identities 2009 - the lesBian content

[joan_psmith]

Also published at eurOut.



The identities - Vienna's International Queer Film Festival will take place from June 4th - 12th 2009. With more that 60 films screened at three different locations it's not easy to figure out what to watch. Especially since the official program website can not be filtered for lesBian content and that's what I'm sure you're all most curious about! ;)

Ploughing through all those exciting films and compiling them into a readable post turned out to be a lot more work then I expected it to be and so I'm afraid my writeup is a bit late. The festival starts Thursday and ticket presale has already begun some time ago, find out more here.

Categories

1. Life, Love and Drama (features)


2. Music (documentaries and features)


3. Documentaries


4. Trans- and Intersexuality (documentaries and features)


5. Classics (documentaries and features)


6. Shorts

1. Life, Love and Drama (features)

• The Festival opens with Mein Freund aus Faro (To Faro) in which Mel is mistaken for / posing as the Portuguese man 'Miguel'. The situation becomes more complex when she falls in love with Jenny.



• Affinity is the movie adaption of Sarah Waters' novel by the same name. It is set in 1870s' London und follows Margaret, who becomes a do-gooder visitor at Millbank women's prison.



• Miao Miao Miao Miao is a film about the unknown longings of youth, the wonderful moments in life, and the desire to love and to be loved. (Cheng Hsiao-Tse, director)



• Vivere - Drei Gründe zu Leben (Vivere) The lives of Francesca, Antonietta and Gerlinde cross on Christmas Eve. They soon will find out, that each is not who she appears to be and it becomes less and less clear who is saving whom. Don't pass up this chance to watch Hannelore Elsner in a lesbian role!



• Auf der anderen Seite (The Edge of Heaven) A depiction of lives colliding and converging in modern Istanbul and Hamburg [...] the movie features a lesbian couple at the center of its complex East-meets-West plot. The film is a clever, twisting affair, making use of three languages and multiple concurrent story lines. (identities.at)
  



• La Naissance du pieuvres (Water Lilies) deals with teenage sexuality portraying the team mates of a synchronized-swimming team.



• Ha-Sadot (The Secrets) Naomi is the daughter of an ultra orthodox rabbi. A fascinating glimpse into how women are perceived and treated in orthodox Judaism. (israelfilm.blogspot.com)



• The World Unseen A moving and passionate love story set against a backdrop of 1950s Apartheid. (identities.at)



• Puccini for Beginners A fresh cocktail of racy, clever and self-ironic dialogue mixed with a shot of American sitcom from the director of Two Girls in Love (1995). (Lesbisch Schwule Filmtage Hamburg 2008)



• Les Chansons d'amour (Love Songs) At first, Les Chansons d'amour feels almost campy, like a sixties sex comedy, as the silly, somewhat precious Ismaël consorts with his long-time petite amie Julie and their recently acquired threesome third, the mostly lesbian Alice in a way-too-fabulous apartment. But young, polyamorous puppy love veers into tragedy as Julie perishes of a massive coronary on a Paris street. (Noah Cowan, Toronto Intl FF 2007)



• Dos Mirades (Two Looks) Intellectual in the sexiest way, Two Looks will have you rapt. (Sarah Schieron, Frameline 2008)



• Love and Words While filming in Yemen, Sylvie Ballyot had her tapes seized by authorities and lost the key subject of her feminist documentary. Adrift in an unknown country she decides to continue with the project, filming herself in public places, the only woman in a sea of men. (Anna Dunwoodie, London Lesbian & Gay FF 2008)
  Before 'Love and Words' the short film Donkey Girl will be shown.

2. Music (documentaries and features)

• Were the World Mine Timothy's daydreams are Technicolor musicals. Because of his beautiful voice he is cast as Puck in the school's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Aside from Timothy's 'heteroflexible' but dyke-a-licious girl-pal Frankie (Robin William's daughter, Zelda), this small town is teeming with homophobes. Without giving too much away, let's just say that lovestruck Timothy really gets into character and turns all that upside down. (Miami Gay & Lesbian FF 2008)



• The documentary International Sweethearts of Rhythm tells the story of the swinging, multi-racial all-women jazz band of the 1940s.



• Tiny & Ruby: Hell Divin' Women is also a music documentary and screened after International Sweethearts of Rhythm. It tells the story of Jazz trumpet player Tiny Davis and her partner drummer Ruby Lucas.

3. Documentaries

• verliebt, verzopft, verwegen. (amorous, antiquated, audacious) is a queer documentary from Austria. It takes a look at Vienna in the 50s and 60s. How and where did lesbians meet? The three very vivid and outspoken protagonists tell in a rare and important example of oral history (identities.at).



• Bana Bak - Schau mich an (Bana Bak - Look at Me): Nevruz is a 28-year-old photographer in Istanbul and she doesn't want to be a part-time lesbian anymore.



• A Jihad for Love: Parvez Sharma interviews gay and lesbian Muslims living in different countries about how they integrate their faith and their sexual orientation.



• Improvvisamente l'inverno scorso (Suddenly, Last Winter): Gustav and Luca want to understand the different arguments for and against the Italian law on civilian unions, and undertake a journey into a country they did not know and did not expect to find: their own. (identities.at)



• Working on It: A group of Berlin-based artists gather to explore how perceptions of femininity and masculinity are constructed and ask, "What happens when you don't fit firmly into one box or the other?" (Holly Roach, Frameline 2008)

4. Trans- and Intersexuality (documentaries and features)

• Be Like Others: In Iran changeing ones gender is not seen as problematic, while homosexuality is punishable by death. This documentary explores the consequences this situation has.



