Quarantime
The movie Quarantime was filmed during the recent quarantine. “My girlfriend, who stars in the movie and I were in lockdown and started to give into the fatigue of not working and expressing our artistry. While, watching the news embedding panic in people and fear taking over, we felt the need to create something out of this situation while being in it.”
El Amor Que Te Llevas (The Love You Take)
Password: festival
“I believe that I’ve never felt so scared in my life as when I realized I didn’t have much time left to tell my mother what I had recently discovered about myself. Not because I felt necessary that the world knew if I preferred to love a guy instead of a girl, but because I was afraid she wouldn’t know that part of me before she died. She was the world to me. So there I was, sitting next to her, afraid to tell her I was gay and she being afraid to die: we both learnt that we shouldn’t fear any.”
Jay
Jay is a story that reflects the Taiwan I grew up in; one in which queer people existed, but did not have an established foothold in mainstream political discourse or media. And, so, Jay is the story of a young boy awakening to his sexuality, in confusion and isolation, without this frame of reference.
Specchio
Password: premiere34
Specchio focuses on the fear of the void left by the end of a relationship. It is a visual and introspective story aimed to recovery the resources of oneself to face the fear, to overcome it and rebuild it.
So long Paris!
Fear may lead to overprotecting your children, especially when it’s time to come out to them! That’s the tagline for So long Paris!, a bittersweet comedy about a fanciful and rebellious pre-teen who ends up accepting her parents’ divorce after an unexpected encounter with her dad’s male lover.
The graffiti
Password: seethemovie
“Stupor in the city: this morning, someone sprayed a graffiti on the wall of a historical monument! The main people concerned, the Mayor and Dr. Robin, will have to explain…”
Oh Yeah
Oh Yeah is an open letter from a young woman who explores the joy of giving pleasure to herself and eventually invites others to join her in doing so too. She discovers that the body is very much like a playground, a place where sex can be playful.
Doubts
Password: DISTRIBUTION_LINEUPshorts
Mari Carmen visits Rosa, her sex worker friend, after a weird encounter with a common friend. Mari Carmen needs Rosa’s advice … but that’s not all she needs.
A Separation
A Separation is a video/performance piece of personal mourning of the pain of forced migrant family separations in Trump’s America.
J-O-A-N
“J-O-A-N is a very personal and subjective film that explores the non-binary condition through my own name as a concept.
When I started to think about my transition, I obviously thought a lot about the subject of the name. When I really understood what the non-binary experience was for me, I realised that my own name was a fundamental element in the process. This work is an ode to the name that my parents decided to give me and how it coincidentally is a neutral name; feminine or masculine depending on the language in which it is pronounced.”
Dominique
Dominique was filmed on a small island at the mouth of the Amazon River called Cotijuba. We are invited to meet Dominique, whose mother raised her three transgender daughters on her own. On the way to visit her mother, Dominique reminisces about her life as a survivor of prostitution and police brutality due to unconditional love, understanding, and affection. Brazil is the most lethal country for trans people in the world, especially for people of colour – particularly women – who bear the overwhelming brunt of fatal violence.
Hands and Wings
Password: TQAF2020
An adolescent boy ‘Woo-Sung’ is unable to move his hands freely due to physical disabilities; so, he can’t solve his sexual desires alone. His mother tries to help him, but one day he refuses mother’s help.
PULSE
PULSE is a short, experimental, dance film which explores the impact of hate crime on a community and the fear of touch when exploring sexuality in LGBTQI+ communities.
Sauce
Sauce aims to give a voice to those who are polyamorous or desire an alternative relationship model. It questions the role of commitment in the modern-day and whether it is possible to be with more than one person. The script was based on improvisations between the two writers, Avigail and Daniel, who shot the whole film in one take at a real McDonalds.
Paperthin
“As a queer female filmmaker from a third-world country, I want this film to be both a tribute to the immensely strong resilience of queer people and also a reconceptualisation of what migration means in today’s context.”
Love – Lord – Minister
Love – Lord – Minister aims to explore the stereotypes about gender labels and raise awareness on gender identity, to change the pervasive mindset and lead the audience to think critically in a different way. The poetic fashion of the film presents a person struggling with their own ego, self and super-ego, their own identity and gender labels in a different and almost opposite world.
Once I Tried to Kiss
Once I Tried to Kiss is an exploration of how an asexual person feels like during an approximately one minute kiss. There is such an attempt because there is social pressure on what one must experience sexually and the fear of not fitting in with the stereotypical teenager image. A kiss in this context carries with it many different negative reactions and the feeling of disgust from such an uncomfortably wet sensation. The dissatisfaction is finally embraced and the kiss comes to an end.
Knock Knock
Knock Knock is a dance film fantasising lurking fears. Beware.
EMERGE
Mother and daughter are immersed in an absurd and animalistic everyday. Her apparent habitual stillness will be affected by the presence of a person outside the binomial who will alter the order known by the daughter so far. Through erotic experimentation, your mental limits will crumble, and you will take your body to a new state.
Black Sheep Escape
The video focuses on what we can not comprehend, on what is different, on what belongs to a group other than ours. In a region like the Balkans, where multiculturalism is a reality, the idea of being different in all its manifestations – culture, religion, sexual preference or gender – is a fact that cannot be overlooked, maybe because these differences lead to constant disputes and conflicts.
To Let the Body Grow
Password: aboutgender25
Animated testimonies of people with different gender identities who relate their life experiences and create one voice with a lot of voices.
Kiko’s Saints
Warning: contains sexually explicit content
Kiko, a Japanese illustrator on assignment in France, gets suddenly overwhelmed by a strange inspiration when she realises she’s been spying on a gay couple on the beach next to the chapel where she’s working.
A Man Doing Man Things
A Man Doing Man Things explore fear from both sides when those who fear others for their differences become the frightening ones. It shows a society where it’s easier not to be yourself to live peacefully in the world. The film explains that fear is based on ignorance.
I Did Not Choose
Gulce, a young woman from Turkey talks about her experiences as a lesbian in a conservative society. She describes her feelings about her identity, her fears about coming out to her family and friends, their reactions and her wishes for the future.
I Am Her
Password: a_rose_is_a_rose
Crossing of boundaries and borders, transgressions – in the strict sense of the word – are among the fear inducing tropes of current times. The diffusion of gender definitions and transnational migrations frighten those whose feelings of safety depend on strict separations, a feeling of homeliness that can only emerge within said boundaries and definitions. I Am Her is a paradoxical intervention in these spaces, more concerned with a creeping osmosis than the sudden shock of dread.
