Zakhar opens his eyes

In 2022, Russia saw the release of a TV series unique in its boldness of subject matter: Zakhar Opens His Eyes. Director Pavel Krivchik was not afraid to tackle issues that are so pressing for the queer community, such as emigration, same-sex marriage, awareness of sexual orientation, coming out, and much more, albeit in a comedic format.

The title refers to Guzel Yakhina's novel Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes, only here we are faced with the problems of sexual minorities rather than ethnic minorities, which have long been hushed up in Russian cinema. The main character is Zakhar, a simple Cossack and a staunch representative of "correct," "traditional" values (played by Sergei Bondarchuk, son of the famous director), who breaks up with his fiancée Alena, who leaves him right before the wedding. The heartbroken groom tries to find the reason for her unexpected decision, and his search brings him together with Alena's friend Zhenya (Vladimir Kanukhin), a guy with an unconventional orientation. The rest of the film is devoted to the emergence and development of friendship between two such dissimilar people, during which gay Yevgeny opens the eyes of Zakhar and his homophobic friends to many prejudices and stereotypes, and helps them (and the audience) understand that we are all people with similar problems, who want to love and be loved, understood and heard.

The series was originally created for TNT, but, as reported by BBC sources, the project was quickly shut down (which is not surprising). Other platforms also rejected the series with such a controversial theme, but surprisingly, the project was completed despite all the obstacles. The first two episodes (uncensored) were shown in 2022 at the Original+ festival, and the entire male cast even received an award (the actors were called on stage and announced as a "gay Cossack ensemble" — it's hard to imagine, but this was possible in our country just three years ago). After the screening, the series did not go unnoticed in the media: for example, Rossiyskaya Gazeta wrote about it, singling out Kanukhin and Bondarchuk as one of the best film duos of the year. 

The rest of the story is sad. The actual version of the series was never released on any platform and soon disappeared even from search engines. Later, the series underwent significant censorship changes (for example, Zhenya's ex-boyfriend, the official Pal Palych, brilliantly played by Maxim Lagashkin, disappeared, and Yevgeny himself was reworked into a MILF hunter and gigolo). The new version was dubbed "How Zakhar's Friends Got Married" and released on Kinopoisk in 2024. The bitter irony is that the series not only lost its core idea and main message, for which it was created, but also turned into the very thing it was fighting against. In "Zakhar Opens His Eyes," an entire episode is devoted to how Zhenya accepted himself and mustered the courage to come out to his parents. At first, the guy tried to pass off his girlfriend Alena as his fiancée, but then Zakhar said the key words to him: "You can't lie your whole life. You can't fool yourself." But that's exactly the choice the creators of the series made — to force Zhenya to lie, pretend to be straight, and deny his identity — not just in one episode, but throughout the entire project. /

Fortunately, after a year of persistent searching and thanks to the efforts of a whole group of people, justice has been restored. The original version has been found, and I am ready to share it with anyone who wants it—write to me on Telegram, @ponnangelina. I am also the administrator of the fan community of the lead actor, Vladimir Kanukhin: https://vk.com/vk_fangroup. The actor has also participated in other queer projects: the LGBT drama Outlaw, the desktop play Zhenya in the Kitchen (this Zhenya is also gay and talks about coming out and relationships with guys), as well as in a photo exhibition by Dutch queer photographer Alex Avgud.