#fringefilmfest

Molly Moss

Queers have long sought to reconnect with nature as an act of protest in a dominant culture that says we are unnatural and don’t belong. Othered by society, we’ve long found ourselves empathising with animals, plants, trees, mountains and rivers.

Sound crazy to you? This year’s Fringe programme has a perfect selection for the earth-based queer community and animal-lovers out there. Both ‘The Whisper of the Jaguar’ and ‘Swedish Candy, Some Violence and a bit of Cat’ use themes related to nature and the animal-world to get messages across about what it means to be natural, and what it means to belong.

Thais Guisasola and Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau’s ‘The Whisper of the Jaguar’ is a queer-punk road movie following the story of Ana as she journeys across the Amazon in the footsteps of her late queer Brazilian sister. Under the influence of various sacred hallucinogens and medicinal plants, and guided by the Amazon’s shamans who open the door to the underworld, Ana reconnects with an earthy queerness. Her journey proves to be sexually, spiritually and culturally liberating as she recovers her pre-colonial and queer authentic self.

During one of Ana’s trance states, she has a vision of her sister wishing she could be a jaguar, and transform into the animal-world with which she could empathise and connect her queerness. In Ana and her sister’s world, queerness becomes a sort of fluidity and limitlessness, and a freedom too strange to be othered. It becomes a decolonising structure. Queerness becomes a sexuality, a gender and a landscape: a place full of possibilities of a boundless world.

Ana eventually comes to terms with the loss of her sister, realizing that our impermanence is the key to life. In Ana’s words, (re)discovering ‘nature as something that surpasses us. If we become, we surrender.’

Queerness, like nature, is something that should be eternal, but that continues to be threatened. Thais and Paetau track the environmental destruction of the Amazonian forest by GMO crops and monocultures. An end to biodiversity would, of course, also mean an end to medicinal plants and hallucinogens.

The film challenges the false divisions between different species, encouraging co-existence, fluidity and empathy between nature, animals and humans.

Ester Martin Bergsmark’s latest surreal, comical and uncategorizable film ‘Swedish Candy, Some Violence and a Bit of Cat’ also questions what it means to be natural, but this time with whispers from a much smaller cat— the tabby from next door. If you like your queer film to be a challenge, pretty dark and a little fucked up, then this one’s for you.

Bergsmark interweaves three different elements: as little girls chew gelatinous sweets and poke at a dead cat in the forest, performance artists Eva Johansson and Louise Lowenberg portray lesbian cousins whose Tarzan and Jane routine sees the two dance around their desire for each other. And all this while a man in an apron takes us through the modes of gelatin production with a creepy smile. This seems random as hell at first. But, by showing us that gelatin is made from the natural bonds in animal body parts, he makes us ask: where is the line between what is natural and what is man-made?

The cousin’s attempts to come to terms with their queerness, desire for each other and to figure out where they belong ends in tragedy. If their set of model trees, green ikea furniture and rendition of Jane and Tarzan— a story of otherness— is an attempt to reconnect with the natural and find where they belong, then it fails spectacularly.

Between the four walls, love seeps into hate, attraction becomes repulsion, and their psychotic, co-dependent relationship spirals into disaster as they realise they can’t just be ‘normal’ cousins.

It’s hard to give joy to others. But moments of joy in the midst of daily hardship are exactly what’s on offer from the 26 de Diciembre foundation.

This Madrid-based LGBT charity for elderly people is the subject of the deeply bittersweet and inspiring documentary of the same name - showing as part of Fringe! on Sunday November 18 at Hackney House.

The charity’s residents have had a past of social repression and imprisonment, and face present-day economic hardship and marginalisation. So how does the foundation - and its volunteers and residents - help? With companionship, patience… and the odd singalong. No spoilers, but one of the most heartwarming bits of 26 de Diciembre involves the 1971 diva classic Achilipú - belted out in this video by its co-writer Dolores Vargas, aka La terremoto - or ‘the earthquake’.

(And yes, Dolores’ iconic hand movements also get due tribute, as do a couple of her high kicks.)

In Silvia Maggi’s film, the residents’ different stories are objectively horrifying. In the Franco era, they were imprisoned and beaten up. These days, they find themselves invisible to a younger LGBTI population, and have a hard time even finding a roof over their heads, after the financial crisis pulverised Spain’s economy.

But, with the help of the foundation, and Dolores, they can find some moments of joy.

