The official premiere for Maggots and Men will be this Sunday June 21st at the beautiful Castro Theater in San Francisco. I wrote the musical score for piano, harp, bass, oboe, and percussion.

You can purchase tickets and get further information through the Frameline Film Festival website.

This will probably be the only chance to see this epic film in such a huge theater so please come on out and see it!

Synopsis

Maggots and Men is an experimental historical narrative set in a mythologized, post-revolutionary Russia that re-imagines the story of the Kronstadt uprising with a subtext of gender anarchy. The film dramatizes the events of the 1921 rebellion and pays tribute to the Kronstadt sailors’ earnest pursuit of communist ideals. Agit-prop theater group Blue Blouse guides us through the story, which is narrated by fictionalized letters written by Stepan Petrichenko, the leader of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee.

About

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 transgender 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 capitalist society.

History

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 recounts 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. In addition to echoing the starving workers’ demand for food, the resolution called for a re-election of the soviets and demanded greater autonomy from an increasingly authoritarian government. The Bolshevik government destroyed public support for the sailors by launching a propaganda campaign that falsely labeled them as counter-revolutionaries. Rather than de-escalating the situation Trotsky, Minister of War, ordered the sailors to be taken by force. After heavy losses on both sides the two-week long battle ended with victory for the Bolsheviks and death or exile for the sailors.

The score, written for piano, harp, oboe, bass, and percussion, is nearly continuous throughout the 45-minute film and easily the biggest musical project I’ve ever completed. Here’s a description of the film from maggotsandmen.com:

In the style of a Soviet Propaganda film, Maggots and Men recounts the tragic events of the Kronstadt Uprising (Russia, 1921). This history is combined with fictionalized interpersonal relationships between the sailors. There is a strong emphasis on the filmmaking process to be a positive, affirming experience and an opportunity for people in the trans community to meet each other and work together.

For the group scenes we will be recruiting large numbers of people, documenting as many trans folks on film as possible. Maggots and Men is set in an all male environment of a Russian Naval Base then cast with actors from a range of masculine gender expressions thus redefining male, challenging the binary gender construct, and intentionally creating confusion.

This film comes out of an ongoing dialogue surrounding the hierarchy of “maleness” that exists and the longing for our genders to be inconsequential to our acceptance. We will bring these dialogues into the filmmaking process and together produce a film that makes a strong anti-war statement with the actors representing themselves as sexy, politicized, and beautiful heroes defending themselves against a corrupt government.

On Wednesday, May 6th 2009, the Working Group in Socialisms and Sexualities will be hosting a preview screening and symposium at UC Berkeley. This will be the first screening of the film and the first time I’ll get to see it completed! There will be talks by gender historian Susan Stryker, Slavist and film scholar Anne Nesbetand, and a discussion with the filmmakers which I’ll be participating in. And, most importantly, snacks.

This event is absolutely free and would be a great chance to see the film without having to pay at its upcoming Frameline Film Festival premiere.

Maggots and Men Preview Screening and Symposium
Wednesday, May 6th 2009
4pm – 7pm
142 Dwinelle Hall, the Nestrick Room
University of California Berkeley
Free

Here’s a description of the performance from the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle (the man in the second paragraph is me and it didn’t quite happen this way):

A drum corps marched up Grant Avenue to collide with a full horn unit marching down Columbus, to join together as the Extra Action Marching Band. A string quartet played from a flatbed truck.

At 5:06 p.m. a man dressed like a veil-less bride climbed a ladder, snagged the dangling ring on a shrouded book with a gaffe hook and unveiled the first book, singing all the while. The first 10 came loose easily but the 11th shroud didn’t. This required Goggin to join the performance, climbing 30 feet of rickety ladder while the band encouraged him with the up-tempo “Hora Andalusia.” After four or five yanks, the veil finally fluttered down to the cheer of the crowd.