November 2024: Recipient 050, Ira Putilova
The 50th recipient of the Creatives Grant is Ira Putilova. Ira is a director and editor based in London. Ira sent over a link to their documentary: Bender Defenders, about a queer Muay Thai club in East London. It’s one of those artworks that is about one thing on the face of itself, and then it slices through to something deeper. It’s about community, vulnerability, when you’re training hard with other people you see them at this point of exhaustion, some true essence of their self emerges. It’s funny that most coversation around sport or fitness doesn’t really engage with that: the raw or fundamental humanity that is exposed in repeated exertion, in response to fear, pain, tension, impact. That vulnerability is kind of something you need to offer up if you ever want true connection, to be truly seen for the person you are, to be held, known, loved. I wasn’t expecting a philosophical enquiry into the human condition when i pressed play on a documentary about a queer Muay Thai club, but Ira’s documentary is – not to be dramatic, but it is genuinely profound. Unfortunately we can’t host a screener link, but it’ll be screened at the St. Louis International Film Festival and the Norwich Film Festival both in November – hopefully if you catch it in either of those places, you find it as profound and moving as we did!
BIO
Ira Putilova is a non-binary director and editor living in London. Born and raised in Russia, Ira was a member of several Russian art-activist groups and directed films that condemned state crimes, police brutality and violence against queer people. Since Ira had to flee persecution by Russian authorities and claim political asylum in the UK in 2013, they continued to both direct and edit a body of work that explores themes of gender, bodies, poverty, migration, belonging and queerness. Ira was selected for Doc Leipzig Short’n’Sweet 2020, Grierson DocLab’s Editing Scheme 2021 and IDFAcademy 2024 and has worked as assistant editor and editor on high-end Netflix, Channel 4, ITV, and Sky documentaries. Ira worked on CHERNOBYL: THE LOST TAPES which won several BAFTAs in 2023, whilst LOVE LANGUAGES, a Netflix short film that Ira co-edited, was long-listed for a BAFTA. Alongside their debut documentary feature LOOK AT ME AND THEN UP, Ira directed BENDER DEFENDERS, an award-winning short documentary about members of a queer Muay Thai club in East London.
LINKS
- You can find Ira on Instagram
- This is the Bad Table Manners website, a film production company Ira is a mamber of
- This is the Bender Defenders Instagram, if you want to stay tuned for updates on where it’ll be screened next :)