PANDEMIC POP UP MAY 8-10, 2020 - images from #Janelas, directed by Fernando Cavallari - New Mexico ...
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FBAFF Presents
PANDEMIC
POP UP
A VIRTUAL FILM FESTIVAL &
CULTURE WORK EXHIBIT
MAY 8-10, 2020
images from #Janelas, directed by Fernando Cavallari
Program At a glance:
1 Welcome
A note from our virtual festival director.
3 Feature-length film
Aleksi (Croatia) 87 min.
3 Moms double-feature
Moms Don’t Cry (Brazil) 20 min.
Mis Amigas y Yo (Argentina )24 min
4 Quarantine/Beyond
A combination of short films created during and focused on the 2020
Coronavirus pandemic and beyond.
Total running time: 30 min
6 Queer, Feminist, LGBTQ+++ Shorts
A collection of short films that investigate gender identity and sexuality
Total running time: 30 min
8 Dark Matter
A collection of short films that will appeal to fans of horror films, thrillers, and
experimental cinema.
Total running time: 40 min
10 Streaming on genders.nmsu.edu
A collection of short films available to stream from our webpage.
12 Zines
A collection of zines (self-made publications) on a range of topics.
1 Pandemic Pop Up! A Virtual Film Fest & Online Culture Work Exhibit Welcome to our remote fest & exhibit Feminist Border Arts regularly works with artists across North America and globally to asynchronously and virtually curate its culture exhibits and film programs. In fact, we only recently completed our 5th festival season in early March at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, NM. The realities of pandemic and quarantine quickly motivated us to get back to work. Filmmakers and artists responded and now we have crafted this one weekend, virtual event. Everyone is seeking to reach out, to find new ways of being together. An asynchronous event is one way that offers both connectivity and flexibility at once—two things in high demand now. We chose the dates of this weekend because we want to honor the graduating seniors and everyone at NMSU, mothers of all ages for Mother’s Day, first responders and essential workers, people who have lost their jobs, LGBT+ folks, parents, people struggling through isolation or quarantine, and a number of other reasons. And we honor those who are dealing with the virus as well as any other health issue. We honor those who have passed. We want to support how amazing it is that so many are staying home as much as possible in order to help keep others safe and not overwhelm our fragile medical systems. Creativity offers an outlet to communicate ideas, what we’re thinking and feeling. It’s part of what we’re meant to do, as humans. Our brains have evolved to reward creativity with its pleasure centers. That means creativity is rather important, even if our current system only seems to find its value in its potential for money making. That is one of the reasons we like pairing a film festival with a zine festival because zine- making is, by definition, low-tech and self-made. Anyone can make one, out of anything. The goal of zine festivals is not to make money, but to share your work, often through giving them away and trading. Likewise, our work with Feminist Border Arts is not to produce a commercial festival, but to construct one where the curation, circulation, and archiving of innovative storytelling, especially in short form, by and about under- and misrepresented groups is foremost. Additionally, Feminist Border Arts works with pieces from many different parts of the globe. This means that our programming participates in the global dissemination of works of the imagination across multiple epistemological frameworks.
2 This virtual event is free and open to the public. A Dropbox link to the event is available on the Gender & Sexuality Studies website and social media (Facebook and Instagram). The link and accompanying password are active May 8th through May 10th. They will allow you to stream the selected films and read the zines and other media we have collected for this event. But, wait there’s more: we also have embedded several films on our website for those who are interested in viewing additional official selections for this pop up. To view these selections, visit genders.nmsu.edu/film-festival. M. Catherine Jonet FBAFF Founder and Co-Director These films have not been rated by the MPAA. Some of the films in these programs contain mature themes. Viewer & parental discretion is advised.
3
Feature-Length film
Aleksi is approaching her 30s but still
stuck under her parents' roof. While
ignoring her pressing responsibilities,
she follows her impulses with various
men: Christian, an American
photographer who she bonds with due
to the similar interests; Goran, a local
musician with whom she has an intense
Aleksi
physical chemistry; and Toni, an older,
Director: Barbara Vekarić
richer, charming playboy who tries to
Croatia, 2019
lure her with his extravagant lifestyle.
