AFI EU Showcase ’24: I’m Not Everything I Want to Be

Ironically, no regime was more oppressive and prejudiced when it came to LGBTQ rights than the old USSR and its Warsaw Pact puppet governments. They were also often quite racist. Yet, so-called “progressive” activists still frequently demonstrate under the ominous hammer-and-sickle. They should listen to Libuse Jarcovjakova, because she was there to witness Communist oppression—and she has the pictures to prove it. She also thoroughly documented the underground Czechoslovakian gay scene and her own sexual awakening—sometimes in those same aforementioned photos. Jarcovjakova tells her stories through her photos and journal entries in Klara Tasovska’s documentary, I’m Not Everything I Want to Be, which screens today and tomorrow at this year’s AFI EU Film Showcase.

This film truly would not exist without Jarcovjakova. The images consist entirely of her photos, assembled collage-like to accompany her story, as recounted from her diaries, which she herself reads. However, the film still reflects Tasovska’s filmmaker sensibilities, especially in the selection of photos, which sometimes looks eerily allegorical rather than on-the-nose illustrative. Of course, there are also plenty of candid and even journalistic photos, especially those capturing the Soviet invasion of 1968, crushing the brief liberalization of the Prague Spring.

Although she never says so straight out, it is clear coming to terms with her perhaps evolving sexuality was a decades-long process for Jarcovjakova. Regardless, she immediately felt at home at the T-Club, which she extensively captured in photos until the police confiscated her latest batch, ostensibly as part of the investigation into the murder of a club regular. Obviously, she quickly realized how those photos might endanger her many friends.

Jarcovjakova discovered T-Club through a colleague who also taught Czech to Vietnamese immigrants. Lured by false propaganda, the immigrants believed their Communist “allies” would welcome them warmly with waiting factory job, but they were instead greeted with nativist hostility. Such work was one of the few jobs open to Jarcovjakova, given her background as the daughter of non-conformist artists.

Indeed, Jarcovjakova led quite a dramatic life, eventually immigrating to West Berlin, where she also documented the fall of the Wall. For a while, she enjoyed great commercial success in Japan as a fashion photographer, but do not judge yourself harshly if you are unfamiliar with her work. After all, she labored in obscurity during the years she lived in Czechoslovakia and walked away from her success in Tokyo to pursue more personal, less lucrative work. Frankly, her international star has only recently started rising in a big way.

She never looked like an elegant fashionista either, which is why her many nude self-portraits are so boldly revealing. Indeed, her work is often bracingly honest, whether the subject matter is intimately personal or street-level perspectives on major historical events. Frankly. Jarcovjakova’s international stature is only likely to grow, so stock for Tasovka’s documentary will likely appreciate in tandem. In fact, it might be one of the most artistically constructed non-fiction films of the year. Highly recommended for very mature audiences, I’m Not Everything I Want to Be screens today and tomorrow (12/21 & 12/22), as part of this year’s AFI EU Showcase.