The NYC Russian Neighborhood Where Anora is Set Sees the Movie as an Opportunity

When accepting her Best Actress Oscar, Mikey Madison thanked a neighborhood in New York that rarely appears on travel guides: “Thank you very much, Brighton Beach, for lending us your beautiful backdrop and incredible community.” Sean Baker—director, producer, screenwriter, and editor of Anora (2024)—told Condé Nast Traveler that the film was born out of his desire to shoot in that peculiar area of the city. 

Hopping on the Q line, about thirty minutes away from Prospect Park, we find a set of streets where the signs are in the Cyrillic alphabet and the waiters address you in Russian. That’s where Ani, a 23-year-old stripper and the movie’s protagonist, lives. “My grandmother never learned English,” she says when she meets Vanya, the son of a Russian tycoon suddenly infatuated with her. 

Ani’s story is not an anomaly; a significant share of migrants who left the Soviet Union ended up creating their own neighborhood on the outskirts of New York in the 1970s. With time, a closed community developed and, unlike other migrant districts in the city, seemed to turn its back to the rest of the city. There, Russians coexist with Ukrainians, Georgians with Azerbaijanis, Armenians—like Vanya’s bodyguards—and, more recently, people from Central Asia and a new wave of Russians fleeing Putin’s regime. 

This coastal area of South Brooklyn has become one of the few conservative bastions of a deeply progressive city—around two-thirds of Brighton Beach voted for Trump in the most recent election. Many Russian LGTBI dissidents who settle there are attracted by the idea of keeping their language and culture, but ultimately face discrimination from their own community. “They rent a room in Brighton Beach and work in a Russian-speaking business, so they need to get back to the closet or even never leave it,” explains Dr. Alexandra Novistskaya, who did her PhD on the sociology of the neighborhood.

With the film’s Academy Award triumph—with statuettes for best film, director, actress, original screenplay, and editing—some see an opening to revitalize the neighborhood. Once a talent pool for Russian pop stars, Brighton Beach’s vivid cultural scene has lost its artistic momentum in recent years as its population grew older. The attention generated by the film can be an opportunity to revert that tendency.

“We are working on how to capitalize on Anora’s success, maybe do tours or a screening of the movie in Coney Island,” explains Maxim Ibadov, a resident of Brighton Beach and a progressive activist who is currently organizing the 9th Brighton Beach Pride. “I am actually hoping it’s going to help Pride and also spotlight the problems the community has.”

Ibadov, who is also the first drag performer in the area, acknowledges a complicated personal relationship with the neighborhood, but feels a sense of pride when watching the movie. “I really enjoyed seeing all those places that I grew up in.” 

Many of these sites can be seen when the plot takes us outside, especially when Ani and the bodyguards have to look for Vanya around the neighborhood. The characters search in iconic Brighton Beach establishments and also the neighboring Coney Island. They storm into the kitchen and interrupt the party at the Tatiana’s Grill, a local gastronomic icon. They shatter the glass of the colorful Williams Candy, an old-fashioned candy shop. They pass in front of the Cyclone, the star roller coaster of New York’s most famous amusement park. And they loudly argue while walking the length of the seaside promenade, one of the most recognizable portrayals of South Brooklyn. In the days after the Oscars, local media passionately celebrated the awards and collected the enthusiastic reactions of the owners of those establishments, all of them happy about the business this could attract. 

This joy, however, is not unanimous. Some Ukrainians have expressed their discontent for extra-cinematic reasons. They believe Anora has given opportunities to Russian actors who have not positioned themselves against the invasion of Ukraine that recently reached the three-year mark. 

Yura Borisov, who was nominated as a supporting actor for his depiction of a sentimental bodyguard, has starred in films considered to be Kremlin propaganda and is a celebrity in Russia. One of the movies was the controversial AK-47 (Konstantin Buslov, 2020), the story of the assault rifle inventor, which was partially shot in the illegally annexed Crimea. Since the start of the war, Borisov has not appeared in other military films. Mark Eydelshteyn, known for months as the Russian Timothée Chalamet, has made no comments for or against the war, allowing him to travel smoothly between Russia and the United States. 

A week before the Oscars ceremony, screenwriter Michael Idov published a New York Times guest essay in which he considered Anora the best film of 2024 but asked that it not win the Academy Award, highlighting the hundreds of actors who have had to go into exile for criticizing Putin’s regime.

Some Russians living in the US have criticized the fact Sean Baker perpetuates the stereotype of the Mafia oligarch, which they consider an overused trope. They feel that the movie was a missed opportunity to present their community with a more complex and nuanced identity.

Maxim Ibadov understands both criticisms and although he admits that the plot is not part of the daily life of the neighborhood, the resident is convinced that Sean Baker has managed to capture the overall tone of the community. “It’s a good representation because it’s very real. It shows us the way that we are.” The activist also celebrates the film’s portrayal of prostitution. “Sex work has been part of Brighton Beach and Coney Island history.” Even with some division, most stripper dancers agree that the representation is positive. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, former sex worker Tiff Smith praises the film’s portrayal of Ani. “We’re seeing a fully developed character doing sex work without their profession defining them,” she says. 

The same principle applies to Brighton Beach. “Instead of using the community as an iconic backdrop, Anora actually portrays the depth of the neighborhood,” Ibadov concludes.  

Editor

Carolina Xavier, Administrative Editor-in-Chief

Pau Torres Pagès

Pau Torres Pagès (he/him) is a first-year MA candidate in Journalism and International Relations at NYU. He received his BA in Journalism with a minor in Law from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. He has experience as a radio, print, and online journalist and has been a staff reporter at Diari de Barcelona and the Spanish National Radio. As a freelancer, he has covered events such as the UN Climate Conference and the Cannes Film Festival and also worked as a fact-checker for the European Parliament elections. Additionally, he has experience in international organizations, having spent stints at the European Parliament and the United Nations Development Programme. Also interested in academia, he has worked as a Research Assistant at several universities.