Moms double feature
Moms Don’t Cry (Mãe não chora)
Directors: Carol Rodrigues
and Vaneza Oliveira My Friends and I (Mis amigas y yo)
Brazil, 2019 Director: Belén Paladino
Argentina, 2020
Rachel works in the family court and has
to take her son to work because she In Diana’s diary present and past, real
can’t leave him with his father. and fantastic interlaces. All the things
that never happened can occur.
Memories, old fears, unhealed scars,
and past presences bloom. An invisible
thread bones her, her mother’s, aunt’s,
and an unknown grandmother’s story.
All those women are part of Diana and
appear through blurred images,
whispers, and beloved objects.4
Short program 1: Quarantine Beyond
C-19 Spring
Director: Hassan Dehghanian Director: Marc Haaz
Iran, 2020 France, 2020
A different world, a great tragedy. A When the city and nature come
time to reflect. together to form one. Film produced as
part of the quarantine linked to the
COVID-19 epidemic.
Cortes/Cuts
Director: Chris Mariani
Brazil, 2019 #Janelas /#Windows
Destruction of the digital image, motion Director: Fernando Cavallari
blur and the construction of an image Brazil, 2020
stream that denotes the time of the
city. Quarantine offers a break in routine
from the typical chaos of the world.
Confined in an apartment, where you
can only see the world through the
windows while waiting for an answer.5
The Box of Silence/La Caja del Silencio Proowa (Yucca)
Director: María Paula Contreras Director: Stefany Mendinueta
Columbia, 2020 Columbia, 2020
Azul turns 27 and is very sad because Rita is an 18-year old girl who sees
his beloved grandfather is no longer many problems in her community, so
with him, then he discovers a fantastic she decides to be a candidate for the
world that his grandfather inherited and position of Council within her
it will be a secret between them. community to fight for the improvement
of the living conditions of the
indigenous Chimilas.
Don't Worry
Director: Mana Pakseresht
Iran, 2020
A teenage girl is alone at home on her
birthday and her nurse is in the hospital
because of Coronavirus. A surprise
awaits the girl. Quarantsin
Director: Chevoy
Spain, 2020
Voicing a range of feelings and
responses about our current reality, this
film invites us to check in.6
Short program 2:
Queer, Feminist, lgbtq+++++
Love in the time of Corona
Beach Body Ready
Directors: Anne Winds and Samantha
Director: Céline Ufenast
Rex
UK, 2019
USA, 2020
An abstract representation of a young
An art piece on love, passion and self-
woman's bodily insecurities, triggered
care in a time of isolation and panic.
by an advert she sees on social media.
And how to use your hand sanitizer
wisely in the "6 feet apart” era.
Encounter
Director: José Cardoso
Ecuador, 2019 Our Song
Director: Sophie Fazio
Three musical instruments playing USA, 2020
simultaneously meets at a cave
"When words fail, music speaks" - Hans
Christian Andersen. Our Song
demonstrates the power of music to
transport us to a moment in time, and in
contrast feel the loneliness and pain of
silence.7
Queer Digi-love
Director: Humad Nisar Same, Old. is a short narrative film
Germany, Pakistan, 2020 about a young woman who runs into an
ex-best friend at the corner store.
In this short experimental video project,
the interaction and negotiation of
sexual identity is explored in online
queer spaces, especially in Pakistan,
where being gay is illegal, because
of Victorian laws set during the
colonialism. This project explores sexual
identity formation of queer subject
in relations to the heteronormative
culture in Pakistan and surveys what role
digital media plays in it.
Transit
Director: Stella Asmon
USA, 2019
Midaminótita. Nothingness is my name.
Corey’s first night out after top surgery
Same, Old sends him to the “no man’s land” of a
Director: Haya Alghanim shady gyno run. Luckily, he isn’t alone.
