2nd International Side By Side LGBT Film Festival
The second film festival ran from 23rd to 31 October 2009. Unlike the year before, it did not provoke such a strong reaction in society, and the screenings took place in public venues. The organizers had sought support from Western consulates and cultural centers to ensure the film festival would not be disrupted. According to the organizers, the festival was visited by more than two thousand people. Besides the film screenings, several roundtable discussions were organized on various issues: human rights and discrimination, the history of the LGBT-community, coming out, same-sex marriage, children with same-sex parents, problems of elderly LGBT people, transgender myths and reality, masculinity in contemporary society, religion and sexuality, among others. Sociologist Igor Kon, psychotherapist Dmitriy Isaev, LGBT activist Igor Kochetkov, artist Ivan Chechot, German activist Mahide Lein, HIV activist Nikolai Panchenko, poet-performer Olga Krauze, human rights defenders Alexander Vinnikov, Vladimir Shnitke, Maxim Ivanozov, and Nina Tagakina, among others.
However, the event did not pass without incidents. Before the presentation of the book “Malchik” — otets muzhchiny by Igor Kon, correspondents of NTV and a group of nationalists led by Roman Zentsov showed up in the hall where a discussion was to take place. The festival organizers accused the NTV correspondents of an attempt to create a scandal.
Outside the competition program a retrospective of German cinema from the Weimar Republic was shown: “Different from the Others” - the first gay movie in the history of cinema, “Mädchen in Uniform” – the first movie to touch the theme of female homosexuality, and cult film “Michael”. The film forum was closed with a concert by Ulyana Angelevskaya.
Due to the disruption of the previous year’s festival, the 2008 program was partly repeated in 2009. In total, four feature, six documentary and twelve short films were shown.
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