Thursday, May 1, 2014

Birthday

Accidently closed all opened tabs. Now Chrome opens with blank page and mailbox. Some tabs were there for few years. Some I never open, some use quite often.
I guess I have the same feeling now, like if I would quit my job, moved to a new place and started a new life. On a bright side this is, probably, what you have to feel on your birthday.

Monday, April 28, 2014

Children 404


ДЕТИ 404 трейлер | CHILDREN 404 trailer from Children 404 on Vimeo.

People who were at premier of this movie, week ago in Moscow, were locked in theatre by the police. Outside, the building was surrounded by aggressive religious/conservative/fascist* activists. All of them were looking for kids in audience (all who below 18). Because now, if they find some, they can legally charge those who in charge of show in "gay propaganda to minors".

I never was myself kid 404, but surprisingly this movie become a little more personal to me. Pasha who tells all those "nice" stories about bullying, all of them happened in the same High school I was attending before getting into undergrad. More of it, one of my classmates from undergrad years she now become a teacher in that school. When I first read article in TheNewTimes about this guy and realized that all these happened in my school I immediately showed her this article and asked about her thoughts. To be short, her reply was that she against bullying**, but all what happened was Pasha's fault, he shouldn't have been showing off. "Show off" in that case meant that he came out and everybody knew he was gay, and that he was involved in extracurricular LGBT rights protection activities.

This "don't show off" basically motto of majority of russian gays, not just general public. People say to gays "Just don't show off and nobody will touch you. You can do whatever you want in bed or gay club". Most of LGBT's agree, "Yes, we don't need prides, we have everything we need, nobody discriminates us because we gay. Just don't show that you're gay". Year after year I hear this from many russian gays, be silent and everything will be fine. But year after year it's getting worse and worse.

World premier is April 28th in Toronto during HotDocs festival.

*There is pretty much no difference in attitude within these three.
**Important remark. There is no direct translation to word "bullying" in Russian. Concept of "school bullying" is not comprehended yet. And it concerns bullying in general, not only toward LGBT teens. 
So, in my actual conversation there was no word bullying, there was just empty space, sometimes filled with descriptive sentences.