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Free entry with Cinematheque membership
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Three fascinating films that bring unusual stories from all corners of the world.
A visit to Italy and a meeting with a colorful and unique community. The surprising story of South Korea’s erotic film theatres and a meeting with a multisexual nudist community.
Duration: 100 minutes
Duration: 85 minutes
Duration: 100 minutes
Duration: 70 minutes
In China a lesbian has to fake a relationship with a gay man, meetings in museums and on trains turn into love stories, a search for a beloved sex toy, a daughter’s dilemma of how to come out to her mother and also, eggs.
Lesbian stories from China, Mexico, Spain, UK and Ukraine.
Duration: 80 minutes
Duration: 60 minutes
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The screening will be preceded by the short movie “In My Own Image”.
Imagine “Easy Rider” meets early Greg Araki films such as “Totally F***ed Up” and “The Living End” and pour over some hot and sassy Spanish passion and you’ll end up with the anarchistic creation by directors/screenwriters María Gisèle Royo and Julia de Castro, starring Omar Ayuso (“Elite”) in a very daring role.
37-year-old Milagros is a young carefree woman in her last years of fertility, while 24-year-old Jonathan, her best friend, is obsessively looking for comfort on Grindr in order to overcome his separation anxiety. Milagros is looking for sperm, Jonathan just wants to run away after burning down a club. The two embark on a roadtrip where they will meet a mermaid, one night stands and criminals, all while listening to great music.
This is a film about contemporary young men and women who think they live in the age of free choice with unlimited options, but the truth is – the beginning of the 21 century freedom is nothing but an illusion.
The film was shot entirely on a 16mm camera.
Viewing is 18+ due to nudity and explicit sexual content.
In association with the Embassy of Spain
In My Own Image
Director, Script & Producer: Giuseppe Bucci
With: Mariano Gallo, Eva Grimaldi, Salvatore Langella
Italy, 2023, 12 min, Italian with English subtitles
Francesco fails to feel sorry for the death of his father, a homophobic and bigoted man mainly due to his religious upbringing. The son has never confessed his homosexuality to his father and, desperate, he makes a very strong gesture to shout his homosexuality to God, the Vatican and his father.
Gergo and Lénárd are a young gay couple with a big dream – to write, direct and star in a musical film based on their lives. But dreams and reality don’t go together. They live in a remote Roma community in the poorest region of Hungary, in a very religious environment where being gay is considered a mortal sin. The two decide to move to Budapest in order to realize their cinematic dream.
The couple soon discovers that life in the big city isn’t easy either – they have to work backbreaking jobs while dealing with the rise of LGBTQphobia in Hungary. For the first time in their lives they visit a Pride Parade and demonstrations. While Gergo attempts to start a singing career, the two give an interview to the local press and become local celebrities. But only meetings with a screenwriting student give them hope for the future. Following the sudden death of Gergo’s mother they will have to go back to the community they’ve left behind and to the family who turned their backs on them for one final closure.
Director Kata Oláh created an intimate documentary about a hopeful couple with big dreams in a very difficult country.
Screening on the 28.12 will include an Awards Ceremony for winners of TLVfest 2023 competitions
Leila is a young New Yorker. She’s a lesbian and an Iranian-American and contains within herself the cultures of two warring countries. She tries to find balance and embrace what’s different and contradicting in her identity and combine it all together. Leila’s dealing with her conservative parents who are still clinging to their homeland traditions, while trying to celebrate her identity and the freedom New York offers. She loves to challenge the labels society is fast to pin on her. While her family reunites in New York for her father’s heart transplant, Leila is trying to separate her family life and personal life. She tries to keep as much distance as possible from her judgmental mother Shireen, but when the secrets start to unravel, the similarities between Leila’s life and her mothers’ become apparent.
“The Persian Version” is colorful cinema that combines New York and Persian-Iranian humor, lively dances and a complex and chilling cross-generational story of women who decide to stay loyal to themselves and go against the traditions of their families and the society they grew up in. “The Persian Version” celebrates their stories and does that in an intelligent, fascinating and unapologetic way.
A striptease show to a techno remix version of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the sugar plum fairy”, nude reading of Chekhov and a satirical striptease on the theme of yellow vests protests. All these and more are part of a show in the Parisian strip club “À Mon Seul Désir”, a place where stripers with artistic flair can take professional risks and challenge their audience.
Manon (Louise Chevillotte, “Synonymes” by Nadav Lapid) is a young aimless woman with no real purpose in life. She spontaneously decides to start working at the club and is immediately drawn to her new colleagues, especially Mia (Zita Hanrot, “Angry Annie”), an ambitious actress with a partner and a child. The relationship between the two intensifies as they spend more and more time together and Manon finds herself falling for Mia. The two begin a secret affair in a place where you must draw the line between love and work.
Director Lucie Borleteau created a film about sex workers through a female non judgmental gaze. She describes the world of the women working in the club with all its complexities. The result is a surprising and unusual cinematic journey with excellent actresses in the lead roles and quite a few surprise guest appearances, such as Melvil Poupaud (“Time to Leave”), Félix Maritaud (“120 BPM”), legendary director Frederick Weisman and actress Ariane Labed (“Lobster”).
Viewing is 18+ due to explicit sexual content.
In association with the Embassy of France
