Le Femen nude in Venice

Topless as in all their protests around the world: this is how the Femen exponents presented themselves at the Venice Film Festival, to present a documentary about their movement. Ukraine is not a brothel (Ukraine is not a brothel) is the title of the film by director Kitty Green (the only one left dressed in front of the photographers), presented today out of competition.
The film is an "investigation into the Femen movement, born as an extreme form of protest against patriarchy in a country that struggles to leave behind its Soviet (and anti-feminist) past.

Femen has been upsetting the international media for a while, precisely because of those topless protests that suddenly pop up on many public occasions. Inna and Sasha Shevcenko, two of the topless feminists, said they left Ukraine to stay safe after their arrests, based in Paris and ten others around the world.

A curiosity that emerges from the film is the role of a certain Victor Svyatskiy, recently brutalized by the security forces of his country, with photos of the swollen face that have traveled around the world: he would be the true ideologue of the Femen, with good peace of their extremist feminism. "Victor left the movement for a year", the Shevcenko point out, "and did not found the Femen. He was only one of the few male exponents, and when we started to become more popular he started to take more space. Perhaps because he is a man. Having a guy like him to deal with made us recognize even more the damage of patriarchy. "

So far, for the feminist and combative discourse of the Femen, it is flawless. But in Venice we are starting to wonder if even at the official screening of the film, this evening, the Femen will really parade topless, dressed only in slogans as they did at the photocall.