Kvir(ing) Opacity
Migration and In_Visibility in Masha Godovannaya's Film "Countryless and Queer"
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17169/ogj.2022.181Keywords:
Film, Migration, Opacity, Queer Theory, Russia, VisibilityAbstract
The article offers a discussion of queer visibility politics and representations in solidarity with queer life in the post-Soviet context. Following a theoretical problematization of Northwestern queer, feminist, and anti-racist visibility policies, it shows what alternative forms of representation queer solidarity might have on the example of Masha Godovannaya’s film "Countryless and Queer" (2020). Godovannaya’s film is concerned with problems of queer representation in conversations with migrants from diverse contexts in Vienna. It offers filmic and narrative forms of representation that can be framed as strategy of opacity or un_visibility. Such representations refuse victimization and offer instead a possibility for queer solidarity with marginalized people. Furthermore, Godovannaya's film allows for a kind of queer-feminist solidarity as a practice of community-building.
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