Orion’s World

October 02, 2023

In an idyllic world painted in nostalgic hues, the talented Orion Carloto, a writer and poet, invites us into her world of picturesque prose. At 27, an age when the realization hits us that we’re not getting any younger and the importance of capturing memory is necessary, Carloto melds her worlds of photography and writing to invoke something in her readers. She reminds us to be mindful, to find beauty in the mundane, and she does so with apparent simplicity.

From watching her niece and nephew grow up before her eyes, the Georgia-native writer finds herself looking inward, even doing so while sitting in the childhood bedroom of her own. Releasing a zine titled Beds I’ve Slept In Orion warmly sparks something in us. Whether that be remembering our own childhoods, or thinking about what lies ahead, but most importantly — relishing in the moments we find ourselves in presently.

Interview: Cassie Jekanoski
Photography: Sam Bryant Knolton
Styling: Tana Grossberg
Makeup: Alejandra Ascencio
Hair: Alexandra Khozhieva

I find myself introspectively looking inward and questioning the meaning of absolutely everything. And sitting with Orion and hearing her speak about life from her point of view was an eye-opening conversation nonetheless. We empaths exist and creation is the best form of cathartic release.

Hi! How are you?

I'm excited, I'm fully still in Georgia in my teenage bedroom, so love that.

Oh my God. I feel like that's super nice though. For me, I'm super nostalgic.

Fully, the nostalgia has eaten away at any remaining sensible thing in my brain these days. I've just been crying all week thinking about growing up. Basically. I came home today and my mom got me flowers and it was just so sweet because last night I was a mess. It was horrible.

How often do you visit home?

I think twice, three times a year. I have a niece and nephew who live with my mom, so I'm really realizing now that I think the passing of time just never really occurred to me until recently looking at old videos of them. I'm like, “Oh my God, they're teenagers now. It's so painful to see this passing of time with them.” I get really emotional over it.

I feel like because you're traveling and living away, it's nice when you get to go home and you get to see everybody growing up, especially yourself.

I think it's so easy to be selfish and think about yourself growing up, and I don't think I ever really thought about seeing everyone growing up as a sad thing until recently. It's definitely time to start seeking an existential therapist because it is not fun to have the negative thoughts filter in through good moments that I'm having in current time.

Yeah. Sometimes I just stop and think about how those happy moments are fleeting. They just happen so quickly and I wish I could have lived in them a little bit longer. But yeah, let's just jump into it. What kind of space are you in now?

Right now? It's very melancholic. I think as an individual, a happy person in life, it couldn't be better, and I'm very grateful for the life that I have. But I have been genuinely overtaken by this wave of nostalgia that I think I used to view as a writing tool. Or something that was really beautiful that I could step back and look at and know in the moments that are happening that it will be a special moment. But recently it's felt more like a problem rather than a gift. And I've only come to terms with that in the past two days because as much as I appreciate being a sensitive person in that aspect, I think it sometimes feels like it does more harm than good.

I feel like so much of it takes me away from the great moment that I'm having. And all I could think about is, for example, the other day, me and my whole family drove up to the North Georgia Mountains. My stepdad was driving his pickup truck and my niece, my nephew, and I were all in the back of the truck in the bed, and it was this beautiful moment just seeing them. My niece was eating watermelon, and my nephew ripped his shirt off, and I'm just observing these two gentle children in front of me, and I was so upset that I had left my video camera at home. I really wanted to just capture this moment. And so my brain would go from, "Oh, it's fine next summer, they'll still be kids. We'll do this again next summer." And then I'm overtaken by the thought of, "Well, what if something happens between now and next summer and we can't have this moment again?" So I think I'm robbing myself of having a good time because I'm thinking of the potential of not having a time as great as this again.

I think it's so easy to be selfish and think about yourself growing up, and I don't think I ever really thought about seeing everyone growing up as a sad thing until recently.

<em>FULL LOOK, MIU MIU</em> — *FULL LOOK, MIU MIU*

<em>FULL LOOK, BALENCIAGA</em> — *FULL LOOK, BALENCIAGA*

Do you find that there's beauty in just living in a moment and not having to capture it? Or do you think that you need to capture a moment so you can look back on it nostalgically?

