VUCAVU

Lulu Ogawa's fascinating 1998 video documentary depicts a wide cross-section of Japanese transgendered people, from drag queens to FTMs to intersex activists to male transvestites. They tell familiar stories of exclusion and abuse while growing up, discuss the need for safe spaces where they can express their complex identities, and reveal the cost of black-market hormones and the physical pain of sex-reassignment surgery. They talk about the difficulty of finding employment outside drag bars and the problem of marrying in a country where one's "family registration" can't be changed to conform to a new gender identity.

The Man From Venus provides a poetic discourse on the power of self-identification and the struggles one goes through to get there.

This experimental historical narrative set in a mythologized version of revolutionary Russia reimagines the story of the 1921 uprising of the Kronstadt sailors and features the largest cast of trans actors in film history. A masterful homage to Sergei Eisenstein’s BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, MAGGOTS AND MEN also deploys stylistic innovations reminiscent of Guy Maddin and Kenneth Anger. Agitprop theater group Blue Blouse guides the viewer through the story, which is narrated by fictionalized letters written by Stepan Petrichenko, the leader of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee.

This animation uses watercolor paintings of child-morphed creatures, poppies and dismembered legs, based on collaged photos from my animation ‘Nothing ever happened’, to produce a commentary on loss. Set to the song ‘Love is a Hunter’ by Rae Spoon reminds us that love can be transformative, but sometimes the intensity of this transformation can be threatening. The surreal imagery reflects a childhood where love is very much defined by one’s ability to hide from violence and pain.

yaya/ayat explores identities, being lost in translation and distance. But at its core it's about the filmmaker longing for a relationship with her geographically distant grandma and her journey to Greece to find her. This is an experimental documentary about how being a part of any diaspora shapes a person's identity.

In this utterly endearing animation by Iris Moore, a couple gets to know themselves and each other by exchanging their eyes, genitalia and facial features with different ones. The exchange of body parts (with the biology and playfulness of Potatohead toys) for the sole sake of new corporeal experiences, has us question our own preconceptions about the body’s rigid immutability. -- Mix New York Queer Experimental Film Festival (2013)

With haunting suburban visuals backed by the rich sounds of Toronto based-band Ohbijou, Akin engages a relationship between an Orthodox Jewish mother and her transgender son as they navigate silent secrets of a shared past.

This experimental and poetic perspective of a transman's first year on testosterone uses stop-motion and digital animation to ask "what kind of man will I become?"

Invited to speak at an Indigenous Revolutionary Meeting, the narrator describes an intimate encounter with an Evil Colonizing Queen which leads to Turtle Island's contraction of an invasive European flora.

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2 Spirit Dreamcatcher Dot Com queers and indigenizes traditional dating site advertisements. Using a Butch NDN 'lavalife" lady (performed by director Theo Jean Cuthand), 2 Spirit Dreamcatcher Dot Com seduces the viewer into 2 Spirit "snagging and shacking up" with suggestions of nearby pipeline protests to take your date to, and helpful elders who will matchmake you and tell off disrespectful suitors. It's the culturally appropriate website all single 2 Spirit people wish existed. Following up on his video "2 Spirit Introductory Special $19.99" this work examines the forces of capitalism through envisioning a "financially unfeasible" service for a small minority community.

This film from Turkey poses that transformation is a dance ritual. With every move you are born again. With every little step, you cut the umbilical cord. With every turn, you create a new shell.

From the artist: In this two-chapter project I piece together the progression of my HRT process, using voice documentation and virtual scenarios to recognize physical and psychological changes. Both chapters are chronological evidence of a -one year- gender affirming experience dating back to pre-T days, when I first envisioned my nonbinary avatar inspired by my deepest dreams.