• XXY: Alex is fifteen years old and was born intersex. When she starts to explore her sexuality with Alvaro, both their families are forced to deal with their worst fears.



• 20 Centimetros (20 Centimeters):
  Marietta is a transsexual who longs to get rid of certain 20 centimeters. As a narcoleptic she falls asleep at the most inconvenient times and dreams about being a glamorous woman.
  

5. Classics (documentaries and features)

Festivals aren't just a great time to watch the most recent movies but also to catch up on classics one wants to rewatch or hasn't managed to watch yet.

• Les Biches (Bad Girls) is a landmark in film history; its theme of bisexuality and upper-class decadence is surpassed only by its cool precision of cinematic style and exceptionally subtle performances. (identities.at)



• The Killing of Sister George The Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Film and Video calls it "an entertainingly dated tale of love and loneliness that treads a strange line between comedy and sensationalist, perverted drama."



• On the surface Les Voleurs (Thieves) Téchiné reunites Daniel Auteuil and Catherine Deneuve, playing exceedingly dissimilar characters, a cop and a philosophy professor, who are brought together over their sexual involvement with a much younger and very desperate woman (Laurence Côte) who works for a crime family of which Auteuil is the 'white' sheep. (Joseph Milicia, filmreference.com)



• Immacolata e Concetta, l'altra gelosia (Immacolata and Concetta. The Other Jealousy) is a lesbian lovestory in Napels during the 70s and distinctly feminist. Explicit masturbation scenes were cut by censorship, but the remaining sex scenes were nonetheless controversial.



• 8 Femmes (Acht Frauen) I don't need to tell you about this movie, do I? ;) This is a great chance to rewatch it in a theatre.



• Hanami - Kirschblüten (Cherry Blossoms) When his beloved wife Trudi dies, Rudi is devastated. He learns from his daughter's girlfriend that Trudi gave up the life she wanted to live in love for him. In remembrance of his wife he embarkes on a journey. This movie embraces queerness very naturally, which one doesn't find to often in a mainstream movie.



• 
  Anna und Edith (Anna and Edith) was originally produced for German Television and tells the story of two politically active female insurance clerks who fall in love with each other. It's the first German TV movie ever to feature a lesbian relationship.



• Zärtlichkeit und Rebellion (Tenderness and Rebellion) In 1973 this German documentary was the first of it's kind. Lesbians talk freely about their relationships, their political feminist demands and their experience with society and their surroundings. (identities.at)



• Before Stonewall examines the historic background of the Stonewall Riots.



• Comizi d'amore (Love Meeting) In 1963 Pier Paolo Pasolini sets out to ask people on the beach at Ferragosto about their love life.



• 
  Nicht der Homosexuelle ist pervers, sondern die Situation, in der er lebt (It is not the Homosexual Who is Perverse, but the Society in Which He Lives) This classic by Rosa von Praunheim roused a scandal at its German TV premiere in 1973. This movie is about Daniel, who moves to Berlin and falls in love with Clemens.

6. Shorts

If you still haven't had enough, here's my take on fishing out all the lesBian content of the identities shorts program for you:

• Gnist shows a collection of Scandinavian shorts.
  It constists of En liten Tiger (A little Tiger) about Simon, who has two mothers, Spinning, Hjerteklipp (Heartcut) about 16-year-old Inga, who is in love with her father's new girlfriend, Gnist (Spark) about Carolina, who tries to decide between conforming to bourgeois standards and comeing-out. Finally there's Premieren (The Premiere) about Esther who finds it is never too late to choose love.



• Café com leite is a collection of Brasilian shorts. Saliva about 12-year-old Marina, who is obsessed with the antecipation of her first kiss (also shown on june 7th | 10pm | Cinemagic) and Páginas de menina (Pages of a Girl) about Ingrid, who works in a bookstore and finds herself drawn to her elegant boss Silvia.



• Flores en el Parque shows a collection on Spanish shorts. Flores en el Parque (o los primeros besos) (Flowers in the Park (Or First Kisses)) is about Ana and Lola who, after flirting online, meet for the first time in RL. A ciegas (Blindfolded) is also about online-dates. Dícen (They Say) deals with infidelity and jealousy.



• Girl's Room: Its namesake Girl's Room is a dark comedy about Sammy, who must confront the much-feared school bathroom. In Pitstop 12-year-old Margaret finds a kindred spirit in June, the owner of a gas station. In Blodsøstre (Blood Sisters) Sidsel feels her positions as Dea's best friend threatened. Sexy Thing: The landscapes of the film are intended to create a sense of claustrophobic endlessness; of a world that's wide, dry and stained by sunshine, but in which there is nowhere to hide.(identities.at)
  Saliva was already shown on june 6th (see above).
  No Bikini takes a look at Robin's childhood, when she managed to pass for a boy in a swimming camp.



• Mars - Dramatic Shorts: Mars is about Lisa, who is the leader of a girls gang, and Anna, who is more of a loner and how meeting each other changes their lifes. Tel Père, telle fille (Like Father, Like Daughter): Julie and her father have one thing in common: they both like women. Gnist (Spark) was already shown on june 5th (see above).
  Na koncu ulicy (At the End of the Street) is the story of Alexandra, who can't accept that her girlfriend has left her.



• Lusty Ladies' Night an erotic 'late night for the ladies' starts with Aria de Mustang by Katrina Daschner, the rest of the program is a surprise ;)

I hope you have a good time at the festival!