LGBT+ life examined in all its intricate, complicated layers. These carefully crafted, poetic short films mix imagination, mind, body and soul to explore very real, very human experiences.

Yan is an illegal second child born during the One-Child policy. To avoid government punishment, Yan's parents hid their oldest daughter in the countryside and raised Yan as a girl. Now a young adult, Yan struggles with his gender identity and being treated as an outcast in a conservative society. His sole escape is drifting his father's old taxi through abandoned parking lots.

Drifting

Yan is an illegal second child born during the One-Child policy. To avoid government punishment, Yan's parents hid their oldest daughter in the countryside and raised Yan as a girl. Now a young adult, Yan struggles with his gender identity and being treated as an outcast in a conservative society. His sole escape is drifting his father's old taxi through abandoned parking lots.

People believe that cicadas do not exist in south Bohemia except the 8 years old boy Matej. After catching a beautiful cicada in the forest, Matej is eager to show his brother Adrian while spots him and his friend Jakub passing through the woods. He follows them to the lake and discovers that Adrain is caught in a peculiar condition as if he was the confusing cicada sealed in Matej’s plastic box.

Cicada

A boy is looking for cicadas in a mundane summer day which is haunted by the shadow of death…

Dembe sits alone, lost in their thoughts on the shore of Lake Victoria. An unfinished poem runs through their mind - “a little green monster grows inside of me, it comes out to play when I wish to look like She. I want her hair, her eyes, her nose, her skin, her breasts - I want it, to be inside her skin.” It feels right, but the words seem foreign. Ojore, a long lost friend, stumbles upon Dembe walking home along a tree-lined path. He greets Dembe, it’s been a while, he has come home to visit his mother. Dembe sheepishly answers a few of Ojore’s questions when he decides to break the ice and show Dembe a photo of his South African boyfriend - “he’s good to me”. Dembe responds with silence while studying the picture. Ojore mistakes Dembe’s silence for shame and yells “You need to man up! Do you think people mess with me? No. People don’t care I am gay because I am a man.” His words cut deep. Dembe walks off. Ojore didn’t mean harm, he just wants Dembe to experience the same freedoms he has. He catches back up with Dembe and hands them an old South African post card “I found hope here”. Dembe and Ojore make their way back to Dembe’s home where they find Namazzi tending to her vegetable stand, she greets them “Ojore! Look at you! Such a strong young man, look at him, Dembe!” She ushers Dembe in to wash up and help her with dinner. Dembe abides. As they make their way inside, the poem sings through their mind “I want her intelligence, her speed, her heart, her soul.” Dembe feels a small slice of freedom, and thanks Ojore. A few hours pass, Dembe is writing, finally finding the right words to finish the poem “a little green monster grows inside of me, but promises to expire when I learn to smile at my reflection. While wearing the flesh of a man, a woman cannot be herself.” Dembe is content and focused as they write it all down. Namazzi interrupts, snapping Dembe with a towel “Poetry is not what a man does, Dembe. I need you to be a man for me and help!” Dembe responds, “I don’t want to be a man” Namazzi is tired of Dembe being so absent and lazy around the house “you are not a boy, but you are ‘not a man’, so what are you? Hmm?” With that, Namazzi strikes Dembe hard across the face and continues beating them until they fall to the floor. Namazzi leaves Dembe beaten and crying alone. Night falls and Dembe has composed themself - still sitting on the ground, their nose bloody and bruised. They look down, Ojore’s South Africa post card is laying on the ground at their feet. They reach for it. “I want her intelligence, her speed, her heart, her soul. I want it, to be just like her.” With that, Dembe slowly gets up, grabs a lantern, and walks out into the darkness.

October

October follows a Ugandan teen named Dembe, as they come out to their mother as transgender and try to navigate their identity in a society opposed to it.

Composed of short vignettes in different techniques and materialities, UNTITLED SEQUENCE OF GAPS uses the form of an essay film to approach trauma-related memory loss via reflections on light outside the visible spectrum – on what is felt but never seen. Carefully shifting between planetary macro scales, physical phenomena and individual accounts of affective subject formation, the artist's voice considers violence and its workings, class and queerness not through representation but from within. The video’s montage is slow and rhythmic, yet also uneven. The flow of images is interrupted by gaps that hold no less significance than the imagery itself. Footage in which public visual memory stands in for personal remembrance exists alongside sequences recorded via infrared imaging and scenes captured under ultraviolet light or microwave radiation. While pondering the effects of the invisible and the power inherent in shifting violence beyond visibility, the piece simultaneously reflects upon the digital archives and technologies that help shape the contemporary human’s relation to past, present and future. The work tests the limits of vision and recordability, contemplating instances where a subject remains opaque to itself. Ghosts appear from holes ripped into time by an unremembered childhood, and a recently abolished witch-burning ritual in the artist's rural home town serves as a foil against which to question the politics of visibility.

Untitled Sequence of Gaps

Composed of short vignettes in different techniques, this essay film approaches trauma-related memory loss via reflections on light outside the visi

In the two weeks they've known one another, yoga instructor Tammy hasn't had a chance to talk to Marcus about her trans experience. Does she have to? A question considered by thousands of transgender people daily.

Down Dog

In the two weeks they've known one another, yoga instructor Tammy hasn't had a chance to talk to Marcus about her trans experience. Does she have to? A question considered by thousands of transgender people daily.

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Call It Dreaming: Iris Prize 5

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The 14th Iris Prize LGBT+ Film Festival is available online & free for viewers in the UK from 6 - 11 October. From 12 - 31 October we're pleased to offer a catch-up opportunity at a small charge.

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