online screening
Maggots and Men
directed by Cary Cronenwett, USA 2009, 56'
- Maggots and Men positions the struggle for gender equality within a larger struggle for peace and justice. Cast with female-to-male transgender actors, the film documents a rapidly evolving ransgender community and illuminates the gender revolution currently taking place in our society.
- Painting the brief success of communal society at Kronstadt as a fanciful utopia, Maggots and Men transports us to a realm where we can dream of alternatives to capitalism. The Kronstadt sailors had a long tradition as radicals and fierce warriors, which began with the failed revolution of 1905 (the subject of Battleship Potemkin). Maggots and Men dramatizes the tragic events of March 1921 that ensued when the Kronstadt sailors drafted a resolution that supported the factory workers on strike in St. Petersburg.
- Through an imagined love story between their leader, Stepan Petrichenko, and another Sailor, Yuri Kilgast, the viewer experiences the break-up of cohesion at Kronstadt as the island community is torn apart by the oppressive response from the Bolshevik government.
