Selection 14 - SHAMELESS MEMORIES FROM LATIN AMERICA 1

31 March, 2024 - 17:30
Paddenhoek
TICKETS

 

MEMORIAS SINVERGÜENZAS DE LATINOAMÉRICA
SHAMELESS MEMORIES FROM LATIN AMERICA 

Initiatives from the past and present converge to unearth queer memories from Latin America. Filmmakers and archivists seek to rethink their connections with their ancestors to impact the present. In the first part, young artists reimagine the links between identity and territory in Colombia and Mexico to invite indigenous representations, deities, creatures, and monsters to descend from their dwellings and dance to the rhythm of their struggles and celebrations. In the second part, traveling archivists venture into the Brazilian territory with mobile digitization systems in search of rescuing forgotten memories: they recover queer short films that depict a diverse Brazil during times of repression and conservatism in the 1980s.

PART 1 / COLOMBIA AND MÉXICO: RE-IMAGINING QUEER HERITAGE

Identity performance and gender construction merge with environmental claims in which portals are opened for the past to leave marks on the present. The characters in these films demand solidarity to build new possible worlds. Surrounded by music and dance, they reclaim their freedoms and natural resources from their territories with strength and power. Native mythology paves the way for surrealism, activism, transformation, and dispossession in the contemporary world.

 

In the presence of Jorge Cadena

Curated by Alejo Duclós

In collaboration with EQZE - Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola

Flores del otro patio

Jorge Cadena
,
CH, CO
,
2022
,
digital
,
15'

In the Colombian Caribbean, a group of queer activists practice a militancy that challenges heteropatriarchal norms while engaging in other causes to collectively fight against the various social injustices that plague the region. When the management of the country’s largest coal mine announces a press conference to promote the development of mining, the group prepares to carry out a denunciatory performative action... which is resolutely queer.

 

Spanish spoken, English subtitles

Sonnet of Vermin

Naomi Rincón Gallardo
,
MX
,
2022
,
digital
,
19'

In Sonnet of Vermin, a legion of unwanted creatures related to the Mesoamerican underworld attempt to syntonize with one another and with the dead in the midst of a planetary cataclysm. The vermin are unspecific animals who are associated with negative aspects, damage or destruction. A bat broadcasts frequencies from a tomb with the help of a funerary bundle/radio. A group of frogs/children are paranormal cyborgian amphibians who have adapted to toxicity and they demand another fix of cyanide. A twisted scorpion is a bad omen who claims for the right of infection. A snake sheds her skin while she announces the transformation of the cycles. A telluric alligator devours all what she finds on her way. A brigade of arms insists on raising from the earth. All of them seek for a subaltern solidarity and queer relationality as a form of re-existence within the ruins.

 

Spanish spoken, English subtitles

Aribada

Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau and Natalia Escobar
,
CO, DE
,
2022
,
digital
,
30'

In the middle of the Colombian coffee region, Aribada, the resurrected monster, meets Las Traviesas, a group of indigenous transwomen from the Embera people. The magical, the dreamlike and the performative coexist in their unique world — an aesthetic and spiritual universe in which documentary and fiction merge into a transcultural narrative. Enchanted by the beauty and power of their jais (spirits), Aribada decides to join Las Traviesas in creating their own trans*futurist community.

 

Embera-chamí spoken, English subtitles