Presented at
Still Hacking Anyway (SHA2017),
Aug. 6, 2017, 11:15 p.m.
(105 minutes).
Sergey Astahov is a gay man converted by Church and state propaganda into an orthodox pro-Putin activist. Composed entirely of terrifying Youtube videos some from Astahov's blog, some from other vlogs, this documentary by contemporary artist Oleg Mavromatti is the most radical insight into today's Russia and its ideological clashes.
#Privacy
'We must not give away our children to foreigners and homosexuals,' says Sergej Astahov in the film dedicated to him, No Place for Fools. A few months prior to this pronouncement, Astahov himself confesses on his video that he is gay.
The film is comprised of clips placed by Astahov on his blog. We see him praising modern Moscow shopping malls, eulogising on the pleasures of gay porn and drawing up all manner of lists - from his favourite songs to his illnesses. He considers his homosexuality one of the latter.
It gradually becomes clear, reading between the lines, that Astahov has been admitted to a psychiatric clinic to ‘cure’ him of this ‘disease’. We also see a video in which he poses with his beloved woman, subsequently morphing into a patriotic, Orthodox Christian Russian - a Putin supporter who sometimes relapses into his old self: ‘I love men.’ A documentary that pointedly highlights the insurmountable, confusing ideological changes taking place in contemporary Russia.
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