"The entire universe is cut in half and only in half," writes Paul B. Preciado in An Apartment on Uranus. The artist and philosopher talks about humans and animals, men and women or organisms and machines, concluding, "We have been divided by the norm.". What if we stopped recognizing these norms, broadened the spectrum of possibilities, opened up to the undefined?
This question will be answered by the Third Eye section, which this year adopted the slogan "non-male/non-female," with the task of drawing attention to the seemingly transparent foundations of the binary system: especially in terms of gender.
Desertion from norms
Third Eye is a New Horizons section dedicated to the work and representation of women in cinema. It has been consistently showing films that enter into dialogue with feminist theories and practices. It is a section built on the feminine, in opposition to the infamous male gaze, objectifying women on screen. "Non-male/non-female," however, is a cinematic attempt to move beyond this binary opposition, an expedition in search of non-binary subjects in cinema, and a look toward fluid identities: toward trans and non-binary, genderfluid people, all gender nonconformists who reject heteronormative patterns and definitions. Gendernauts. By questioning traditional gender identities, constantly searching for themselves, their place in the world and a new language befitting a less schematic reality, they are pioneering a new sexual revolution. Perhaps more radical and more important than the one half a century ago.
The Third Eye will include both documentaries attempting to describe and objectify phenomena and identities, as well as feature films: intimate, personal stories. Almost all films were shot over the last three years, so they show a certain "here and now." They are a testament to how we understand what gender identity is or can be today. What challenges are faced by those who negate and transcend the traditional division between male and female? The one exception, and a film symbolically foundational to the entire program, is Monica Treut's pioneering documentary Gendernauts: A Journey Through Shifting Identities. The film portrays the San Francisco queer-punk scene of the 1990s and focuses on a group of individuals exploring the issue of gender fluidity in life and art. "It's a film about cyborgs, people who change their bodies and minds with new technologies and chemistry," Treut said, "with an emphasis on biological women who use the male sex hormone testosterone".
Secondly, it is only by going back in time that we can clearly see what has changed in the queer discourse over the past twenty years, and what has not - particularly in the language of both trans and lesbian people. The social change that has taken place is enormous, and this is told in Monica Treut's second film, Genderation, in which the director revisits the heroes and heroines of Gendernauts, after more than two decades. The melancholy is there, but above all there is radical hope - grown not in spite of, but thanks to, decades of practicing queer life. It is a portrait of queer maturity, becoming rooted and fulfilled. Although San Francisco itself has ceased to be "the most creative city in the Western hemisphere," a queer and artistic mecca, and has begun to be the epicenter and patient zero of brutal gentrification.
Paul B. Preciado's first film, Orlando, ma biographie politique, is a very special picture. Rarely has the field of philosophical practice overlapped with the field of activism in such a coherent and interesting way. The director, along with a group of his protagonists, trans and non-binary people, reads Virginia Woolf's Orlando, interweaving the shared reading with autobiographical elements. As a result, the film blurs the boundaries between literary fiction and personal confessions. Through a layering of languages and stories, it challenges discursive norms that require trans and non-binary people to constantly explain themselves through coherent, impossible autobiographical narratives.
Going from public to private
In between Monica Treut and Paul B. Preciado's films, which chart a broad cultural and social landscape, are stories that are more intimate, focusing on the personal experiences of individuals and their families. 20,000 Species of Bees is a touching but avoiding melodramatic clichés film about a child struggling with their gender assigned at birth. Lucia, who - clearly against her will – is still addressed by most of her relatives by her official name, Aitor, tenaciously defends her identity. Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren's film also reminds us that there is no single coming out, but that it is done many times. The film is one of the discoveries of this year's Berlinale.
Mutt, directed by Vuk Lungulov-Klotz, is a sincere and empathetic story based on the director's own experiences. Feña is a 20-year-old trans man, whom we accompany for a 24-hour stretch in adventures and minor or major clashes with his former life. It's a film about trying to reconcile the past with the present, broken family ties and broken hearts. And above all, about building a new life from the pieces of the past.
In Kokomo City, the action mostly takes place in bed – that's where the conversations, gossip sharing and beauty care rituals of the several black trans young women that D. Smith portrays take place. Her characters know what social exclusion is due to race, transgenderism and sex work. They describe the community in which they grew up, but function on its margins. They share dreams, memories, battles fought. With tenderness, but also irony, D. Smith mixes the different registers of the story, using the charisma of her female characters. She challenges norms and stigmas, and suspends in the air the question of the performative nature of gender.
Femme directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping talk about performing femininity and masculinity. Their protagonist Jules is an audience-loving drag queen. The fluidity with which Jules shifts between masculine and feminine - both on stage and in private life – exposes how much these categories are created by body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, clothing. In turn, through constant repetition and role-playing, we are, as Judith Butler wrote, caught up in gender. And it's a theater in which words and characters are determined by conventions.
The on-site portion of the 23rd mBank New Horizons International Film Festival will take place between July 20th to 30th. Part of the festival films will also be available for viewing online until August 6th. The full program will be announced on July 4th, ticket sales and online access to the films will begin on July 6th.
The partner of the Third Eye section is Sexed.pl.