SPONSOR
U-M North Quad Programming
DONOR
The James & Helen McCaffery Charitable Foundation
COMMUNITY PARTNER
Eastern Michigan University LGBT Resource Center
The 21st celebration of queer cinema at AAFF spotlights contemporary experimental films with LGBTQ+ themes, and features a love letter; the pain of the past; a cryptic crossword puzzle; a self-made family unit; the story of Narcissus; a recollection of a lost memory; the night at Flamengo’s Park; his parents’ reaction to his drag persona; and plenty of sass.
Compositions For Understanding Relationships
David De La Fuente
New York City, NY | 2021 | 6 | HD Video
A love letter.
Let My Body Speak
Madonna Adib
Lebanon/UK | 2020 | 10 | HD Video
Let My Body Speak: an experimental short doc about sexual identity and body politics following years of socio-political repression in Damascus.
The Dog with Wings (7)
Sanjana Chandrasekhar
London, UK | 2020 | 3 | HD Video
A family of four attempt to uncover sensitive issues about each other through solving a cryptic crossword puzzle.
Two Sons and a River of Blood
Amber Bemak & Angelo Madsen Minax
Mexico City, Mexico | 2021 | 10 | HD Video
A queer woman is pregnant. The self-made family unit of two dykes and a trans man imagine a kind of erotic magic that will allow for procreation based solely on desire. Together they enact a public sex ritual to symbolize their hopefulness for multiplicity, acknowledging their cyborg bodies as technological interventions.
Lilac Lips, Dutchess County
Tristan Scott-Behrends
Red Hook, NY | 2021 | 4 | 4K Video
A glorious fantastical modern retelling of Narcissus.
In Beauty it is Unfinished
Greko Sklavounos
Miami, FL | 2021 | 16 | HD Video
In suburban Miami, a Cuban immigrant longs for a lost memory. A voice creates a meditative portrait of two tropical landscapes—separated by 100 miles of ocean—and two men dancing at twilight, the distance of their bodies both measured and infinite.
Fireflies
Léo Bittencourt
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | 2021 | 19 | 2K DCI
The night side of a modernist icon. The fauna and flora of Roberto Burle Marx’s gardens are inhabited by visitors to Flamengo’s Park while the city of Rio de Janeiro falls asleep. “Fireflies” is a fabulated ethnography of the night at Flamengo’s Park.
My Parents Wanted Me To …
Cheryl Hess
Philadelphia, PA | 2020 | 3 | 4K Video
In this poetic micro-documentary, cabaret performer Dito Van Reigersberg, aka Martha Graham Cracker, talks about his parents’ reaction to his drag persona and what it means to come from conduit stock.
Tank Fairy
Erich Rettstadt
Taipei City, New Taipei City, Taiwan | 2021 | 10 | 4K DCP
Once upon a time, the magical Tank Fairy delivered tanks of gas (with plenty of sass) to the home of young Jojo, a lonely dreamer in need of a glittery godmother.