TO DIE LIKE A MAN by Joao Pedro Rodrigues. PORTUGAL. (Focus on JPR)
Tonia is a transsexual star of the Lisbon club world. She contends with a needy junkie boyfriend, competition from a new black drag sensation, her psychopathic soldier son and, worst of all, the physical and emotional ravages of age. Her body has come to reject the various surgical and hormonal transformations that made her famous, a fact brutally represented by the silicone literally seeping from an infected nipple. Her body seems to insist that her life lived as a woman must end in her dying like a man.
BI THE WAY by Brittany Blockman, Josephine Decker. USA (Docs in Focus)
Bi the Way investigates the recent rise in the ‘whatever’ phenomenon. Featuring interviews this documentary explores the changing sexual landscape of America in a bizarre and hilarious road trip that takes us from a swinging cage fighter in LA to an 11-year-old in Texas to a cheerleader-turned-runaway in Memphis. Following the personal stories of five young people, the film also grabs hold of the country’s pulse on the topic.
EDIE & THEA: A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT by Gréta Ólafsdóttir and Susan Muska. ICELAND (Docs in Focus)
After 42 years, feisty and delightful lesbian couple Edie and Thea are finally getting married. From the early sixties to the present day, the tireless community activists persevere through many battles, both personal and political. As Edie says, “We just went on with this talent we have for wrestling joy from the shit.” Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir (The Branton Teena Story) return with a love story of two remarkable women whose commitment to each other is an inspiration to us all.
PRODIGAL SONS by Kimberly Reed. USA (Docs in Focus)
Kimberly Reed returns home to a small town in Montana for her high school reunion, hoping for reconciliation with her long-estranged adopted brother. But along the way, Prodigal Sons uncovers stunning revelations, including a blood relationship to Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, intense sibling rivalries, and unforeseen twists of plot and gender. Reed’s rare access delicately reveals not only the family’s most private moments, but also an epic scope as the film travels from Montana to Croatia, from jail cell to football field, from deaths to births and commitments of all kinds. This unflinching look at identity and the past challenges us to wonder if we can ever truly become someone new.
I KILLED MY MOTHER (J’ai tué ma mere) by Xavier Dolan. CANADA.
Written, directed, produced and starring 20-year-old wunderkid Xavier Dolan-Tadros, this semiautobiographical drama chronicles the caustic relationship between gay teenager Hubert (Dolan-Tadros) and his overburdened mother, Chantale (Anne Dorval). As the chasm between mother and son continues to expand, Hubert and Chantale grapple with the notion that although they can’t seem to live together, they’re not quite sure that they can live apart.
MOTHER KNOWS BEST by Barði Guðmundsson. ICELAND (Shorts program)
Nanna is a single mother in Reykjavík who lives with her twenty something son Gudni Geir. His mother is not in awe of any of his various girlfriends and seems determined to ruin all his relationships. But when Gudni comes out to her their relationship changes drastically.
PATRIK, AGE 1,5 by Ella Lemhagen. SWEDEN
Göran and Sven seem to want the same thing as their hetero-normative neighbors: leisurely afternoons at block parties, raising a family, creating a beautiful garden. But the flowers won’t grow, the neighborhood kids yell “homo” at them, and Göran, prone to drinking, smoking and outbursts, is wary of their pending adoption, having already failed once as a father and husband. When news of a 1.5-year-old baby boy Patrik arrives, Sven is bubbling with anticipation, and Göran even seems eager to welcome their adopted child into their home. But instead of an infant, an embittered homophobic 15-year-old juvenile delinquent arrives on their tranquil street. As the tug of war begins, an intriguing yet subtle series of events plays out, and it’s not apparent who is going to win the battle.
ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW by Jim Sharman. USA
It’s the weird and wonderful as newly wed couple Brad and Janet encounter a problem when they car halts in the rain. They both look for contact only to find themselves at the castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a transvestite. A place to stay is offered, but will Brad and Janet want to remain there? Especially when a large group of Transylvanians dance to the ‘Time Warp’.