It's so funny because lately I haven't been capturing things even with having a job that pretty much lives online. I find myself being so poor at it because I'm like, damn, I just lived a whole great day and I didn't document one thing about it. And that thought came from realizing a couple days ago, my niece is now 12, and it never occurred to me that I shared so many moments with her as a child that she wouldn't remember. So there's a part where I was just like, "How dare you? Am I nothing to you?" But of course she's not going to remember anything. So we were going through my phone and I was showing her, do you remember this?

I realized how little I had, I didn't have very much. And so that was then fast forward to a couple days ago where I'm like, “Oh God, I should be capturing this moment because I let myself live too much without having any evidence of it other than stories, which really is all that is important to me.” These past few days I've just realized how much I really do value photographs and in a way that I think I just viewed it as capturing slivers of moments that felt maybe curated, but now I regret not capturing more. I feel like I am very proud that I got to live deeply in whatever moments I'm reminiscing on. So I guess maybe to answer your question, it doesn't feel like a need to, but now especially I think with my existential thoughts it feels like I need to now in retrospect.

No, it's definitely a valid thought. I feel like especially as we're getting older and the babies in our lives are not babies anymore.

Totally.

So you're coming out with a new zine, right?

Yeah, it is aimed to come out in the fall, and it is just a one-off. I think when I say zine, it's very easy. I feel like I'm overexplaining myself because it's not a series of things. It's been a while since I've released a book and it's always so fun to connect with the readers. So last summer I was talking to my best friend Enya, and I was like, I have all of these photographs everywhere I go. I always take photos of the beds that I sleep in, whether it's at a friend's house or really anywhere. I just had a collection of all of these beds and I didn't know what to do with all of these photos, so I threw the idea of maybe I should just post this all on a blog or somewhere. And my best friend was like, "Why don't you compile it into some sort of book? You've been working towards something and here's the one thing that you should do." And so yeah, I'm releasing a zine called Beds I've Slept In. It's about capturing these mundane moments in my life that are special in some way. The bed doesn't seem like much, but I feel like that's where you're the most intimate, and I don't even mean sexually, I truly mean just as an individual.

Just even being vulnerable too.

Pillow talk right then and there. It's all in the word.

So I've read your past work before, and I think that you have such an incredible way of describing the mundane to life with your word choice. And I don't know, you bring life to those things that people might just overlook. Would you say that this new zine is going to have your writing alongside or is it just photos?

I think it will. It would feel cruel to not add any writing in it, mostly because I would never call myself a photographer. So it's almost necessary to have a piece of writing. And I've written a few things and I think it's really about deciding the length of how much time I want to take from people.

<em>FULL LOOK, GUCCI</EM> — *FULL LOOK, GUCCI*

... the bed doesn't seem like much, but I feel like that's where you're the most intimate, and I don't even mean sexually, I truly mean just as an individual.

How similar or different is it to what you’ve released so far?

Definitely different in terms of the capacity of it. But in terms of sensibility it's very much the same. I think it's similar to Film For Her, it's photos and not so much about the quality of a photo because there are iPhone photos in there, not everything's taken on film. So it's kind of like these snapshots of the years of my life and I got. I think the similarities in Film For Her is I feel like this is unintentionally been something that I've been working on for over a decade. I'm opening the book with these photographs that I found that I've taken throughout the years, and it was a span of every two years of me sitting in my bed at the time. So I have a Polaroid of me sitting in my childhood room at 16, I have one at 18, I have one at 22. And for no reason did I take these photos other than I guess to just document that. But in making this, it was really special to go through the archive and use these photos that I didn't think would amount to any use.

I think it'll be really beautiful. When it comes to your work, especially with Film For Her and Beds I've Slept In coming out, you do a great job at pairing your photos with your words. So which one comes first?

The ethos of Film For Her was always that the photographs came first. It was birthed through the concept of everything that I release just kind of happens to me. And I think that's why there is no third book right now because I'm waiting for something to happen, something to appear. And Film For Her appeared in the sense where I got my hands on my first film camera and was very cautious about taking these 36 photos because it costs money to take a photo and it costs money to see the photo. By the time I got the rollback, everything was so boring and I was so disappointed at myself that every photo I took felt like it amounted to nothing. I guess I quickly realized that, of course they amounted to nothing now, but in those moments, a photo of a sidewalk or a picture of a friend holding a balloon or whatever it may be, was more about the moment that was being had rather than the photo that was being taken.

