Opening
night
Keep the lights on
Institut Francès, Barcelona





French Institute
Thursday 4th of July
8.30pm
Free with invitation
Limited seating
official
section:
feature
films


The official selection is composed by features films that are shown mainly for the first time in our country, and which have taken part in the most important film festivals in the world. It wants to show a snapshot of LGBT cinema of all continents, showing all its nuances and giving special attention to its narrative and visual quality, covering the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender areas.
Institut Francès, Barcelona
Official
Section:
Documentaries

Twenty-five years after Denmark became the first country in the world to legalize Civil Unions for same-sex couples, on April 23rd 2013, the French Parliament approved a law that gives French gay men and lesbians the right to...


Antoine Leonetti
Mostra FIRE!! Coordinator
Institut Francès, Barcelona
Of Visibility and Blood

Twenty-five years after Denmark became the first country in the world to legalize Civil Unions for same-sex couples, on April 23rd 2013, the French Parliament approved a law that gives French gay men and lesbians the right to get married. The courage of the French deputies, the great fight of the Minister of Justice, Christiane Taubira, 195 hours of parliamentary sessions, 8,866 amendments, and many violent street riots sum up a victory over obscurantism, although it showed the homophobia, the bigotry and the hate that still exist in France. Many surprising comparisons have been made between conservative and Catholic Spain, which passed the same law in 2005, and France, which despite being the birthplace of the rights of men has been very reluctant to approve it peacefully. This backwardness will force many of the characters of Les invisibles, gays and lesbians that forty years ago fought for their space in society, even if it was invisible, and that thought the oppressive society of their youth was gone, to meditate over it. It will also have taken by surprise the lesbians of Une révolution parallèle, who created their own world in the seventies.

Today, none of them are invisible any more. The laws are here, and in the streets one can vividly sense them, even more when blood is spilled, like the sight of Wilfred de Brujin, victim of a homophobic beating, will remain in the conscience of the French. So hurrah for those who with their creative power are part of this visibility, from Somerset Maugham to Paul Bowles. Or someone who could have never been invisible: the unforgettable Divine.

Antoine Leonetti, Coordinador Mostra FIRE!!
we are
family

The "We Are Family" section was born 3 years ago, as a result of all the work done between the FIRE!! Mostra and
the different groups and associations for families of gays
and lesbians that promote the offering of tools to work and think about the reality of gay people within a family environment. For that reason, the selected movies
present educational, inclusiveness, respect and tolerance components, to show a reality that is not usually present
in the cinema: the family diversity and the boys and girls problems to be fully accepted by their relatives.
Institut Francès, Barcelona

French Institute
From the 8th to the 12th of July
See the prices in "The Mostra"
trans
screen

Antidotes against silence

The unnamed does not exist. Something like this happens to the lives of transsexual people. Almost no one speaks about them, and remain invisible to the stories we tell, the tales we read and the movies we watch. And the few times their lives show up it's always from a weird prospective....

Pol Galofre i Miguel Missé
Cultura Trans
Institut Francès, Barcelona
01
14
23

French Institute
From the 5th to the 14th of July
See prices in "The Mostra"
Antidotes against silence

The unnamed does not exist. Something like this happens to the lives of transsexual people. Almost no one speaks about them, and remain invisible to the stories we tell, the tales we read and the movies we watch. And the few times their lives show up it's always from a weird prospective. We still consider their lives as something strange in our imagination, kept somewhere dark, because we see them weird and even ugly and perverse.

All these movies that have shown us the little we know about transsexual people are the same ones that can break this vicious circle and destroy the sand castle we base our prejudices and stereotypes on. Movies that now take a closer look and highlight the small details of the everyday lives of transsexual people, bringing them closer to our world. Movies that shorten the gap between us and remind us that they also are part of our diversity, and the daily live. Movies as an antidote against silence and stigma. A dark and burdening silence for everyone, but mainly for transsexual people, who search for role models to get inspiration and projection from.

the look of..
TILDA SWINTON


Jeanette Winterson and I agree: Tilda Swinton is love in I Am Love. In fact,
Jeanette Winterson thinks that love is 3D art,
and Tilda proved her right when..


