People’s Choice Award: International Feature: Queendom

The winner of the People’s Choice Award for International Feature is 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture, which will screen at 4:00PM, Sunday, August 20. This screening will instead feature the runner-up for this award, Queendom.

Hailing from a small town in the far east side of Russia, Gena, a 21-year-old trans performance artist, uses fashion as a form of political protest, marching the streets of Moscow in fantastic homemade creations as if in their own personal gallery space. Using drag activism as a means of challenging modern beauty standards as well as protesting the treatment of LGBTQIA+ people in Russia under Putin’s profoundly conservative rule, Gena receives attention wherever they go. But while their art is met with stunned confusion in their hometown, it risks eliciting more violent responses in the country’s capital, placing Gena under the constant threat of danger.

A thrilling showcase of Gena’s boundless creativity, Agniia Galdanova’s rousing documentary is a visually stunning piece of work, which also serves as a powerful testament to countless other queer Russian artists, activists, and disruptors who risk their lives in the hope of a better future.

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The People’s Choice Awards are determined by audience ballots, and every film screened at the Festival is eligible for one of the four following awards. Winners are determined by the highest proportion of votes, ensuring all films have the opportunity to be recognized regardless of the size of the theatre they are screened in. To vote, complete your ballot on tablets provided by our staff and volunteers as you leave the theatre or submit a rating for each film you watch on our digital watch platform until August 19.