And so with Film For Her, the photos came first and it was really fun going through these years of photographs. It wasn't about choosing a photo that will look really good in a book, it was really just looking at the screen in front of me and seeing everything and remembering what times or what memory had come up from whatever photo was in front of my face. So definitely photos come first. And I think the same with Beds I've Slept In. Photos just happen to be there and I get to do something with it, which is really exciting.

It'll be exciting to see. I just want to touch further upon where you mentioned that a third book hasn't come out yet because nothing has happened. Do you find that as an artist, a writer, a poet, creative that something has to happen? Or are you somebody that can find creativity in the nothingness?

I think a little bit of both. I've always tried to make sure now that writing has become a job for me, whereas it was once not a job. And I think the only way for me to keep that sacred to myself is to allow it to come to me. Whereas it would be great to be the writer who's releasing a book every year, and I know so many who do and they're great. I think that they could tap into something that I just can't tap into. And so I think really both my enemy and hero here is the passing of time. And I will say I think this summer has felt extremely eye-opening to me and it almost feels like there is something happening, but it doesn't need to be something as big as a breakup or a life change.

It's more so this bewildering mix of discovering who I am because with every month that passes, you're like, "God damn, I didn't know this about myself and I've been living in this body for who knows how long." And it's kind of exciting despite how terrifying it is, learning more about yourself. I am not waiting for a big thing to happen, but I'm waiting for new thoughts to transpire or at least a space to make sense of the thoughts that I have more or less.

Do you find the process of how you write now different from when you first started writing? Now that it has become a job for you whereas before it could simply be a cathartic release of emotions.

I mean more no than yes. I think it's really easy to get in your head and read reviews or get in the brain of the readers. And while that is important to me, and I do actually appreciate a lot of the constructive criticism, I don't think I would be anywhere without it because you could think that you're great, but many of people could be like, this is a little amateur and could be a bit better, which is totally valid. I'm growing and I think that I need to hear those things I guess. But no, that is probably the only sensible thing about myself is that I've managed to continue looking at writing as something that's entirely mine until it's released to everyone else and then it belongs to everyone else. Otherwise, I feel like anytime I've tried to just write and for the sake of having something new for other people to read, I almost always look back and I hate what I've written because it felt like it came from a place of somebody else's desire to see something rather than my desire to show myself for it.

I wish for myself I could be one of those writers that can just sit down and write something. But most of the time it comes from heavy places of emotion and things just really happening to me to get those words to flow out. Yeah, I think I am also extremely guilty of that. I think last year or the year before I went to see Patti Smith, she released A Book of Days and she did a little concert and book reading and she said something that I already knew was important, but I feel like it took really hearing her say out of her mouth for me to understand the importance of it. And that's just to write every day, even if you have nothing to write about. And the past two, three years I went from writing in my journal every single day to being very on and off about it. I could go weeks without writing anything just for the hell of it. And I think that's mostly due to the fact that I've grown such a close relationship with my friends. So everything that's in here will immediately go to them instead of resorting to a journal, which as it always has. But I feel like I'm getting back in touch with my teenage self in terms of making sure that I write every day.

I feel like oftentimes too, a lot of the times with mixed media and photography the visuals are captured, but not so much of what you're actually thinking about in those moments.

One hundred percent. And it's so funny too, I think my mom had found an old middle school journal and I was reading it the other day and it was so funny. Just the jots of us talking about a substitute teacher or some boy in my class, which I would have never thought of today had I not read that piece of writing. So I feel like I owe it to 50 year old me to be as honest at 26.

What were some of your earliest memories when it comes to your writing?

I remember the earliest memory I have of writing ever. I used to keep a diary on me as a child, and I just have this vision of me sitting in my room in a kind of fetal position. I don't remember being sad, but I remember writing in this diary, and I don't know what I was writing about, but my brain wants to go to who I saw myself in the future. And I swear I saw myself marrying a man with blonde hair and blue eyes, and it was this fantasy that I'd always write about. It was ridiculous, but I think you're allowed to be ridiculous as a little kid. I noticed how much I became attentive in class when it was literature class, and I think it was like the fourth or fifth grade is when you start learning about poetry.

