New to DVD this week: I AM FEMEN
Alain Margot’s profile of the controversial Ukrainian feminist group debuted at Visions du Réel last year. Screenings have followed at CPH:DOX, Locarno, Haifa, Thessaloniki Doc, Stockholm, and Santa Barbara, among others.
Margot’s film is the second Femen documentary to make its way on the international festival circuit and into limited release after Kitty Green’s UKRAINE IS NOT A BROTHEL, which debuted at Venice in 2013. While I have not written here about Green’s film, its take on the “sextremist” group is far more critical, even sinister, postulating that the true leader of the group is actually a man, Viktor Sviatsky, and that the women he recruits aren’t particularly that invested in Femen’s causes and instead are picked to look beautiful topless and generate media attention. Margot’s take is far more straightforward, and doesn’t even hint at any of these allegations, which Femen members substantiated in their promotion of Green’s film, though they note that Viktor was ejected from the group in 2012. Margot’s film begins in 2012 as well, and focuses primarily on one of the founders, artist Oksana Shachko, also featured in Green’s film. Through the course of the doc, Oksana and her fellow activists stage protests around a number of causes, opening with the condemnation of the Ukrainian justice system for failing to punish the rapists/murderers of one of their Femen sisters, and proceeding to animal abuse and support for Pussy Riot, among others. Margot provides some degree of background on Oksana, such as her early interest in religious iconography and desire to join a convent, but mostly concentrates on her activist work, and the sacrifices she’s willing to make in the name of justice. If Margot’s film lacks the surprise of Green’s, it manages to find a compelling figure in Oksana, one who can speak articulately about the intersection of sex, bodies, and politics that motivates Femen’s actions.
what (not) to doc 