additional Films at KASHISH 23 Online Festival

SMALL-TOWN BOYS (Des garçons de province)
Dir: Gaël Lepingle
2022 | 83 min | France | French

A nightclub employee, Youcef falls in love with the dancer of a queer troupe on summer tour. Elsewhere, a young man perched on high heels crosses the village he is about to quit. In an isolated village, Jonas has an appointment for erotic pictures with a stranger. A diffracted and atmospheric triptych about the solitude experienced by youngsters during the long, slow days spent in communities deep in the provinces.

T
Dir: Jitesh Kumar Parida 
2022 | 96 min | India | Odia

A biopic of Meghna Sahoo India’s first Transgender Cab driver and social activist from Bhubaneswar. She faced a lot of discrimination and rejection due of her gender identity and switched jobs in the hope of being treated at par with others. Finally she becomes the first and only transgender driver-partner of renowned cab aggregator. Her story is a real inspiration to transgender community.

YOU CAN LIVE FOREVER
Dirs: Mark Slutsky, Sarah Watts 
2022 | 96 min | Canada | English

In the early 1990s, queer teenager Jaime is sent to live with her devout Jehovah’s Witness relatives after the death of her father. Jaime makes an unexpected connection with Marike, the daughter of a prominent Witness elder, and the two begin a secret relationship. But when their attraction becomes too obvious to hide, the community moves to separate the two, forcing them each to make a terrible choice between faith and love.

APAIBA LEICHIL (Flurry Clouds)
Dir: Bobby Wahengbam
2021| 90 min | India | Meitei

The film shows the conditions of the Nupi Sabis (transgender people) in Manipur. It shows one of the Nupi Sabi (played by real life trans actor Bishesh Huirem) becoming popular in the Shumang Kumhei troupe but whether the popularity of Nupi Sabis is related to their personal romantic life and social outlook is not properly known.

WHO OWNS THE SKY (Wem gehört der Himmel)
Dir: Sabian Baumann 
2022 | 82 min | Argentina, Switzerland  | English, French, German, Spanish

An activist documentary uses an intersectional approach connecting the questions of the interrelationship between gender concepts and cis-hetero norms with colonialism and capitalism.

The starting point of the film is a series of interviews with activists from artistic and academic environments in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Zürich, Switzerland.

1946 THE MISTRANSLATION THAT SHIFTED A CULTURE
Dir: Sharon Marie Roggio
2022 | 92 min | USA | English

1946 is a feature documentary film that will tell the story of two intrepid researchers, Kathy Baldock and Ed Oxford, who trace the origins of the anti-gay movement within the American conservative church to an erroneous mistranslation of the Bible in 1946, and how the Bible has subsequently been weaponized against LGBTQIA+ people.

ALL MAN: THE INTERNATIONAL MALE STORY
Dirs: Bryan Darling, Jesse Finley Reed 
2022 | 83 min | USA | English

A nostalgic and colorful peek behind the pages and personalities of International Male, one of the most ubiquitous and sought-after mail-order catalogs of the ’80s and ’90s. A small-town dreamer with a big idea leads an unlikely band of outsiders to create the International Male catalog, changing the way men would look—at themselves, at each other—and how the world would look at them.

BEFORE WE MOVE
Dir: Aleksandr M. Vinogradov 
2022 | 100 min | Belgium, France, Germany, Russian Federation | English, French, Russian

The film documents two years of a gay couple Misha and Otar before their immigration to Israel from Russia. The images of the documentary preserved their lives and emotions in the decision making process. While organizing queer tango events and giving tango classes, Otar and Misha are feeling lost about the upcoming departure. At this moment the body says what words cannot.

HOME GROUND ( 홈그라운드)
Dir: Aram Kwon 
2022 | 80 min | Republic of Korea

In the mid-1990s, the first openly lesbian bar in South Korea, LesBos, opened its doors in Sinchon, Seoul. This documentary follows one of the bar’s proprietors, Myong-woo, whose witty commentary prompts a broader reflection on Seoul’s lesbian scene, and the evolution of the city’s queer spaces over the past five decades. This is a film about a shared sense of belonging, and shared environments of kinship. Offering a rare insight into Seoul’s often-hidden lesbian history, Home Ground reveals the vibrancy and endurance of South Korea’s queer culture.

YESTERDAY’S AMAZONS, TODAY’S LESBIANS, 40 YEARS LATER (Amazones d’Hier, Lesbiennes d’Aujourd’hui, 40 ans plus tard)
Dirs: Dominique Bourque, Johanne Coulombe, Julie Vaillancourt
2022 | 57 min | Canada | French

This documentary gives voice to the four lesbians who founded the collective Amazones d’Hier, Lesbiennes d’Aujourd’hui in Montreal in 1979: Gin Bergeron, Ariane Brunet, Louise Turcotte and Danielle Charest. Forty years later, through archival documents and interesting ‘mise en abyme’, they look back on their pioneering achievement: a video about lesbians of the time.

LEGENDARY CHILDREN [ALL OF THEM QUEER]
Dir: Rob Falconer 
2022 | 39 min | United Kingdom |English

Legendary Children [All Of Them Queer] follows many of the original Gay Liberation Front pioneers of the 1972 and first European Pride March during events over the summer of Pride 50 when the UK marked its 50th anniversary in spectacular style.

AT SIXTEEN (Aos Dezasseis)     
Dir: Carlos Lobo
2022 | 15 min | Portugal | Portuguese

A school, a skate park and a concert. Sara is trying to cope up with her coming of age experiences.

BEAUTIFUL THEY      
Dir: Cloudy Rhodes
2020 | 11 min | Australia | English

A chance meeting paves the way for a deeper connection. When two young people cross paths one afternoon, they find that they are irresistibly drawn to one another. 

Dreamily shot in warm, vibrant colour, and sustained with an atmospheric, almost ethereal synth score, Beautiful They is a queer surf romance that enamours with its slow-burn, delicate intimacy.

DISSOCIATED IN LOVE
Dir: Malik Ever 
2022 | 10 min | USA | English

A new crush has Amber feeling so disconnected from their body that they unlock a liminal space in their own mind where they are forced to confront their greatest critic–themself.

EXPLOITATION
Dir: Marina Symeou 
2021 | 15 min | Greece | Modern Greek

Electra returns to a village decaying under the shadow of a huge factory, to take Lia with her to a mission of glory they both need: Lia to escape, Electra to tie Lia with her.

LONELY COWGIRL (Ensom Cowgirl)
Dir: Gina Kippenbroeck 
2021 | 19 min | Denmark | Danish, Norwegian

Alone in her apartment, Liv is counting the days until she is reunited with the woman she loves. Accompanied by her audio-tapes, she thinks back on her relationship as the solitude slowly begins to test her mental strength.

REUNION
Dir: Gilbert Kemp Attrill 
2021 | 15 min | Australia | English

When a lovesick young man reunites with his oblivious long-distance boyfriend on a whirlwind summer holiday, expectations and reality collide. The experience of a long distance relationship is a jumping off point for a look at connection, withdrawal, and being oneself.

WATER CIRCLES UNDER COTTON CLOUDS (Círculos sobre agua, bajo nubes de algodón)
Dirs: Roberto F. Canuto, Xiaoxi Xu
2023 | 24 min | Spain | Spanish 

In a dystopian future, with a social context influenced by various pandemics and with a political upheaval triggering reactionary governments, various young people hide on the outskirts of a city after looting a batch of vaccines. While the leaders of the group seek to sell them on the black market, the subjugated try to get their distribution among the marginal population who, like them, are deprived of vaccination.