Pure Queer Competition 1 | To Overcome | KKC
This year, when 2ANNAS will celebrate its 30th anniversary, Pure Queer program will be held for the third time. Number Three – which indicates synthesis in many esoteric and theological systems – has been important to us as well. This year, we’lll launch the 2ANNAS ISSF Pure Queer short film competition– it’s dedicated to works from Central and Eastern Europe that will compete for the Queer Anna Prize. The included works build an image of a wider context that contains Latvia as well. After all, the boundaries of the queer community are mainly set by similar socio-political realities.
After the last year’s festival, mass demonstrations took place in Latvia and abroad, protesting against the denunciation of the Istanbul Convention. On a municipal scale, politicians voiced their cynicism against the existence of the Pure Queer program as such. It is yet another reminder that queer identities are often politicized and that, upon external pressure, our unity is what matters the most. United in spite of various conditions and courses of life – this is what selection of films by Transcendence program curators, Paloma Halén Román and Juno Frisk, declares. Their program focuses on trans-identity narratives that have resilience at their root. We’re In This Together program demonstrates links between generations, lovers and soulmates. They are discovered and created, and they do not break even during the apocalypse.
Programme curator - Žulijens Nuhums Kulibali
Films
Blast / HU / 18'
Late at night, a young male model arrives at a photographer's apartment, and as soon as he invites him in, the cat-and-mouse game begins.
Second spring / CZ / 18'
16-year-old Sasha, a dreamy teenager from Ukraine, lives with his mother in the Czech Republic. When David, a charismatic rowing coach who flirts with his mother, enters their lives, Sasha unexpectedly experiences his first love and balances this love triangle between jealousy and desire.
Stuporia / AT, DE / 16'
Over the course of a day full of misfortune, a dancer who has been robbed of his ability to dance finds the strength to heal his wounds and dance one last time.
Cleanliness / LV / 5'
A diary of an office worker’s day. A humorous look at his casual homosexual adventures turns bitter when it is revealed that he is already in a relationship with a deeply depressed, alcoholic man.
A Microphone in the Head / EE / 13'
Joonas is dead. But through a haunted karaoke mic, he asks his heartbroken fiancée to take him to his mother... so he can finally come out to her—a secret the fiancée never saw coming.
In a Cage / LV / 4'
A haunting journey through times of entrapment, transformation, and survival. The film follows a metamorphosis that comes after being caught in cycles of control and avoidance.