brezjnev’s day in chorus.