And I remember having a really good time with that. And you get to high school and then you start really reading the classics and you have more creative freedom to write about what you're feeling rather than a Cat in the Hat poem. God, I was so in love with my literature teacher in class, and that was really when I felt like that I found something that worked for me. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't know anything, but I knew that writing felt good. And of course, this is the age of Tumblr, and I have this space where no one knows who I am online, and I can just throw it all in there. I was probably 16 reading Sylvia Plath for the first time, and I'm like, "oh my God, this is everything."

This is so not like anyone I knew. I grew up in a super hillbilly redneck town where I can't even think of one person on the top of my head that had a love for writing. So it almost felt like I was living a double life where I was trying to keep up with this, whatever the zeitgeist is at the time. I wouldn't say popular in school, but trying to fit in while also writing and posting these things online where people who don't know me see a much more sensitive side of who I am rather than this goofy side that I'm showing to my classmates. And from there on out, I knew immediately, I knew when I was 17 that I wanted to write a book, but I don't even think I actually thought it was possible. I know that I wanted to do it, but I didn't think that I could actually do it.

You assume that you'd have to be really into the world of academia and have a college degree to write a book. I had no idea what the process of all of that was. So I was working towards my first book and I was like, I guess I'll self-publish this. I don't know what else to do. And everything just kind of snowballed from there on out. I'm really lucky that I get to do what I love. But I don't think I knew that it would kind of go this far if I'm being honest. I probably didn't think it would at all.

Is there a place you go to when looking for inspiration?

Away from anyone I know. I mean, actually, no. I don't think I go anywhere looking for inspiration. I think I found what works for me is the mundane, and seeking that in an everyday scenario is really easy. It just feels like I let life happen to me and I figure out what to do with it. But in terms of writing, I say getting away from anyone I know because I'm so easily distracted and I need to be alone in order to write.

I think I found what works for me is the mundane, and seeking that in an everyday scenario is really easy. It just feels like I let life happen to me and I figure out what to do with it.

Last question I have is: would you rather relive your happiest memory or forever erase your worst one?

Probably relive my happiest memory. There's this movie called Afterlife, and the concept is that you have all these people who've died and they get sent to a waiting room, and in this waiting room there's somebody across from them saying, you have three days to figure out what your best memory while you were alive was. And then we'll record that memory for you and you'll get to watch in front of you and then you'll pass over to the next life. You had some people who were like, "I didn't have a happy life. I have no happy memories." There were other people who were like, "oh God, how could I choose?" I had so many, and I would like to believe that that would be a beautiful way to take one's final breath and leave this earth. And I think it would be unfair to erase your worst one because without knowing, I think there is no good without experiencing bad. You wouldn't know how good something feels if you didn't know how devastating something once felt to you.

Culture

Mowalola x Miss Sixty Launch with H. Lorenzo

I swing my legs over the ropes that guard the VIP entrance. Always over (I’m 5’10), never under. I’m late to the H. Lorenzo x Mowalola event, and the line is wrapped around the block. I don’t want to be an asshole, but I hate waiting in lines; it just ruins everything.

“Hey, my friend is DJing right now. My name should be down,” I say.

The youngish security guard looks me up and down. I have made an adventurous choice for this type of crowd. Neon pink hoodie, bright orange vest, my Raimundo jeans, and Jeremy Scott animal print sneakers. I let him take me in and look over his shoulder. Hmmm… I will be swathed in darkness when he lets me in. Dark night, dark clothes, dark makeup, furs, hoods, leather accessories, and sunglasses. I don’t recognize anyone, but it’s hard to tell who anyone is because I can’t see after 8 pm without my glasses. Night blindness. I can still catch a vibe though.

“She’s in the bathroom,” Mr. Guard says, interrupting my squinting.

“Who?,” I ask.

“The woman in charge of the list.”

That’s a drag. I want to dance. Lately, I am going out in the name of music.

“So…can I go in?” I ask.

“Just wait for her to get back.”

That sounded fine. I wait. The outdoor smoking area is packed. I imagine the inside to be a mirror of this, hopefully with people dancing instead of blowing smoke in each other’s eyes.

