Film Categories: Gender

  • Una Sola Sangre

    “I have two homelands, but one blood,” says Silvia Galdes in Una Sola Sangre, the latest film by the Haitian-born, Toronto-based filmmaker Esery Mondesir. Silvia, along with her siblings Silverio and Estella, is a first-generation Haitian-Cuban, the daughter of Sylvain Galdes, one of an estimated 500.000 Haitians who migrated to Cuba for work in the early 20th century. Despite not seeing their father’s homeland until their sixth decades (and after the shooting of the film), the Galdes family and their social position in Cuba has long been marked by their Haitianness – an identity they and their children negotiate in…

  • LUCA (m/f/x)

    Society distinguishes between two sexes: male and female. In Germany there is a new law for a new legal gender “divers”. „Divers“ refers to a gender spectrum between male, female and beyond. “I feel my own sex very changeable, it never feels like I am a man or a woman. But only a body to which belongs a spirit and a mind that creates“. This is how Luca describes themself and unites alleged characteristics of both classical sexes in his appearance. Although Luca has experienced antipathy and even physical violence, because of appearance, Luca would never stop being themself.

  • WELL ROUNDED

    Soft? Dark? Queer? WELL ROUNDED is here! Featuring Mi’qmaw force of nature, comedian and broadcaster, Candy Palmater. Edgy, hilarious, unapologetically raunchy, and sometimes tear-jerking, WELL ROUNDED brings you your new super queer XXXL racialized BFFs in comedy, fashion, health and research to help combat those pesky systemic fatphobias that threaten to make you hate yourself — when actually you’re PLENTY amazing just as you are. Blending gorgeous interviews with dreamy animation, director Shana Myara assembles personal stories from a diverse, captivating cast whose horrors, triumphs and commitment to dreaming large offer BIG inspiration — especially for those of us who…

  • HOPE

    Hope looks at the global push back on the civil liberties of the LGBTQ community. A kaleidoscope of anti-gay protests captured and posted on the internet almost always erupt into violence. From the chaos comes hope which is the lasting message of the film and the pursuit for a better future.

  • Broken Relationship

    Broken Relationship moves through a kaleidoscope of colour and pixels to fragments of embraced bodies. Using glitched video footage from classic porn, the broken and distorted imagery speaks to the difficulty that the LBGTQ youth encounter when trying to navigate through their sexuality and relationships. Easy access to pornography means that many young people are learning these important life lessons through a distorted lens. This is especially true of the LGBTQ community where access to information is difficult to acquire from their family, teachers or even friends. The glitched video images mimic the broken messages that much of the porn…

  • Wash Day

    As they get ready for the day, three young Black women discuss the public perception of their Blackness in relation to their cultivation of a strong sense of self. Wash Day is an intimate exploration into how private, domestic acts such as washing your hair or putting on makeup become a significant re-acquaintance with the body, before and after navigating the politics of one’s outwardly appearance. Image description: A Black woman’s hands cradle long dark braids as water washes over them.

  • Ofenheizung: Portrait of a Stove

    In Berlin in the year 2020, there are still homes that rely on coal stoves for heating, despite their ban in 2015 by the Federal Emission Control Ordinance. This short film is a portrait of one of those stoves, the maintenance it requires of the inhabitant of the home it’s in, and what it means for its Kiez, Kreuzberg.

  • Every Day Burns

    Award winning pole dancer, Sada Velasquez, addresses the familial and social stigma she must overcome in order to pursue her passion for dance. Everyday Burns is a short documentary exploring one artist’s journey towards self expression and community empowerment. Every day Sada overcomes physical limitations, personal doubts and moral perceptions of others in order to create a safe space for folks to explore their sensual freedom.

  • Originate and Recompile

    In 1962 Ernesto De Martino travelled to the South of Italy for his ethnographic research and shot “La Taranta”. A study around women who were poisoned by a Trantula bite while harvesting in the fields. The remedy against the deadly poison was a folk dance called Taranta. The women danced the poison out of their bodies with the help of local musicians and priests. Studies around this phenomenon have highlighted that, in the majority of cases, these women were suffering severe mental illness and hysteria due to sexual abuse and poverty. In present-day Italy a similar dynamic has resurfaced, uncovering…

  • summer femme winter butch

    a dyke rationalizes her dressing style