Catherine Gund in Act Up

Last month’s festival brought with it many successes, celebrations and, as ever, unexpected surprises and pleasures at every turn. One of our programme’s special events, branching from a focus on the documentation of queer lives in our recent past, was a focus on the films of critical documentarian Catherine Gund with her company Aubin Pictures.

Starting with a screening of the not-quite-believable, heart-stopping portrait of controversial choreographer Elizabeth Streb and the STREB SLAM company’s day of performance to accompany the 2012 London Olympics, Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity, we found Cat warmly open and generous in discussing her work with all in attendance. Hosted by Chisenhale Dance Space Creative Director and Fringe! luvvie Justin Hunt, and with fans, film lovers and even a STREB performer in attendance, this was a great start to Gund’s stay.

On festival Friday we occupied a part of the stunning Geffrye Museum to hold a masterclass of the director’s early works around queer activism, her first feature on Ron Athey, as well as more recent journalistic project Dispatches from Cleveland, and on towards feature docs Born to Fly and Chavela.

Warmly welcomed into our festival hub’s pink bosom, Friday night also saw the big space filled with queers eager to see and discuss lesbian activist images of the late 20th century in a screening of Gund’s early social conscience films, Lez Be Honest. The room was packed with film-hungry dykes.

But the real showstopper of Gund’s visit was a full house in the Rio’s 402-seater balcony screen for her magnetic, affecting achievement, CHAVELA. Roars of pure emotion flew from the audience as soon as the first few notes of La Llorona started up. 

Early in the week Gund had discussed chronicling time-based performers whose work already cuts to the heart of an audience, but her perspective was palpable throughout. The works themselves stand alone as powerful and vital documents of queer reality: imperfect, honest icons, hard-fought realities, and creative histories.

Chavela, dirs Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi

The gorgeous Gund’s willingness to engage with the Fringe! family at each screening, generosity of advice and connection, and creative spirit really rendered her a more special guest than often experienced. From our hearts to yours Catherine, thank you.

For our opening night film this year, we've chosen to shine a spotlight on the fascinating and tragically accelerated life of British footballer Justin Fashanu. This unforgettable documentary recounts a soul that shone too bright for their time and circumstances, and packs a harsh reminder of how recently people struggled to find any sense of acceptance in society.

Forbidden Games: The Justin Fashanu Story unearths the reality of British society's uncomfortably recent prejudice and cruelty through the story of an icon who went from having everything to feeling as though he was nothing, and almost escaping our collective memory. Unearthing and redressing our history, especially through those enigmatic figures who dared to stand out - and be known, has always been a distinctly queer endeavour.

Forbidden Games: The Justin Fashanu Story

Though heartbreaking, this topic and the act of engaging with it as a community is vital, and allows us to heal as a community with many shared experiences amongst our differing and unique queer perspectives. Within this year's festival programme we have chosen many films, art works and events that push us to consider ourselves as a movement and a community.

Dann Parry's short animation Birds of a Feather will screen before the feature. We are thrilled to welcome Forbidden Games directors Jon Carey and Adam Darke to participate in a Q&A. Get tickets to opening night here 

This year we also unearth the stories and films of queer histories in the recent past, as well as those within our lifetimes that we failed to celebrate, as an act of taking stock and adjusting our consideration of those brave enough to stand out as queers in the past and around the world presently, in times that seem as harsh and divisive as ever.

Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity

Over the festival we are celebrating the bold and vital work of special guest filmmaker Catherine Gund, whose documentaries first chronicled activist movements over the past decades, and whose films since have benefitted from building durational relationships with their gargantuan subjects.

Her 2014 work on contemporary choreographer Elizabeth Streb and the Streb Lab for Action Mechanics (STREB SLAM), Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity, remains one of the most arresting and unforgettable documentaries of recent history. A renegade, unswerving career is documented in a film so startling, the audience feels like that of a live art audience. We screen Born to Fly on Thu 16 Nov.

Chavela

Gund’s more recent doc-biopic traces the later life of Mexican ranchera legend Chavela Vargas. Known for scandalising Mexico throughout the 20th century by singing, drinking, smoking, gambling and loving ‘like a man’, Chavela chronicles Gund’s discovery of the infamous ranchera singer just before her death in 2012. This powerful work screens Sat 18 Nov.

Lust, Plenary / Keep Your Laws off My Body / Like A Prayer / KYLOMB

We also look back to Gund’s early career, presenting works from 1989-1994 in a programme called Lez be Honest. A rare opportunity to catch some of the filmmaker’s formative works, which she will also sharing during a filmmaking masterclass at the Geffrye Museum, on Friday 17 Nov, in partnership with Open City Docs. This is an amazing opportunity for queer and activist filmmakers, or those with an interest in documentary, to learn from an incredible force in cinema.