“You got instagram?” The guard asks me after about ten minutes of flirting.

“Can I go in?” I said.

He laughs. He lets me in the event without a wristband.

Inside, I understand why the other guard was gone for so long. I made a mental note to not drink too much liquid, the bathroom line is almost as long as the line outside. The party is popping, far from a flop.

I push through the crowd solo, following the speakers to the DJ booth. The immersive visuals provided me with enough light to make out Mowalola in a gold bikini and her low rise denim. My pulse races like the horse printed on the front of her coochie. That’s the point of the collection, obviously.

My hips swing around before I head towards the open bar. I smile to myself, noting that it’s a mezcal forward menu. I see a drink that disgusts me so I order it without hesitation. It’s a mezcal coffee concoction. My heart ’s ran through already, why not go all in? I head back to dance when I hear Shigecki’s set start. I’m jumping around, sweating, and when I pause for a beat I let out a yelp. There are strippers working poles opposite and behind the DJ booth. Good. Events should be sexy.

I end the night smoking my friend’s Korean strawberry cigarettes taking in the air of cool- when a man comes up to me wild-eyed exclaiming that we look just like one another. I look at him- no, not at all. I turn slowly, remembering what I should be doing: listening to DJ G2G’s set. Back inside, she is playing reggaeton type beats with lasers beaming out of her headphones (I want these). A rave in it of herself.

Too bad all the events end at 2 am in LA.

Culture

Vans Pipe Masters 2024

On the first night, Steve Van Doren and the Vans team hosted the heat draw for the competitors at a casual backyard barbecue. The son of Vans’ co-founder Paul Van Doren, Steve has worked in the family business for decades, and is now known as the Ambassador of Fun. Wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a cowboy hat made out of old shoes, he was definitely dressed for the part. The surfers, along with family and friends gathered in a relaxed setting as 40 men’s and 20 women’s names were drawn from a shoebox. The competition would run in 3 rounds, the top 4 men and 4 women with the highest scores moving onto the finals. When asked about their strategies, most gave answers along the lines of “get waves.” Refreshingly simple.

After waiting a few days for favorable conditions, the first day of competition kicked off with Women’s Round 1. It was finally time to see Pipeline in action. Banzai Pipeline is known as one of the most dangerous places to surf due to the powerful waves breaking over shallow and sharp reefs. With the potential to crash into the rocky edges or have leashes caught in caves, it takes a ton of skill–-and even more courage–to surf here. No stranger to these risks, the first heat included favorites Caity Simmers and “Queen of Pipeline” Moana Jones Wong, who showed off exactly why they’d been successful here in the past. Midway through the heats, Mother Nature decided to throw in another element as a light drizzle turned into a proper downpour. Rain or shine, the athletes went out unfazed, focused on getting their first points on the board.

After another short day’s break, the competition continued with the women’s second round and the men’s first. The beach was filled with spectators, locals and tourists alike, as the competition was free for all to attend. While fans rooted equally for the women and men, the most popular were the local Hawaiian athletes, which made up about half the competition. The women started off the day again, hyping up the crowd with incredible rides. One ride by Bettylou Sakura Johnson earned the first Bag of Cash of the day– a cash prize (of undisclosed amount) awarded in a brown paper bag to any surfer that pulls off a wow moment, excites the crowd, and pulls off something spectacular regardless of what the conditions might look like.

Winds picked up as the men’s competition began and two strategies quickly emerged: an aggressive approach, targeting any decent waves to build small scores; and a patient approach, waiting for the perfect wave to chase a high single score. Even the waves that were unrideable were a spectacle in itself. The sheer size, illustrated by the length of surfboards riding up and over, and the following crash of white water spray was hypnotizing. Then imagining having to experience it out on the water, duck diving under or being lifted over, brought a renewed respect for the surfers.

After watching these early rounds, it was time for office to head back to the cold. With the competition officially spanning from December 8-20, it seemed the forecast was gearing up for some massive waves— and it didn’t disappoint. Following from afar through Vans’ Instagram and live updates, we saw the full extent of what it means to surf at Pipeline. After a series of electrifying and daring surfs, the 2024 winners were crowned: Erin Brooks and Nathan Florence.