USA, 2018
Short program 3: Dark matter
The Epistemology of Becoming
Director: Katya Kan
UK, 2018
This video art piece presents a spiritual
mantra of positive transformation for
the artist in discovering her esoteric
white witch powers. It consists of HD8
video in combination of 300 2D stop Swimming in the lake promises nothing
motion animation frames, carefully and special until one of the girls
craftily hand drawn by the artist herself. meets Mavka - mysterious creature from
Ukrainian legends.
The Notebook
Director: Esabella Strickland
Canada, 2019
An urban legend of a notebook that
takes the soul of children.
P/\ST: Tíseň
Directors: Alžběta Suchanová &
Nora Štrbová
Czech Republic, 2020
Music video for Czech rap duo
P/\ST. Personified Tíseň (=anxiety) is
Piece of Bread
constantly changing its form – growing,
Director: Lev Seryapin
dripping, creeping, gushing from the
Russian Federation, 2020
walls, coming from forests and rivers –
A piece of bread gone wild.
still escaping. The lyrics of the song are
rich for multiple interpretations and
fantasy imagery, so combining it with
animation was a natural choice.
Mavka
Director: Alona Shylova
Ukraine, 2020
Two girls go swimming in the lake.
Along the way, they are speaking about
their everyday life as a young women
and problems of an adulthood.9
Permanence Is Only A Word
Directors: Kayla Tange and Luka Fisher
USA, 2020
Permanence Is Only A Word is a film by
Quarantena
performance artist Kayla Tange and
Director: Misha Tarasiuk
Luka Fisher; who may or may not be a
Italy, 2020
performance artist.
This short film was realized with a
Chuck Hohng provided the translation
smartphone, during the quarantine, in
and additional vocals.
March 2020.
After a week of forced quarantine, a
couple, locked up at home, start
thinking about how they can get
through the quarantine days without
going crazy. He (Edo) has had some
experience in cinema, so he decides to
make a film with her (Jess). She doesn't
like the idea of showing their daily lives
to the public, except that she has no
choice and is forced to act.
Despite their aim of not going crazy,
they will get carried away until they
won't be able to control their actions
anymore.10
Streaming on genders.nmsu.edu
one thing you’re supposed to be good
at? The film gives you a glimpse of an
artist's process while making art and
addresses issues of mental health. The
protagonist, Abel, is struggling with the
impending doom of a deadline,
inducing the ever-familiar anxiety
attack.
Akerman
Director: M. Dianela Torres
Mexico, 2020
Handshake
Director: Katerina Sigala
Video essay about two fragments from
Greece, 2020
Chantal Akerman's films "D’Est" (1993)
and "No Home Movie" (2015). The
The handshake nowadays has become
footage was remixed for analysis
so typical, so impersonal. Do you speak
purposes and to make the viewer recall
without a soul? Has virtual reality taken
the travelling left in these two
the place of
sequences.
the real? Did
you stop
talking to the
eyes? A
handshake
equals 1000
words and
The feelings.
Excruciatingly Endless and Yours?
Dishearteningly Tedious Tale of The
Creator Who Cannot Create: A Journey
into Lifelessness Present day, Present time: a 鬼鎮
Director: Urja Vakta (Ghosttown) moment
USA, 2020 USA—2020
Director: John Cates
Artist’s block. We’ve all been there
before, right? You know the feeling
when you have to try so hard to do the11
Siera Begaye, indigenous artist, actress, infinitely.
and activist from the Diné (Navajo) Queer,
Nation, speaks from her experience in disabled
this stylized portrait. The experimental bodies (also
music of MORHER (Ambrosia known as
Bartošekulva) creates soundscapes that “queercrip”
accompany and define the glitch bodies) are
landscapes of the film, from the systemically
construction of the transcontinental in erased from
the 1800s to the meanings of public
technologies today. As Amy Beste, discourse. By
Curator of Conversations At the Edge, investigating
writes: "鬼鎮 (Ghosttown) disrupts the and then
Western's most pernicious tropes with deconstructing ideas of visibility and
glitches and noise, connecting camouflage with color and
yesterday’s traumas and technologies to repeated movement, this series
those of today." Independent film makes queercrip bodies unavoidable
curator Patrick Friel writes that and impossible to ignore. They live
"Ghosttown as a whole is a provoking online in GIF form, without beginning or
and visually striking reworking of the end, following the idea that digital life
Western form, infusing it with a more permits queercrip people to live
inclusive sensibility and a contemporary, beyond oppressive limitations of
digital/computer-centric aesthetic." society, and enter a plane of digital
transcendence.