Roberto Enríquez
Writer and journalist
Institut Francès, Barcelona
18

French Institute
From the 7th to the 12th of July
See prices in "The Mostra"
Tilda Swinton in three dimensions

Jeanette Winterson and I agree: Tilda Swinton is love in I Am Love. In fact, Jeanette Winterson thinks that love is 3D art, and Tilda proved her right when in 1995 she transformed herself into a live artwork for an installation in a London art gallery where our Swinton (Jeanette's, Derek Jarman's, Bowie's, mine and yours also) was part of the material: "Live artist, glass, steel, blanket, pillow, bed sheets and glasses": those are the ingredients of a 3D artwork that the actress (and much more) repeated again a few months ago in a glass cabinet at MoMA.

Tilda Swinton is love and she is the memory of her friend and mentor Derek Jarman, with whom she started in the film industry and whom she remembers as much as she can, to the point of making a documentary about him and his cinema. It is a great film, a passionate defence of easy life, of the life we choose, above all: above red carpets where Tilda leaves tracks to be named the best dressed, above a family life shared with her old love, the children she had with him and her new lover of three years, who also lives there with everybody. So close to Hollywood.

Tilda has also been Bowie in a video, because she knows how to be everything and understands that there is something between them beyond identity games and androgyny as a slogan: Bowie and Tilda love their masters. Bowie still loves Lindsay Kemp and Tilda loves Derek Jarman. I love them all and still recall the presence of Kemp in Jarman's Sebastian.

In fact, Tilda Swinton is Orlando, but Orlando in love, coming in and out of time, in real life and in fictions that never overcome her. Not her nor reality. Tilda Swinton alive is, luckily, the worst that could happen to Margaret Thatcher dead. And Derek Jarman is happy about it.

Roberto Enríquez, Writer and journalist
East
of Eden

ASIAN CINEMA
For the last four years, Mostra FIRE!!, in collaboration with Casa Asia, presents this cycle dedicated to the plentiful
and exuberant Asian cinema, in which the presence
of the homosexual reality increases each year.
Courageous and challenging films from these countries, where rights cannot be taken for granted, make it even
more valuable. This year we present productions from
China, Philippines and Hong Kong.
Institut Francès, Barcelona



Casa Asia
6th/13th/20th of July 7:30pm
Auditorio Samarcanda
Free
Limited seats
Educational
program

An education program, what for?

Fortunately, the laws in Spain have advanced a great deal. We can almost say that there is no legal discrimination against gays and lesbians. On the other hand, everyday life is full of examples of discrimination, with mockery, jokes, and disdain in many areas, like family, school,..

Jordi Samsó
Educational coordinator
Institut Francès, Barcelona
Fnac
From the 1st to the 3rd of July
Mon 1: 7.30pm -Tue 2/Wed 3: 5pm
Free
Limited seats
Programa educativo
An education program, what for?

Fortunately, the laws in Spain have advanced a great deal. We can almost say that there is no legal discrimination against gays and lesbians. On the other hand, everyday life is full of examples of discrimination, with mockery, jokes, and disdain in many areas, like family, school, playground, work, etc.

Movies also forgot, hid, mocked, criminalized and humiliated the lives of gays and lesbians for a long time. This trend changed in the late nineties. And now, what the media and the cinema do can be the cornerstone to change this. Even more if we identify the right contents and channel them towards one of the key areas: the school. Understanding all that, elementary and high schools have a major role in the education of children, schools can guarantee a rigorous information and provide the knowledge to grow positive adult roles models. Sex education is the teachers' responsibility as well.

Sadly, too often teachers and tutors don't know the existing resources or how to include them in the curriculum. With this program, we want to present some important material. We will introduce it and debate it, convinced as we are that teachers and tutors must have the best resources available, and we will help them to find the best strategies to do so, acknowledging that children and youngsters must grow in an hostile-free environment, full of positive and respectful role models.

That is why the existence of this program is very important. With FIRE!! we want to favour a new imaginary, where lives, love stories and yearnings are told without exclusion of gender and orientation. We also hope that this program will banish homophobia, the scourge that prevents the advance of human rights.

Jordi Samsó, Educational coordinator