Fom 18.-23. April the section desired! – filmlust and queer with its focus on LGBTQI* topics and characters will be presented for the first time in Dortmund. This year, five current feature and documentary films and two short film programs deal with people and topics from the LGBTQI* community under the keyword »Movements of the Search«. The films in the section describe moments of searching: for the right questions, stories and connections to be made.

“The queer films we are showing this year may transform a world outside of the cinema space. In any case, they shift narrative patterns and traditional images. That could be the work of Queer Cinema – not stopping to search and always keep moving.” (Natascha Frankenberg, curator)

To the section page

Everyday observations are at the center of Su Friedrich’s new documentary Today (USA 2022). She compiles snapshots over several years: life in Bedford-Stuyvesant, neighborhood festivals, the loss of loved ones, protests in public space. Observations with the camera that respond to the call to live in the moment. Su Friedrich has been one of the most important directors of American avant-garde film and queer-feminist cinema since the beginning of her career in the late 1970s.

Coraci Ruiz portrays her child’s queer circle of friends under the Bolsonaro government in her documentary film Blooming on the Asphalt (BR 2022). The friends are busy organizing spaces, taking to the streets and creating opportunities for gathering – until the corona pandemic makes it difficult.

The protagonists in Wolf and Dog (PT / FR 2022), which tells the story of teenagers on the Azores island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, move between religious rites, everyday work and nights together. The images of the island and its nature create a place of longing and a place of limited possibilities at the same time. Surreal-sensual coming-of-age with a strong cast – the first feature film by documentary filmmaker Cláudia Varejãos.

Chase Joynt’s study Framing Agnes (CA 2022) flips the talk show format on its head in response to the media’s ongoing fascination with transgender people. In 1958, young trans woman Agnes took part in a UCLA study aimed at gender reassignment treatment. In 2017, further files of similar patients were found. In her study, Chase Joynt uses methods of re-enactment and cross-genre storytelling to bring to life people who redefined gender in the mid-20th century.

A grandfather who is increasingly losing his memory, a mother who speaks little, a brother who has disappeared: Mira, the protagonist in Clara Stern’s Breaking the Ice (AT 2022), is preoccupied with all of this. When Theresa, a new player, joins the team in the middle of the season, she becomes an important reference person for the successful ice hockey player and captain Mira.

In the short film programs Space is Quite a Lot of Things and Ties That Bind Us, too, the variety of cinematic forms rules analogously to that of gender: It’s about trans*futuristic communities, a world without gender with lots of jellyfish, splintered bodies, one surprising ongoing bachelorette party and about Barbara Hammer, pioneer of lesbian experimental films.