With queer feminist curating collective Club des Femmes, we are hosting an event to celebrate and reclaim the work of another female filmmaker, British feminist director Jacqui Duckworth, with An Invitation to Jacqui D. The filmmaker left three exceptional 16mm experimental dramas before her premature death in 2015. Her films are pioneering for their unflinching representation and exploration of a newly visible lesbian feminist identity, community and moving image aesthetic coming out of 80s London. 

Homemade Melodrama

With speakers Mandy Merck, Cherry Smyth and Jay Bernard, join Club des Femmes and Fringe! in tribute to Jacqui D on Sat 18 Nov.

In another work of reclamation we are proud to host the UK premiere of Rafal Morusiewicz’ Uprooting Ghosts: A “Queer Fantasia” on National Themes - a tapestry of rare and banned works that queer the filmmakers’ found memories of Poland and Hungary from 1952-1989, which screened as an installation at the Research Pavilion of this year’s Venice Biennale.

A Queering of Memory: Parts 1 & 2 / Uprooting Ghosts: A “Queer Fantasia” on National Themes

Uprooting Ghosts screens alongside A Queering of Memory: Parts 1 & 2, reinterpretations of folklore by local director Timothy Smith. (top image)

The Fabulous Allan Carr

We also look to celebrate another Hollywood big wig and larger-than-life presence finally finding his place on the big screen thanks to Jeffrey Schwarz, in the riotous new documentary, The Fabulous Allan Carr. This film is the fun sort of recent-history doc that demonstrates how camp and Kitsch are vitally joyous outlets for queer sensibilities. Tracing the work of the titular producer from the hits to the misses, The Fabulous Allan Carr is a celebration of being un-changeably oneself. Screening on Sat 18 Nov.

‘Being GAY is FUN!’, My Wonderful West Berlin

Earlier in the festival week you’ll find Jochen Hick’s incredible My Wonderful West Berlin. Part of Hick’s trilogy on Gay Berlin a fascinating historical portrait of the west part of Germany’s capital that combines rare archival material with powerful testimonies from Berliners including trans* icon and David Bowie lover Romy Haag, pre-eminent German gay filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim, Teddy-Award co-founder Wieland Speck and techno DJ Westbam. Screens Wed 15 Nov.

A joyous and fascinating historical document - unmissable.

LGBT Britain: Heaven

Our history strand is inspired by a collection of archival gold we’ll be screening on Sat 18 Nov, Britain on Film: LGBT Britain. Part of the Britain on Film season, LGBT Britain is comprised of incredible archive footage from the advent of moving image technology and onwards throughout the last century.

LGBT Britain: Gaylife

A treasure trove of representation throughout British moving image history, and a vital resource, LGBT Britain is wholly unmissable at this juncture in history. 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality, and what a time it’s been.

As well as looking backwards for power, strength and survival strategies, this year’s Fringe! programme also looks at the energy of queer youth movements and communities worldwide in celebration. Films such as Upon the Shadow, Paris is Voguing, #BKKY and My Nature paint a picture of the situation today...

Click here to see what else is in store during Fringe! 2017.

At Fringe! 2017, we’re taking gender for a joyride and you’re all invited, so hop on! Let these five incredible films and events guide your way:

1. ACTING BEYOND GENDER WORKSHOP

Friday 17th November, Hackney Showroom

Despite the creative potential which theatre and film hold, gender stereotypes abound and present many challenges to actors, theatre and film makers hoping to work beyond these moulds. This free interactive workshop will equip participants with the tools to counter unwanted constraints.

2. MY NATURE

Sunday 19th November, Hackney Showroom

Gender can sometimes be a journey, and the process of arriving at a more comfortable self can unearth a variety of truths. This exquisite documentary follows Simone as he travels across the Umbrian countryside, on a path to self-discovery.

3. WHO WILL FUCK DADDY?

Saturday 18th November, Hackney Showroom

Anarchic, playful, and sexy, this surreal Swedish fantasy sets out to positively dismantle gender and the patriarchy all in one. Literally burying our differences, the patriarchy becomes compost allowing new life to flourish. It’s fabulous!

4. (SHORTS) GENDER WITHOUT BORDERS + Q&A

Saturday 18th November, Hackney Showroom

Unmissable collection of shorts offering a celebratory and rebellious indictment on gendered conventions. And, it’s free!

5. KAIROS DIRT & THE ERRANT VACUUM

Sunday 19th November, Hackney showroom