Márcia Antonelli: Das Palavras à Sobrevivência

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

Demétrios

Performative and expository documentary, which highlights the contrast of experience among transgender men in Brazil. The short film brings five characters - Kenai, Caetano, Augusto, Pietro and Daniel -, each one reflecting a different reality.

Wërapara

Amidst the Colombian Andes, a group of trans women from the Embera Chami community make their way into the international fashion scene, empowered through artistic collaboration and creation while preserving their spiritual heritage and ancestral connection to their territory.

Ghuza da Sher

The story of Nisar Ahmed Khan, told through his children and the people he served, a spiritual guide whose followers still visit his tomb on his birth and death anniversaries. And alongside how his family spends a few days at the village keeping his traditions alive.

Stegophilia

À propos de Nice

What starts off as a conventional travelogue turns into a satirical portrait of the town of Nice on the French Côte d'Azur, especially its wealthy inhabitants.

Where Love Lives: A Story of Dancefloor Culture & Expression

Documentary by the music label Defected and its brand Glitterbox about electronic music, its beginning in New York and its importance for minorities all around the world.

Baraka

A paralysingly beautiful documentary with a global vision—an odyssey through landscape and time—that attempts to capture the essence of life.

Koyaanisqatsi

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

Jean-Gina B.

This film is based on the true story of Jean Bella, who served as an officer in the Belgian Marine while being convinced, from an early age, that he was in fact a woman. Director Jean-Pol Ferbus follows Jean Bella and makes him talk about his life, psychological and spiritual experiences and reveals the true poet who remained undisclosed for most of this person's life. The film ultimately isn't about transexuality but about loneliness one can experience when he/she feels very deeply that she/he belongs to the two sexes and this in a deep, almost religious, fashion, to such an extent that sexuality itself is being erased from one's life. Jean-Gina Bella is a woman in the body of a man who bravely lived a life on the sea, eventually fighting the elements, talking to God when lost on the immense solitary ocean. This testimony is a very touching and poetic one.

Chronos

Carefully picked scenes of nature and civilization are viewed at high speed using time-lapse cinematography in an effort to demonstrate the history of various regions.

Spectrum

Through personal stories, the documentary approaches the issues of gender identity and legal gender recognition in Greece. The three main characters explain how society has treated them, by narrating their experiences from the past and the present.

Avant-Drag!

Avant-Drag! paints portraits of ten drag artists of varying gender expressions and sexualities who take to the streets of Athens to query, problematise and (yes, please!) undermine social strictures. Employing wildly imagined personas – like riot housewives and Albanian turbo-folk girls – who perform acts as revolutionary as praising abortion and as charming as drawing childish pictures, these artists call for social justice by taking aim at conservatism, patriarchy, patriotism, racism and sexism.

Glass

This short documentary, shot in the glass factories of Leerdam and Schiedam, demonstrates how glass blowers do their work. But thanks to the superbly edited ballet of working hands and the sequence of mechanical motions of the engines, is it especially a cinematic tour de force. That the industry can’t do without man’s involvement is shown in the scene where we hear the voice of Haanstra himself counting the bottles on the conveyor belt, until one bottle breaks…

Kenya

Trans women face extreme violence in Mexico City, and sex workers are even more vulnerable. This raw and deeply affecting portrait of Kenya gives an insider’s view of the impact that violence has on the community, and how complex life is for them. The film begins shortly after Kenya witnesses her friend Paola being murdered by a client. The film follows Kenya closely. Will the family accept burying Paola as she was: a flamboyant trans woman? Kenya approaches Paola’s loved ones with great respect and understanding—something she rarely experiences herself. When the murderer is released, she embarks on a lengthy battle for justice, backed up by her “sisters.”

Pick up the Wind

A short film following Anthony, a young child from the small, rural town of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. We see him in different moments of his daily life as he interacts with different forms of environmental, familial, and social influences. While Anthony displays contradictory traits of creativity, destruction, rigidity, and tenderness as he interacts with his external and internal worlds, we see a story built from the the multidimensionality of Anthony's layered personality as a young man.

Gendernauts: A Journey Through Shifting Identities

Monika Treut explores the worlds and thoughts of several female to male transgendered individuals. As with Treuts first film, Jungfrauenmaschine, Gendernauts, enters a minority sector of San Fransisco culture. The characters in this film have a lot to complain about, and they do. They are people whose physical appearance (female) does not match their inner sexual identity (male). The subject is pinpointed in the film independant of sexual orientation. Leave your conservative hats at the door, this is going to need your special attention.

The Art of Living

What is the Art of Living ? A few weeks ago, I asked myself this question, as silly in its formality as it is complicated in its complexity. In this video, I'll try to give you my definition and my vision of what the art of living is !

Moscow Calling

The animated corpse of Moscow goes on after its inhabitants left. Filled with weeps and whispers of the mourning ghosts, torn apart with phone calls from distant countries and unfamiliar sounds, emotionally devastated and deserted, the city attempts to reconcile with its own voice.

Et il voulut être une femme

A look on transvestites and transsexuals in early 80's Paris. The documentary focuses on Elisa, a Brazilian transvestite and ends with a filming of a surgical operation male to female.