The thrill of watching top athletes compete at the highest level of their sport, even remotely, never fails to inspire. Few sports surrender so completely to the forces of nature as surfing does. And at its core, surfing is all about having a deep respect for the ocean—its unpredictable whims, its immense power, and its ever-changing moods.

Culture

The Cost of Queendom

December 17, 2024

One summer afternoon in New York, a few days after their New York premiere of the acclaimed documentary Queendom, office met up with documentary filmmaker Agniia Galdanova and producer Igor Myakotin at a tattoo parlor on the west side of Manhattan. While Agniia received a tattoo of the portmanteau “DOCU CUNT” across her fists, she — unfazed by the needle on her knuckles — answered our questions alongside Igor about the making of the stirring story that has traveled around the world.

One of the opening scenes of Queendom depicts a ritual many of us are all too familiar with in the 21st century. Jenna Marvin, the documentary film’s central subject, takes her friend along with her to take photos for Instagram. When she finds a suitable backdrop, she poses, poses, poses, and then reviews the photos. Dissatisfied, she gives her notes, and then returns to pose, pose, pose again.

By Brook Aster
Photos by Liv Solomon

The ritual may be familiar, but nothing else about the scene — from its setting to its stakes — is ordinary. The backdrop behind Jenna is a sweeping expanse of ice and snow in a small Russian port town called Magadan. Jenna is dressed in drag, but not drag of the Rupaul’s Drag Race variety; her drag has been referred to as “creature drag.” Her signature white face paint, platform heels and surrealist costumes, with their exaggerated sculptural proportions and use of duct tape and repurposed items, catches the ire of her neighbors and the love of online admirers alike. Jenna eventually accrued a following on social media for her public and technically illegal drag performances, which often involved little more than her walking or being in public spaces but nevertheless were often met with abuse and threats of imprisonment.

But when Agniia first encountered Jenna, she hadn’t yet reached the level of virality that would eventually come in the years to follow. The filmmaker was researching different drag performers in Russia for her sophomore project, which she thought would be a docuseries, when she heard from a friend about a young drag queen from Magadan. “I was like, this is impossible. I have to meet this person,” Agniia remembers. “And I could not actually go meet her because I was in Moscow and she was in Saint Petersburg, so I sent a friend of mine with whom I’d been studying with in film school, and she went and filmed the sample.” The simple video, showing Jenna and her friend getting dressed up for a party, struck something in Agniia. The drag was an earlier, more prototypical version of the style Jenna is now known for; less duct tape and ornamentation, but still that signature striking makeup. “Something sparked. I knew I just had to stick to this feeling,” Agniia says. She decided to turn the docuseries into a documentary solely focused on Jenna.

Around that time, the entire world came to a grinding halt: the onset of COVID-19 pandemic had just led to lockdowns around the globe. With only a couple thousand followers on social media at that point in time, Jenna had tried to branch out and connect with other drag artists in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, but faced rejection; her drag was extremely unconventional, and not even other drag artists quite understood it. “I think we found each other at the right moment, because nobody knew what to do, how to cope with all this,” Agniia says. “Jenna was saying that she was lost, and she also didn't know how to develop her art next.”

Unlike some of the other artists Agniia had initially researched, Jenna didn’t need much convincing to allow the camera into her life. “[Especially] after COVID came, there wasn't really [any] drag in my life,” Jenna recounts when I speak to her later over Zoom. “I realized that what drag is for me is not just a costume, a dress, something that you leave, that you take off and then in the dead of the night you put back on. Later, I understood that this is who I am, that I am art and I am drag, and that this is way bigger and more important than just clothing or costume.”

[LEFT TO RIGHT: Agniia Galdanova, Jenna Marvin, Igor Myakotin]

When it came time to move into production stages, Agniia sent a clip to Igor, who had been referred to her by a past colleague. When Igor saw the footage, he was similarly struck by Jenna — and even more struck to find out she shared his small hometown of Magadan. “It was just so fateful to know that I also come from this town, and I've never seen it through this cinematic lens, through the vision that Agniia has,” he says. “I was mesmerized by the footage, mesmerized by Jenna. I thought to myself, I have to do everything I can [for us] to work together, whatever the collaboration is gonna be.”

