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Drama 2022

Chrissy Judy

Everyone has this friend that can’t seem to get their life in order, but you can’t help loving them despite the trail of mess they leave in their wake. For 30-something drag queen Chrissy it’s her BFF Judy, a perpetually messy drag queen who always drinks more cocktails than she should. After spending years in the bar scene of New York, Judy is convinced that this summer their drag show will get the break they’ve been waiting for, but Chrissy has different priorities, which force a very disappointed Judy to take a hard look on her own life as a drag artist and rediscover her true self.
This dark comedy gives us a glimpse into the underbelly of queer culture and struggles gay men face in the pursuit of love, acceptance, romance and identity. While exploring the universal pain of drifting apart from your best friend, the question of “What do you do when the family you’ve chosen doesn’t choose you back anymore?” arises.

Unidentified Objects

An unusual road-trip comedy with a unique charm. Peter, a “college graduate gay midget” by his own words, is a recluse in his book-laden apartment, mourning the loss of his best and only friend. His crushing loneliness ends when his weird neighbour Winona knocks on his door with an unusual request – she wants to borrow Peter’s car to go to Canada, where she believes that in a faraway field aliens will beam her up to their spaceship.
The resulting film is directed with exceptional visual talent by Juan Felipe Zuleta and provides its viewers with a unique queer film. “Unidentified objects” benefits from wonderful performances by Sarah Hay and Matthew August Jeffers (“New Amsterdam” TV series) in the leading roles, which earned the latter the acting award in the Los Angeles queer film festival.

Mars One

This darling of the Sundance Film Festival 2022, brings to the screen the story of growing up in a working class Brazilian family, when in the background rage the social and political upheavals after the elections that made Bolsonaro president in 2019.
Eunice is a young student falling in love for the first time. She meets Joana in a club and they form an intimate connection. But Eunice is hesitant about sharing her love and sexuality with her parents. Deivinho, Eunice’s younger brother, is also hiding a secret – he wants to be a scientist and one day travel to space, but his father dreams of his son becoming a successful professional football player and getting their family out of poverty.
While avoiding all the clichés of such films, director Gabriel Martins brings us the story of a first love, where it seems Eunice is the adult one, while her parents never really matured.
“Mars One” brings to life a familial, humane drama, wrapped in all the colours and music Brazil has to offer.

Additional screening: Haifa Cinematheque 1.11.2022

You Can Live Forever

In the early 90’s, following her father’s death, a queer teenager Jaime, is sent to live with her fundementalist Jehovah Witnesses relatives. Soon Jaime forms an unexpected connection with Marike. Both youth find themselves instantly attracted to each other and begin a secret affair. But when their attraction is becoming too obvious to hide, their community does everything in its power to break the young couple and force each girl to make life changing decisions.
In their debut film, directors Mark Slutsky and Sarah Watts deliver a drama with a fresh look on first love and forbidden love. Anwen O’Driscoll and June Laporte portray the two young heroines with unapologetic exuberance.

Additional screening: Haifa Cinematheque 4.11.2022

Blessed Boys

In the sunny Sanita quarter of Naples, Italy, a working-class neighbourhood, where everyone knows each other, two inseparable friends live in a protected bubble until their friendship is put to the test.
Mario (Vincenzo Antonucci) and Lino (Francesco Pellegrino) are two young men, born and raised in Sanita. They still never left the city to explore the world. When Lino’s younger sister convinces the locals she’s a saint, who can perform miracles, and gains their admiration, Lino’s destiny changes abruptly. Free from the financial responsibility for his mother and sister, he is able to imagine a life outside the slums for the first time. Meanwhile, Mario is experiencing an increasing attraction towards his best friend which he didn’t notice before now.
Director Silvia Brunelli’s debut film is Italian cinema as we love it: funny, bold and housing a plethora of colourful and humane characters. This is a film that confronts us with the differences between sacred and secular, old world and new world.

Dodo

“Dodo” is the new film by Greek master Panos H. Koutras, who brought us queer groundbreaking Greek films such as “Strella” (2009 TLVFest opening film) and “Xenia” (that screened during the 2015 TLVFest).
This time Koutras delivers a surprising melodrama, full of twists and highly entertaining. Dodo is the name of a bird that had been extinct for over 300 years. One night the bird mysteriously appears in a fancy villa of a down on its luck Athenian family. In two days they will celebrate the wedding of their daughter – a wedding that is critical to saving the family’s bleak financial situation. The presence of the long extinct bird rattles the family, the villa’s staff and others who cross its path.
Imagine the early 80’s great soap operas “Dallas” and “Dynasty” meet an extinct Dodo, throw into the mix queer characters and lots of plot twists and you get the very entertaining melodrama “Dodo”.

