It is 1987 in the Canadian province of Alberta. Robin is the “new kid” at school. “Are you a boy or a girl?” – Robin leaves the question hanging in the air. There are other challenges: arriving in the new environment, forming alliances, coming to grips with the complex relationship with school bully Carter, all while navigating the adolescent emotional world.
The film is Trevor Anderson’s feature debut, inspired by his own youth. In doing so, Anderson succeeds in making a coming-of-age film that refreshingly subverts the clichés of the genre. Robin doesn’t meet the classic requirements of a queer main character, making them particularly interesting. Including queer adult characters and a school musical with a Cyndi Lauper aesthetic.
Content warning: depiction of bullying CDN 2022 | Feature film | R: Trevor Anderson | 89 min. | English with German subtitles
Delivery driver Bambino leads a regular life in Lagos, even though he is stalled on his promised promotion. When he meets photographer Bawa, he begins driving him around the city for a photo contest. Their explorations grow longer and more intimate. In a society that taboos and criminalizes same-sex love, their dance around each other slowly unfolds.
Tope Tedela and Riyo David were some of the few who were willing to step in front of the camera for the roles of Bambino and Bawa. Thanks to them, Babatunde Apalowo (director and screenplay) has created a tribute to his own hometown in this very sensitive love story with an unconventional happy ending, which won this year’s Teddy Award for Best Feature Film.
Content warning: depiction of homophobic violence, burning
NGR 2023 | Feature film | R: Babatunde Apalowo | 93 min. | English, Igbo, Yoruba with German subtitles
If history is written by the winners, where does that leave those who were never allowed to be part of the game? Julia Fuhr Mann’s genre-bending documentary follows a collective of queer athletes as they set out to honor those who were excluded from a place on the winner’s podium. They meet, among others, Amanda Reiter, a trans marathon runner who struggles with the prejudices of sports organizers, and Annet Negesa, an 800m runner who was pressured by international sports federations to undergo hormone-altering surgery. Together they create a radical poetic utopia far from the rigid gender rules of competitive sports.
Content warning:
D 2023 | Documentary | R: Julia Fuhr Mann | 69 min. | English, German with German subtitles
Are you in the mood for a hot start into Saturday night, darlings? It’s going to be hot hot hot again at the queerfilm festival! Touching, kinky, vulnerable, wild and sometimes with humor you are lead through the queer-erotic short films. We wish you a lustful night, sweethearts.
In order to prepare you according to your needs, we will give short speeches between the films to inform you about the content of the respective short films. We will distribute handouts beforehand. There will also be a longer break.
Jamal Phoenix’s ass on the big screen? There you go! But ASS is clearly more complex, as Jamal and director Emre Busse confront us in GODASSES with the relationship of pornographic images and their audience, attempting a redefinition of desirable bodies in the process.
Desire and fantasy blur the boundaries in PELO DE GATE. Each explores the body of the other and themselves. In MELTING POINT, we literally experience how hot this can get between lovers through the thermal imaging camera.
Meanwhile, Bob the plumber is hired to fix a broken pipe in PIPES and, to his surprise, ends up in a gay fetish club. The performers of W/HOLE also lure us into a glittery pink club dream with dirty gestures and filthy looks. They explore each other with their hands, their faces and their tongues. Elsewhere, (a) FIST, dressed in latex, indulges with pleasure.
WANT is hot! Sexually explicit images interwoven with everyday moments give a revealing, complex, honest and sexy picture of disability. Likewise, Kitty rediscovers their sexuality after trauma through rope bondage and finds a home in their own fat, disabled and Brown body in WHAT YOU DIDN’T STEAL FROM ME. Black, Indigenous and People of Color from the porn industry come together for a KITCHEN TALK. Crying, laughing and hugging each other.
Content warning: (mentioned during the speeches)
Estimated 80 min., incl. intermission and speeches | Original languages with subtitles
