#filibus

Early Lesbian Film: Filibus (1915), Dir. Mario Roncoroni

In this Italian crime thriller from the silent era, The Baroness Troixmond, whose true identity is Filibus, the mysterious air pirate, hatches a plan to frame the detective chasing her for her crimes. Along the way, she disguises herself as a man, seduces the detective's sister, steals a couple priceless diamonds and hatches many a devious plot in her flying submarine.

Filibus (1915)

The world is being terrorized by the mysterious air pirate Filibus, who descends from an airship to commit the most daring robberies. Filibus, in truth the Baroness Troixmond, is being chased by the detective Kutt-Hendy, and decides to mess with him by making everyone believe that he is Filibus. In order to do so, she assumes the fake identity of a Count. In this identity, she gets close to the detective and flirts with his sister, then frames him for the robbery of two priceless diamonds. The movie is Italian. There is no spoken language.

Sometimes, I run into some older queer media that is so good, that I couldn't even have wished for it. Filibus is definitely one of those. It is by far not the best science fiction or action movie that I have seen from the silent era - it completely lacks the incredible stunts and crowd scenes that to me make this era stand out so much, and doesn't have any technological marvels beyond the airship, either. But it IS a full-length queer science fiction movie from 1915, that has many tropes that I love in the pulp-/superhero genres, and it feels like the first of many in a series of battle of wits between the air pirate and the detective. One can easily imagine an alternate reality, in which the Filibus stories have been serialized, and where she is a cultural icon on par with the other gentleman burglars of her time.

Yeah. I'm not done with this movie yet.