Additional screenings:
28.10, 19:45 Haifa Cinematheque
4.11, 21:00 Cinematheque Herzliya

Breaking the Ice

29.10 and 30.10 screenings include Q&A with the director

Director Clara Stern’s debut film “Breaking the Ice” premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Festival. In this film Stern brings to the screen a story of what happens when someone with a very rigid and uncompromising view on life meets the exact opposite – the side she yearns to live and experience.
Alina Schaller is Mira, who sometimes seems to be carrying the weight of the entire world on her shoulders. She’s the captain of a women’s ice hockey team and the heiress to the barely financially surviving vineyard. She is taking care of her grandfather, whose Alzheimer is progressing rapidly, and her younger, irresponsible brother, Paul, returns home after being gone for a long while.
When a new, spontaneous, free-spirited young woman joins the team, Mira finds herself being swept into a surprising and freeing affair, maybe even more freeing than she can actually afford to have.
“Breaking the Ice” is a romantic sport drama about the freedom to be who you are with no limitations.

Additional screening: Rosh Pina Cinematheque 2.11, 20:30
Jerusalem Cinematheque, 2.11 – 19:00

In association with the Austrian Cultural Forum

Wet Sand

“Wet Sand” is the second feature film by Georgian director Elene Naveriani. It deals in a very delicate and moving way not only with the homophobia engrained in the Georgian society, but also with the generation gap between the older closeted queers and the younger generation who refuses to hide.
In a quaint fishermen’s village, on the shores of the Georgian Black Sea, live friendly people who are sure that they know each other well. One day, Eliko, one of the village elders, is found hanged. His androgenous looking granddaughter Moe, a city girl, arrives at the village in order to organise her grandfather’s funeral. She clearly doesn’t fit in the conservative community that sees her as an outsider, but the locals fake a warm reception. Moe befriends the old tavern owner who used to be very close with her grandfather and the village spinster bartender working for him. The more Moe delves into the mystery that is her grandfather’s life, the more she uncovers the web of lies and the tragic consequences of Eliko’s secret love life.
Pay attention to the perfect and addictive soundtrack, which will surely send you straight to Spotify to look for the songs afterwards.

Additional screening: 3.11, 20:30 Cinematheque Herzliya

The Revenge of the Shiny Shrimps

A sequel to the successful 2019 dramatic comedy “The Shiny Shrimps”.
This time the queer water-polo team are on their way to Japan, to take part in the LGBT games in Tokyo, when their plane is detained in the heart of Russia, in a particularly homophobic area. The fun trip to Japan turns into a life changing experience that will give the protagonists a new perspective on their reality.
This is an unusual sequel that chooses to confront the merry French bunch that is living a fairly safe and free life in Paris with the hard reality that is the lives of LGBT people living in East Europe. The team is facing many troubles they have never faced before, such as the dangers of using Grindr in Russia, an incarceration in a conversion camp, and raging and violent homophobia.

The scenes set in Russia were actually shot in the Ukraine, and some of the Ukrainian actors who played Russian characters had found themselves later fighting against the Russian invasion.

In association with the French Institute

Maybe Someday

The screenwriter-director-actress Michelle Ehlen comes back to TLVFest after screening here two of her other films: “Butch Jaime” and “S&M Sally”. Her previous films were lighthearted fun-filled comedies that enjoyed crushing gender stereotypes. This time Ehlen proves that she is not only a gifted comic filmmaker but a quality drama master as well. “Maybe Someday” brings us the serious side of her cinematic work and this time she deals with relationships, heartbreak and memory, but despite the dramatic levels, the film is still full of humour.
After her partner leaves her, Jay embarks on a road trip across the USA with a backpack full of basics and an old phone. She arrives at the home of a childhood friend in California and gets swept by a torrent of bitter-sweet memories of their childhood. The real crisis comes when she finds out her old partner is seeing someone else. Meanwhile she meets Tommy, an amateur stand-up comedian who is funnier off the stage. With her teenage sweetheart in the next room and her ex that still messages her, Jay must decide if she really means to leave the limbo she’s stuck in.

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