TWO DRIFTERS by Joao Pedro Rodrigues. PORTUGAL (Focus on JPR)
Two lonely people careen through life following their individual experiences of loss: Rui, a handsome young romantic, loses his lover Pedro on the day of their anniversary. Odete, as fetching as she is unstable, is abruptly dumped by her boyfriend when she broaches the subject of starting a family. Their worlds collide when Odete becomes obsessed with Pedro, a man she never knew. Rui is quick to see through Odete’s fictive life with Pedro but Pedro’s family is swayed. As Rui trudges through his pain towards acceptance, Odete begins to loosen her hold on reality. The unexpected ending takes Rui and Odete to their most extreme, realizing both their desires in a single act.
UNMADE BEDS by Alexis Dos Santos. UK (New Visions)
A lyrical tale of two solitary young souls crossing paths in the cosmopolitan art-rock milieu of a sprawling East London squat. Twenty-year-old Axl has come from Spain to find his long-lost English father. Raised traveling, Axl’s rootlessness has become a restless way of life. He drinks himself into forgetting at night, awaking like a promiscuous foundling among another set of nonchalant hosts and lovers. Vera is a wounded French-speaking beauty who oozes continental ennui at her bookstore job, where she’s not above discouraging a customer from buying a book she finds ridiculous. Responding to a stranger’s flirtation by wrapping caution and control in adventure and mystery in pursuit of a casual affair, she finds herself falling desperately in love.
BANDAGED by Maria Beatty. GERMANY (Open Seas)
Old-style horror blends with forbidden love in this period thriller. Lucille lives with her domineering father and great aunt in a creepy mansion out in the middle of nowhere. She’s about to turn eighteen and longs to go to college to study poetry, but her surgeon father insists the sciences are the way to go. Feeling as though she has no way out Lucille attempts suicide, but survives, and is left with hideous burns to her face. Her father hires a sultry nurse with her own chequered past to look after Lucille. Spending 24 hours together every day leads patient and nurse to discover passionate feelings for each other, the bandages come off and soon a torrid affair begins.
THE PHANTOM by Joao Pedro Rodrigues. PORTUGAL (Focus on JPR)
Young and handsome Sergio works the night shift as a trash collector in Lisbon, Portugal. He can’t force himself to connect with his pretty female co-worker Fatima, who displays an avid interest in him, so instead Sergio roams the city with the trash company’s pet dog. Eventually Sergio becomes fascinated with a sleek motorcycle, and then also its arrogant owner – a young man totally indifferent to Sergio. The frustrated trash collector’s surfacing desires unleash his darkest impulses, sending him down a dangerous path of violence, depravity and degradation.
EYES WIDE OPEN by Haim Tabakman. ISRAEL (New Visions)
Aaron, a respectable butcher in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, is married to Rivka and is a dedicated father of four children. One day, he meets Ezri, a twenty-two-years-old handsome student, and soon falls in love with him. He then starts to neglect his family and community life, swept away by his love and lust for Ezri. But guilt, torment and pressure from the community will catch up, and lead him to take a strong decision...
SHOULD I REALLY DO IT? by Ismail Necmi. TURKEY (New Visions)
This real-life feature follows the extraordinary life of Petra, a German woman living in Istanbul, in an ironic inversion of the Turkish migrant in Germany. Her life will take such strange turns you’ll think she’s following a script. But we’re actually watching a real life protagonist evolve in the face of life. For, ultimately, nothing is ever as surprising as life. Except, perhaps, fiction! During ‘sessions’ with the mysterious, masked Herold, her life unfolds before our eyes and we learn about everything: Istanbul, Germany, family, friends, drugs and death. Should I Really Do It? plays with these concepts of real life and fiction, documentary and drama. Could life ever be more interesting than fiction?