In 2022, a few months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine that resulted in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian war that started in 2014, filmmaker Olga Gibelinda saw herself capturing the opposite of sorrow: joy. “Queens of Joy,” which premieres as part of the Newcomers Competition at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, chronicles the lives of three drag queens who chose to continue to live — and perform — in Ukraine during the war. You can watch an exclusive trailer courtesy of Variety below:
“Queens of Joy” is making history even before its world premiere as one of three projects chosen by Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne in their first-ever effort to co-produce films. It will also be the first LGBTQ+ film shown on the public national broadcaster. “‘Queens of Joy’ is evidence that Ukraine is a free and tolerant country. I can’t imagine seeing such a film in the totalitarian states,” said Sergiy Nedzelskyy, head of co-production and outsource commissioning at Suspilne Ukraine, in a public statement.
“People will have the opportunity to see how LGBTQ+ people have chosen to stay in the country and support Ukraine,” Gibelinda tells Variety. “We have a lot of LGBTQ+ voices in the army, fighting on the frontlines. Things are changing in a very good way. We used to [share] a lot of thoughts with Russia during my dad’s generation but now I’d say 70% of Ukrainians either openly support [LGBTQ+ people] or don’t care.”
The groundbreaking documentary was born out of Gibelinda’s friendship with one of the film’s main characters, Diva Monroe. The performer has paved the way for drag in Ukraine since the 90s, helping introduce the term drag queen into the Ukrainian media vocabulary. Monroe now identifies as transgender, and works as an influencer and trans activist.
“Monroe and I talked a lot about her decision to stay in Ukraine,” says the director. “It was great news to me that all the clubs would keep their doors open. They worked as shelters, too, because many are basement clubs and can work as underground shelters. People would come in from the streets in the beginning of the war to be in a safe space. I was interested in this idea of the club as a safe space.”
Gibelinda began working in the film in the autumn of 2022, and spent the first year of pre-production working on nurturing her relationship with not only Monroe, this time from a professional point of view, but Marlene and Aura, the two other drag queens featured in the film. “I wanted to capture my characters in their daily lives but also their stage personas and realized that, for that to happen, we needed time,” she says.
Courtesy of Malanka Studios
“During development, we would meet each other and talk about everything. That first year, my DoP and I were just building a relationship with our characters. We needed trust, and trust takes time. We were sharing each other’s lives,” she adds, highlighting how the war context made her even more aware of some of her values as a documentarian.
“Filmmaking has always been part of my life, and it has continued to be so since the beginning of the war,” adds Gibelinda, mentioning how she worked as a volunteer for the media team of a humanitarian hub for media on those early days of the war escalation. “We are not doctors or soldiers, but we have our equipment and an understanding of what we can do to share what is happening right now so we went to the streets and captured a lot of footage for Ukrainian media.”
Gibelinda is also in the army reserve and familiar with all army protocols, something she credits as making her feel more confident in shooting with her subjects near the frontlines. “If I end up in a situation where I need to do something dangerous, I know what to do. Of course I was thinking of the footage but at the end of the day, human life is the most important thing.”
Speaking of important things, a key discussion in “Queens of Joy” is the rights of partners of LGBTQ+ soldiers killed on the frontlines. Currently, gay marriage is illegal in Ukraine, meaning that when soldiers are killed, their partners are not immediately informed, do not have the right to decide what happens to their bodies and are also not entitled to state support. Changing Ukrainian constitution is prohibited during martial law, making it impossible to legalize same-sex marriages during the war, but activists have organized petitions asking for the recognition of civil partnerships in the meantime. President Volodymyr Zelensky previously tasked the government to investigate such a possibility, with a draft law registered soon after.
“The law to safeguard LGBTQ+ relationships is important for all people, because LGBTQ+ rights are human rights,” emphasizes Gibelinda. “At a time of war, we need to have these conversations, we need to understand how the law works for relationships. There are thousands of LGBTQ+ soldiers on the frontlines. We hope the film will help.”
“Queens of Joy” is one of 12 film projects by Ukrainian filmmakers, supported by Arte since the start of the war in Ukraine. The film is co-produced by Arte and Suspilne Ukraine and produced by Malanka Studios, Les Steppes Productions, and Films & Chips. Malanka Studios handles world sales.