The two followed Jenna for over three years; Agniia first relocated to St. Petersburg, where Jenna had taken up residence after leaving her grandparents’ home in Magadan, and later Jenna moved in with Agniia in her home in Moscow. All the while, Igor and his team worked remotely from the United States to meet Agniia’s production needs. Inevitably, with all their time spent together, Agniia and Jenna became close.

“There is an unspoken rule in documentary filmmaking that you have to keep this line, and you can’t overcome certain boundaries,” Agniia explains. “In my first film, it was not an easy subject [to do this with] as well. I was following a family for seven months, and [we became] close, but I always was trying to keep my distance, and was constantly thinking about it. How much should I say? How much should I give?” But as she got to know Jenna, it became clear that this time, that distance wouldn’t be possible. “With Jenna almost from the very beginning, I was like, fuck it. That’s not going to work with this one. I'm going to break this rule 100%. I never regretted it, because that's actually what built up the trust that is there.”

As Jenna's public performances continued and began to garner more public attention, her online audience multiplied. Among her virtual admirers was French fashion maven Michèle Lamy, who would eventually sign onto Queendom as an executive producer. Lamy's discovery of Jenna led to an invitation to walk in the Rick Owens show in Paris — her first time modeling, and her first time leaving Russia in her life. Of course, Agniia and her camera followed. But most of their excursions were not so glamorous; many of Jenna's performances shown in the documentary were undertaken at a real risk to her physical safety, and by extension, to the safety of Agniia. But neither of them were daunted.

I remember who I am. And this is what carries me through this life.

After all, Jenna was used to both taking risks and documenting them well before she was the subject of a film; she and her friends long filmed the often impassioned, sometimes violent reactions of strangers and policemen to their mere existence in public spaces in drag. And after a protest performance in which she wrapped herself in the Russian flag, Jenna was kicked out of beauty school, her last attempt at a practical route before pursuing her drag as a full time venture.

The only time Agniia tried to dissuade her was on Paratrooper’s Day, a Russian military holiday often characterized by the drunk soldiers roaming the streets. The risk for violence was especially high. “On Paratroopers Day, people say you can't come out in skinny jeans or with nail polish,” Jenna describes. “[I think] you should do the opposite. You should really make a statement and come out wearing what you want to wear. I think that clothes, what we wear, is really at some point beyond our psyche, our mind, our understanding. It is as if it's a certain kind of spice that is enticing you and you follow the scent of that spice and you don't see anything else except that scent and you follow it. That's how I see it.”

“I was like, ‘girl, maybe we should not do that,’” Agniia says. “Igor was stressing out and she told us, ‘well, you don't need to follow me. I'm gonna go and do it. I don't care if you're coming or not.’” In the end, Jenna ventured out for her performance anyway, protesting the then-recent invasion of Ukraine. Agniia followed. Not shown in the film is that the two were arrested, and managed to talk the police out of their arrest.

Not too long after, she would have to leave Russia again, this time moving for Paris for good; the film follows her struggles to get a visa in time to leave the country after the onset of the war. “It's already been three years that I've been in France, and it is important for me to understand and remember who I am, and to remember that pain, those moments when we were back in Russia doing drag, fighting with the police and law enforcement,” Jenna says. “It is important that this resistance continues and that those voices are not being silenced. Yes, here there’s much more freedom, there are pride parades and queer people can get married, but this is an illusion because there are also places where you cannot get married and you cannot enjoy the same freedoms. I cling to who I am, who I was from the very beginning. I remember who I am. And this is what carries me through this life.”

“Meeting Jenna gave me hope for the future of the country, because governments come and go, people in power come and go, but the generations change at the same time,” Igor says. “So it warms my heart to see that someone like her came from somewhere like that. If I saw her back then at a similar age, it would be even more personal. I think I would’ve accepted myself as gay quicker, and I wouldn't be nervous or closed and not open to the world or myself… Working with this project also meant that we were amplifying the voices of many, many people who couldn't speak like Jenna could.”

For Agniia, the honor of telling Jenna's story is only paralleled by the honor of having her in her life. “We found each other,” Agniia says. “And what I learned from Jenna is so precious; about life, about art, about surviving. And I appreciate it a lot. This film grew so much larger than just a documentary, because I have a family now, a working family.”

Queendom is now available to stream on Apple TV.