On October 25, the Imperial Cinema in Montreal hosted the world premiere of the Canadian documentary “Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride”.

The movie directed by Bob Christie is dedicated to the gay pride movements around the world. It emphasized on organizing gay prides, which often, are taken for granted by many activists in western countries while in other parts of the globe, such events are still banned.

The Film features gay prides in different cities, some like Toronto, New York and Vancouver in which gay prides are popular carnivals and others like, Warsaw, Budapest, Riga, Belgrade and Moscow where activists are targeted by skinheads.

One of the central scene of the movie shows the third Moscow Pride attempt in 2008 when LGBT activists held a protest near the monument to Tchaikovsky and later unveiled a large banner against homophobia from the third floor of a building facing the Moscow City Hall.

Nikolai Alekseev, Chief Organizer of the Moscow Pride, attended the Premiere together with Irina Fedotova-Fet and Irina Shipitko, the Russian pair who married in Toronto last Friday.

After the projection, Nikolai Alekseev told the audience: “At the beginning, we were sceptical to take part to this project, but today we can thank the crew for the objective coverage they made of our Moscow Pride. The movie gives a very accurate picture of the tension that we face every year in the hours preceding our Pride”

Nikolai Alekseev also thanked Gilbert Baker, the creator of the Rainbow Flag who was among the audience. “Not so many people know that the Rainbow flag we used as part of our Moscow pride 2008 was presented to us by Gilbert Baker” said Nikolai Alekseev.

After its Premiere in Canada, “Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride” will be shown at several film festival starting with Vienna, Florence and Sao Paulo.

GayRussia.Ru