Beyond the Rainbow (Documentary) (Kosovo)

When I came across this documentary I was genuinely curious because I really had no idea what life is like for gay people in the former Yugoslavia region. The film gives Kosovo's homosexual community a platform to speak about their experiences and the discrimination they face, while also bringing in voices from religious leaders, psychologists, analysts and everyday citizens. It came out in 2007 so it's almost 19 years old now and things may well have changed since then, but the whole point of this documentary at the time was to look at the harsh realities of gay life in Kosovo and ask how much longer people should have to stay hidden, living in fear of their own identities.

A big chunk of the film is given over to four gay men who sit on stools, silhouetted in shadow to protect who they are, and talk about their feelings, their fears, the humiliations they've faced and what they hope for. There's also a lesbian and a bisexual man. A lot of the story actually gets told between the lines, in the way these people make excuses for how others treat them, in the way they explain themselves in terms that gay people in western countries would never even think to use, in the way some of them hide behind the label of bisexuality as a kind of smokescreen both for others and for themselves. Other voices come in too, social workers, religious figures. One lesbian who speaks really clearly and powerfully about her situation says, in direct contrast to what the religious spokesmen are saying, that heaven and hell exist right here on earth. And then there are these interviews with young straight men on the street who mock calls for gay rights with real cruelty, and those moments are a sharp, frightening reminder of just how much physical danger the people sitting in those shadows are actually in.

What stays with me is this idea of how wildly different things can be within the same continent. Kosovar gay people can literally look across towards western Europe and see what others have managed to build and fight for, and that must be equal parts comfort and torture. I actually visited Kosovo a while back and have genuinely warm memories of the place but I never even thought to look into whether there were any open bars or any kind of visible gay life there. I have a feeling homophobia is probably still pretty deeply rooted in that society even today. This is a brave and quietly powerful little film and it makes you hope that someone picks it back up and makes a follow up showing what, if anything, has shifted in the last 20 years. (5.5/10)