Title: The Rebellious
Plot: A documentary about the life of an ex-transvestite: from his miserable childhood, marked by his semi-slavery work and begging, to prostitution in the streets of the capital of Paraba until his transformation into a protestant pastor. With the construction of his own church, he does a social work in the poor community where he lives. Besides he dedicates himself to what he considers his greatest mission: to bring gays, lesbians and transvestites to the Lord and into heterosexuality.
Director: Bertrand Lira
Country: Brazil
Release year: 2009
Duration: 70′
www: bertrandslira@hotmail.com
Friday, 6th of May, 6pm
Title: Gay Days (“Hazman Havarod”)
Director: Yair Quedar
Country: Israel
Release year: 2009
Duration: 71′
Plot: In 1985 there were three openly gay people in Israel. Excluded from public office and oppressed by violence and discrimination, the gay and lesbian population existed underground. Over the next decade, a spectacular revolution unfolded. By 1998 there were up to 3000 openly gay and lesbian people celebrating the Summer of Pride in Israel.
Filmmaker Yair Qedar captures this sudden, dramatic rise of the Israeli gay and lesbian community in this riveting and thorough documentary. As the editor of the Pink Times, Qedar had unprecedented access to the people and stories of the time. He meticulously weaves together interviews, archival footage, music and photographs to capture the excitement and energy of this extraordinary stretch of history.
The film features the colorful voices of major Israeli cultural figures who paint a picture of a time in Tel Aviv when people from all walks of life, including academics, artists and even military officers came together to start a movement and change lives. This wasn’t a violent revolution but a societal uprising driven by people who were ready to come out of hiding and claim their identity.
Qedar’s film is a poetic collage of images and ideas that captures an inspirational fight for equal rights that resonates today. BRENDAN PETERSON
www: www.facebook.com/pages/Gay-Days/138731702817747Films: Gay Days
Tuesday, 10th of May, 6pm
Title: Saturn Returns
Director: Imri Kahn & Lior Shamriz
Country: Israel – Germany
Release year: 2009
Duration: 93′
Plot: Lucy, a privileged North American in contemporary Berlin, living a life of post Punk hedonism, roams the streets with her best friend, Derek. Together they use the city like a playground, a stage, and a never ending party. Into their lives enters Galia, a young Israeli woman carrying the promise of a better, cleaner way of living.
A tribute to Punk underground films turns into a melodrama in Saturn Returns, mirroring Lucy and Galia’s modulating states of mind. Their look into each other’s life and culture, becomes an investigation of empty facades.
The film was constructed by both improvised and pre-scripted scenes, as required by the nature of each scene.
www: www.saturnreturnsfilm.com
Friday, 6th of May, 10.15pm & Monday, 9th of May, 10.30pm
Title: The Yarn (“Le Fil”)
Director: Mehdi Ben Attia
Country: France
Release year: 2009
Duration: 90′
Plot: The beautiful, sensitive young son Malik is coming home in Tunisia after living in France and has to deal with his possessive French mother. Malik has a lot on this place there, there are many gay men. He’s processing his Tunisian father’s death, he can’t come out to his mother, and his childhood anxieties have resurfaced. Something will go wrong. Malik’s problems seem to fade away when he falls for Bilal, the dreamy houseboy at his mother’s bourgeois estate. The ending is so beautiful and touching, thanks for a lovely romantic love story between two men.
