In heated, often hostile debates about homosexuality, trans and sex work, a young Armenian family tries to assert some kind of queer normality for themselves and others.
Carabina, a gay artist, transvestite, and ex-sex worker, is married to Hasmik, a heterosexual lawyer. They have just become parents and are facing a dilemma: Should they raise their child in Armenia, where 93% of the population is against homosexuality?
In Blind Date 2.0, Paul once again receives the filmmaker at his home – this time in order to shoot a sex date. Far from the spectacularly pornographic, but also from amateur porn, there is room to first of all clarify preferences, and consensus is established. Since both men are rather on the passive side and the double dildo fails to win over the visitor, they agree on a blowjob and find a practicable middle ground in mutual masturbation. Blind Date 2.0 does not aim at producing arousal but constitutes a doubly empathetic approach – that of the filmmaker to his protagonist, and that of the protagonist to his rather monosyllabic visitor. In targeted, unspectacular framing, the film captures the sex-positive in the ordinary, in the non-standardised, and above all in the context of social interaction: comprehensible, moving, and with a memorable cigarette afterwards.
Celestial Queer: The Life, Work and Wonder of James MacSwain
Celestial Queer: The Life, Work and Wonder of James MacSwain
Sue Johnson, Eryn Foster
DOK Film Market Exclusives
Documentary Film
Canada
2023
72 minutes
English
International Premiere open
Synopsis
Celestial Queer is a 72-minute feature documentary celebrating James MacSwain, a beloved queer artist, animator and gay rights activist. Born and raised in the “backwater” of Atlantic Canada, MacSwain has been making ground-breaking experimental films, animations and provocative art performances for more than half a century.
Through a combination of playful verité and rarely-seen footage from his archive, Celestial Queer accompanies MacSwain and a revolving cast of characters as he revisits everything from the sites of some of his most recognised works to the rocky tidal shores of Nova Scotia. The film also includes rarely-seen footage from the famous 1984 rooftop “Phallus Performance” during which MacSwain was almost arrested and charged with obscenity. New work has been made specifically in conjunction with the film, while also including restorations of over a dozen of MacSwain's 16mm films.
Jim's effusive character, prolific work, and community organising have inspired generations of artists to be fearlessly themselves. Celestial Queer now introduces audiences to one of Canada's best-kept secrets – an artist who is effortlessly charming, engagingly prolific, and subversive to his surrealist core.
Frieda, Viola and Jilou are three of the most successful women in the male-dominated breakdance world. At different points in their careers, each of them faces serious challenges.
Who says that women can't break dance? Frieda, Viola and Jilou are three of the most successful women in the male-dominated breaking world. The movie shows their tough training methods, their dance performances at international battles and their personal backgrounds that drive them to fulfil their dreams. The three friends are at different points in their sports careers and thus face new challenges and decisions that will change their lives.
B-girl Jilou is at the height of her career and counts as one of the best in the world. With her extraordinary determination, she is currently winning one battle after the other, whereas Frieda is still grappling with an injury. As a B-girl ever since the emergence of break dancing, she has to come to terms with the fact that her advancing age means she can no longer rely on her body and has to find a life outside of her professional sports career. B-girl Viola is focused on becoming recognised as a dancer and combines breaking with modern dance. For her, every battle is equally a fight for her identity as an artist.
Dancing Heartbeats is an inspiring portrait of courage, endurance, the power of one's passion, and what it means to be a young woman who is fighting for acknowledgement and equal rights.
Vasyl is a former ski jumper who now works as a coach at the ski jumping school for children in the Carpathians. He is a loner, and sports is his whole life. Zhenya is Vasyl's favourite trainee. In the last 5 years, he spends a lot of energy making her a champion. With her success, his dreams can come true. When the girl grows up, she decides to try in another area of life not connected to sports. Vasyl's work seems to no longer make sense. But he finds the strength to start all over again.
Danielle's raw-filmed diary and Moe's vibrant queer memory of living with a sexually transmitted infection, ignite a collaborative exploration of bodies, intimacy, and shame.
A Beirut rooftop conversation about living with sexually transmitted infections opens into a cinematic dialogue, as Danielle and Moe draw raw and vibrant images from their personal experiences. Danielle filmed herself in sober and melancholic images to grasp what is going on, while Moe plays with memories and sensations of a queer body “invaded” by a virus.
