The Wonderful Years
SYNOPSIS
The Soviet state built ‘socialist family units’ through housing policies prioritizing married couples with children. Some queer women complied with the state pressure to get married and have a child and navigated dating life outside their marriages, whereas others chose to stay single or cohabitated with women. The research film “The Wonderful Years” explores the lives of queer women in Ukraine in the late Soviet Union based on the archive video materials and interview excerpts from several research projects.
BIOGRAPHY
Svitlana Shymko is an independent director from Ukraine, a graduate of the DocNomads international MA program in documentary film directing. Her short films were shown and received awards at numerous international film festivals. Svitlana is working on developing political, social, and feminist topics in documentary cinema.
Galina Yarmanova is an independent researcher, graduate of an international MA program in Gender Studies in Central European University (Budapest, Hungary). She teaches courses on gender, sexuality, and feminism in Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Galina’s research interests include topics on reproduction and sexual rights, moral panics of sexuality, influence of nationalism and imperialism on current sexual politics in Ukraine.