Rebirth Garments
Directors: Eloise Sherrid, Sky Cubacub,
and Lauryn Welch
USA, 2018
A series of cinemagraphs exploring the
idea of “radical visibility” in an ongoing
collaboration between filmmaker
Saudade
Eloise Sherrid, the queercrip fashion
Director: Matthew Esquivel
collective Rebirth Garments, and painter
USA, 2020
Lauryn Welch. Cinemagraphs are
artistic GIFs: shot with intentionality and
"a feeling of longing, melancholy, or
featuring a mostly still image that has
nostalgia"
pockets of moving video that loop12
Additional Official Selection
(Not Currently Streaming This
Weekend)
Free and Beautiful
Director: Narges Haghighat
Canada, 2020
Worst Case Scenario
“Free and Beautiful” is a poetic
Director: Autumn Palen
animated short that illustrates
USA, 2019
heartbreaking realities in three parts
around the subject of violence against
A woman recounts the turbulent
women.
summer wherein she was diagnosed
with stomach cancer, just before
meeting the love of her life
Zines
Mostly News Pandemic Haiku
Heteronormativity Creator: Laura Anh Williams (USA)
Creator: Karla Cabrera
The third in a series of zines that turn
Drawings of stick figures in love can tell news stories into haiku, this zine keeps a
us so much about unspoken chronology of headlines and tweets
assumptions. This zine defines and from January through May 2020, from
questions heteronormativity in pop cruise ships to face masks, from eels to
culture. bees.
Landslide Read Me
Creator: Nina M. Vazquez (USA) Creator: Ricky Araiza (USA)
Nola and Earri fall in love, a foundation Read Me is an interrogation of the
based on false promises and no gendered rhetoric of the body.
support Earri soon realizes that this
relationship has drained her.13
SJZ Vol. 5: A QuaranZine feeling in charge of my sexuality and my
Edited by: Laura Anh Williams (USA) fetishes. This comic is a way
of normalizing cross-dressing for myself.
A collection of poems, photography, This is how I tell myself it is okay, that
essays, playlists, and a crossword puzzle there's no guilt in dressing up.
created by NMSU Gender & Sexuality
students, alumni, faculty, and friends, all Things I’ve Borrowed
while staying home, together. Creator: Sarah DiMichele (USA)
I've never been a person that keeps
small objects that spark a memory;
movie stubs, knick-knacks, etc. But
Sometimes I Lie when I look in my closet, maybe I am
Creator: Hari Chakyar (India) that kind of person. I've kept wearable
items I've borrowed from people and
As a teen and a young adult, I spent a never returned. We're all guilty of this.
lot of time feeling guilty and confused. I But I'd like to believe that I've given
was too caught up in the conventional these items a new life, and that maybe
ways of gender roles and how I was to their original owner might've forgotten
behave as a man. Any sign of femininity about them anyways.
in a boy would be a subject of ridicule
and gossip. I'm 33 now and I'm finallyThe Feminist Border Arts Film Festival Pandemic Pop Up! is sponsored by NMSU Gender & Sexuality Studies/Interdisciplinary Studies. M. Catherine Jonet and Laura Anh Williams are the Co-Directors of FBAFF. We would like to thank the following individuals, without whom this festival would not have been possible: Amanda Adame Amy Lanasa Ricky Araiza Jim Maupin Minerva Baumann Elisa Montoya Cynthia Bejarano Julia Smith Karla Cabrera Patti Wojahn Karina Calderon Manal Hamzeh Discover more about Gender & Sexuality Studies at NMSU by visiting genders.nmsu.edu
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