'East Bloc Love' Gets Its World Premier Next Week at San Francisco's Frameline Gay Film Festival

By uk gaynews
June 16, 2011

Australian film director Logan Mucha filming outside the only gay bar in Minsk last year.

The feature documentary East Bloc Love by Australian filmmaker Logan Mucha and co-produced with GayRussia, gets its world premier next week  at the 35th Frameline LGBT International Film Festival.

It will be screened on June 25 at San Francisco’s oldest theatre, The Victoria.

“I’m so excited to have my first feature documentary premiere not only at the most important LGBT film festival in the world, but at the birth place of the gay rights movement,” Mr. Mucha told UK Gay News.

Celebrating its 35th year, Frameline brings together the finest of LGBT cinema across the globe, paying tribute to the diverse legacy of current and future works in queer filmmaking.

“Activists from Russia and Belarus often spoke of the inspiration they draw from Harvey Milk, so it is fitting that East Bloc Love is shown in the city where he fought and campaigned so hard for LGBT rights, not only for America but for LGBT people around the world,” Mr. Mucha added.

East Bloc Love is Logan Mucha’'s debut feature length documentary, shot on location in six Eastern European countries.  It follows young Sergey and a few brave activists in Belarus, where being openly gay leads to beatings and arrest, who decide to take to the streets to demand equality.

Mr. Mucha follows this courageous cabal of freedom fighters as they prepare for Slavic Pride, the first Pride event to be staged in Belarus. Despite a ban by the authorities, GayBelarus continues its Pride preparations, knowing that their efforts will likely result in either neo-Nazi beatings or arrests by the police (or both).

But not everyone in the Eastern European LGBT communities supports the idea of public Pride and still struggles with the notion of visibility. From Romania to Poland, Latvia to Estonia, Logan Mucha tracks varying viewpoints, including many who think their countries are still not ready for Pride and question how – or whether –to be public about their homosexuality.

East Bloc Love Trailer from Logan Mucha :



More info about the movie, please visit the website