While they engage with five actresses and actors to embody the testimonies of individuals who also lived with STIs, “forbidden” stories begin to exist and enter a collaborative exploration of intimacy, bodies, stigma and shame.
Gender transition is no different than any other human change. It has its ups and downs, scary, funny, strange, surprising, and frustrating little moments that are rarely talked about. This short film visually explores these moments through the eyes of Espi – a 24-year-old protagonist who just went through the transition.
This impressionist hybrid documentary traces the oyster through its many life cycles in New York, once the world's oyster capital. Now their spectre haunts the city through queer characters embodying ancient myth, discovering the overlooked history and biology of the bivalve that built the city. As environmentalists restore them to the harbour, Holding Back the Tide looks to the oyster as a queer icon, entangled with nature, with much to teach about our continued survival.
Kings of Kawergosk is a sublime coming-of-age story and exploration of how the magic of childhood can exist even in circumstances of extreme difficulty.
Islam, 10, comes from a family of pro footballers. They try for years to immigrate but are stuck in the opaque UNHCR process. Islam's boyhood imagination helps him escape and become like his Real Madrid heroes by excelling in ever-bigger competitions leading to a city-wide tournament.
Nizar, 14, dreams of pro football in Europe. Believing that smugglers are the only way there, he makes a series of decisions that threaten to sabotage his future. However, through friendship with his coach and counselling, Nizar seeks hope and resilience to play on.
The competition between the two brothers begins at the seaside. As brothers, they know each other best and become each other's most prominent opponents. The younger brother admires his older brother's natural talents. However, the older brother secretly has a “fatal” weakness. In the three rounds of the competition, lasting two minutes each, they express their secrets to each other.
Will the Skateboarding God descend upon a twelve-year-old child? If possible, please let the wind carry its message. Yang has prayed countless times in his heart, but reality doesn't quite match his imagination. “No risk, no reward”. Perhaps a life of skateboarding is destined to be an adventurous journey.
Pippa and Victoria are avid skaters. But there are “NO SKATING” signs at every corner. A street contest is needed to find allies and take back the streets.
Skater-girl Pippa is determined to claim her place in a city that offers little space to skateboarders. Together with her friend Victoria, she goes into town in search of cool spots for street skating, only to find new “No Skating” signs. Back home, Pippa and Victoria come up with a plan to reclaim the streets. They let their imaginations run wild: what if they organise a street contest themselves? And skater-girls rule. On that day, the streets will belong to the skaters. They decide to put this daring plan together themselves, and immediately spring into action.
When the West was still wild there was room there for gay love stories that are missing in today’s history books. A queer rewriting of U.S. pioneer tales.
At the dawn of the American West, two men – one a little-known Creole, the other a closeted historical icon – entered into a volatile relationship that spanned a continent. The Wages of John Pernia is their story: a gay Western romance that emerges from between the lines of official history.
Weightless tells the story of Max' self-realisation in an environment not yet ready for it. What feels like an intimate conversation, reveals a lot about our society.
The essayistic documentary Weightless circles around the topics of identity, mental struggle and self-realisation. It does so through an intimate conversation with the protagonist, Max, about his rather complicated growing up. But Max himself is never shown in the images, which creates a special audio-visual language and unique dynamics of the spoken. The images of significant places charge the spoken with wider meaning and ambivalence.
A tale about the loves and dreams of Reema, a transgender woman in Pakistan.
The film starts in the cinema – the only place where a man can see women on screen. But in sharp contrast to Lollywood is the world in which Reema can subsist as a transgender woman in Pakistan – the Well of Death. A carnival sideshow, where motorcyclists perform stunts and Reema dances to attract consumers. It's the life of a nomad, each town and each show revealing the beauties and complexities of Pakistani society. Reema is convinced to have found the love of her life, Asif. They work together and support each other. It's a utopia that is shattered when Reema suddenly loses Asif. Heartbroken, Reema travels back to her “Guru”, who runs the transgender safe house where she grew up...
DOK Industry is realised with the support of Creative Europe MEDIA Programme of the European Union, the Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM) and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media upon a Decision of the German Bundestag.