www: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxK9Ys6berI , http://grsamsa.blogspot.com/2011/02/le-fil-string-2009.html (trailer)
Friday, 6th of May, 8.15pm & Wednesday, 11th of May, 6pm
Title: Paper Dolls (“Bubot Niyar”)
Director: Tomer Heymann
Country: Israel
Release year: 2006
Duration: 80′
Plot: Paper Dolls is a 2006 documentary by Israeli director Tomer Heymann, which follows the lives of transgender migrant workers from the Philippines who also perform as drag queens during their spare time. It also delves into the lives of societal outcasts who search for freedom and acceptance. The documentary followed five Filipino transsexuals, each in different stage of gender transition and often referred to by their feminine names, who have emigrated to Israel to work as health care providers for elderly, Orthodox Jewish men. On their nights off, they perform in Tel Aviv nightclubs as a drag group called “Paper Dolls”.They are among 300,000 foreign immigrants who came to Israel in the wake of the Second Intifada to fill lowly jobs that had been handled by Palestinians. Their status is precarious because they cannot file for citizenship and their visas are revoked if they lose their jobs.Although the task of taking care of the elderly is not easy, the liberal atmosphere of their adopted country has allowed the Paper Dolls to be free despite being viewed as outsiders. A notable angle on the documentary is the relationship between Sally and her elderly ward Chaim, who lost his voice due to throat cancer. He urges her to learn Hebrew by having her recite a poem written by Yehuda Amichai, while he basks in Sally’s warmth and wit.In contrast, when the Paper Dolls were arranged for an audition at TLV the largest nightclub in Tel Aviv the booker instead relegated them as geishas. They would bow by the entrance and were described by the booker, as well as other drag queens, as “unprofessional” and “fit only for a bus stop”.
www:Â http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_Dolls_(film)
Thursday, 5th of May, 6pm
Title: It kinda scares me
Director: Tomer Heymann
Country: Israel
Release year: 2001
Duration: 60′
Plot: It Kinda Scares Me is a gritty, funny documentary about a drama coach and the delinquent boys he teaches. In their world, bravado is everything and Friday nights are for getting into fights. Tomer Heymann, both filmmaker and drama coach, encourages the boys to create something from their pain and marginalization, while they struggle in rehearsals not to sacrifice their much-prized Israeli machismo. When Tomer announces to the group that he is gay, they are shocked, but his commitment to their play wins the day as they prepare for a performance that will give voice to the lives of disaffected Israeli youth.
www: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Eqm-9qZjbc
Saturday, 7th of May, 10pm & Sunday, 8th of May, 6pm
Title: I shot my love
Director: Tomer Heymann
Country: Israel
Release year: 2010
Duration: 56′
Plot: Seventy years after his grandfather escapes from Nazi Germany to Palestine, Israeli documentary director Tomer Heymann returns to the country of his ancestors to present his film Paper Doll at the Berlin International Film Festival, and there meets a man who will change his life.
This 48-hour love affair, originating in Berghain Panorama Bar, develops into a significant relationship between Tomer and Andreas Merk, a German dancer. When Andreas decides to move to Tel-Aviv, he not only has to cope with a new partner, but to manage the complex realities of life in Israel and his personal connection to it as a German citizen.
Tomer’s mother, descendent of German immigrants was born and lived all her life in a small Israeli village, where she raised five sons. One by one, she watches her children leave the country she and her family helped to build, and now cannot help but try to influence the life of Tomer, the one son who remains.
I SHOT MY LOVE tells a personal but universal love story and follows the triangular relationship between Tomer, his German boyfriend, and his intensely Israeli mother.
www: www.ishotmylove.com
Saturday, 7th of May, 10pm & Sunday, 8th of May, 6pm
Title: Sascha
Director: Dennis Todorovic
Country: Germany
Release year: 2010
Duration: 101′
Plot: Sascha, confronted with the everyday prejudice of his homophobic immigrant family, struggles with his urge to come out. When his beloved piano teacher Gebhard Weber plans to leave the city, the young man is heartbroken. The only person in whom he can confide his feelings is his best friend Jiao. After a failed audition, Sasha swears never to play piano again, but a consoling telephone call from Gebhard changes his mind and causes a turn of events. The next morning all secrets are exposed…
www: www.denverfilm.org/filmcenter/detail.aspx?id=23307
Saturday, 7th of May, 8pm & Wednesday, 11th of May, 10pm
Title: The Kids Are Alright
Director: Lisa Cholodenko
Country: USA
Release year: 2010
Duration: 106′
Plot: Two children conceived by artificial insemination bring their birth father into their family life.
www: www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi381421337/
Sunday, 8th of May, 11.30am & Wednesday, 11th of May, 8pm
