Post-war weapons: irony, tenacity, glitter

The documentaries of the 2014 FIRE!! festival explore the lives of extraordinary people who, in the thirty years that followed the Second World War, stirred things up either intentionally or perhaps without really realising it, in order to considerably widen the frontiers of the gay nation. In these documentaries we see how a woman and five men, each in their own way and with their own weapons, their own happiness and their own suffering, contributed to a better collective understanding of what diversity really is.

The writer Violette Leduc, for example, had to fight tenaciously to keep her novels, which explored lesbian sexuality with total realism, from being censored by the very conservative France of the fifties (and fight so that Simone de Beauvoir, a feminist symbol if ever there was one, did not shred up the manuscripts of her wayward protégée). The same thing had happened to Gore Vidal with his first novels in rigid forties America: by also depicting homosexuality in his novels in a natural way, the doors of quite a few publishers were closed to him. And when the Monty Python member Graham Chapman bravely came out on British television in 1967, a time and place no less savage, a viewer complained that, according to the Bible, all sodomites should be stoned. One of the other Python members replied with brutal irony, saying: "We've found out who it was and we've taken him out and had him killed." The tribute by Chapman's colleagues is delivered in the same way through our presentation of the tour de force film, Autobiography of a Liar thus upholding Chapman's gay activism posthumously and with the same brand of hilarious humour.

There were some who weren't so lucky, having been truly hung, drawn and quartered: chemically castrated for being homosexual, the extraordinary mathematician Alan Turing ended up taking his own life with cyanide, before having all record of his work completely deleted from the annals of science. It took the arrival of the psychedelic seventies to allow room for ambiguous characters such as David Bowie (or delirious ones like John Wojtowicz). Buried beneath tons of glitter and morbid fascination, and often taking refuge behind multi-coloured and audacious costumes, these ambiguous ones managed to form an uproarious cult of difference. However, it would take some time before being gay was not considered something strange and, instead, was seen as something equal and normal, without make up or platform shoes. In the end this has taken not thirty but sixty leaden years which have gradually become less arduous and lethal thanks to the humour, art, and writing of heroes, the kind who don't use guns and rifles. It's a universal truth that we all know: of the written word we cannot have enough, because the pen is truly mightier than the sword.

Antoine Leonetti, Mostra FIRE!! Coordinator

Antidotes against silence

We, trans people, lack positive role models. The transition between genders is a process of identity (re)construction, an intense experience, a journey sometimes painful and often very risky, given the rejection it generates. It's a path that needs elements to cling to, places to reflect on oneself, and mirrors to look at. For years, the references available to trans people would always represent themselves from the same position and places: the victim, the street, the margins, the deceit, the parody, the shame, and so on.
Since then, the Culture Trans project is working to disseminate new ways to live the trans experience, through discourse, debate, performing arts and film, and understanding that it is also our responsibility, for transgender people, to zoom, disseminate and create references from a positive side, showing trans people who think and live in completely different ways. "Trans" references that show the kaleidoscope of possibilities that are available to us.

That's where cinema has an immense potential to transform reality and the collective imagination. The existence of screens, which display these new standards, is paramount. The Trans Screen section, which emerged last year as a result of collaboration between Mostra FIRE!! and Cultura Trans, is for us, a necessary space, a focus of collective resistance, and an antidote to silence.

Pol Galofre and Miguel Missé, Cultura Trans

Bowie behind the bi-coloured gaze

"She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl"… so says Bowie in Rebel Rebel, his fabulous, timeless song from 1974. David Bowie: icon of bisexuality, androgyny, ambiguity and other norm-bending attitudes, put into practice for our benefit. Because everything he did was for us. It doesn't matter if we ever know whether David Bowie was bisexual. Perhaps it was all a game; a very rock 'n' roll gesture (suicidal even). It doesn't matter. It could be that David Bowie is and has always been a tried-and-true heterosexual, elevated to bisexual icon status. Maybe it was all an accident…like his bi-coloured eyes. An aesthetic accident. Nothing more.

David Bowie's bisexuality has most likely only ever been our invention: created from our desire for him. In the vast, electric space that Bowie's aura generates, bisexuality exists, it is possible, it is sing-able, danceable and it is attractive. Heroic even. That said, sometimes...

"John, I'm only dancing. She turns me on, but I'm only dancing." / "John, només estic ballant. Ella m'excita, però només estic ballant."

We are all John. Everyone else is the "she" David dances with, while we remain confident that, after this dance or perhaps a few more, David will return home to us, to sleep by our side, to fuck. He may have asked for your phone number while you danced, and one of these days you may stay for something more... sure… but tonight, you're only dancing.

"Everything will be alright tonight. / No one moves, no one talks. / No one thinks, no one walks tonight."

We'll see tomorrow... Bowie, an outside-in bisexual. Like his gaze: we see it as bi-coloured but it sees us as we are. That is, if he should ever want to gaze upon us again.


Roberto Enríquez, Writer and journalist

PORTUGAL IN SHORT

Queer Lisboa film festival will celebrate its 18th edition in September. Born in 1997, it is the longest running and one of the largest festivals in Lisbon. Dedicated to queer cinema, it showcases recent films from all over the world, organizing also retrospectives dedicated to specific filmmakers, countries or themes. But Queer Lisboa is on top of that an important platform for the international visibility of Portuguese queer film. For FIRE!!, the festival has put together an eclectic program of very recent shorts, representing different generations of filmmakers and different narrative and aesthetic approaches to queer themes. Since 2000, with his feature length debut, O fantasma, João Pedro Rodrigues is one of the most internationally celebrated Portuguese filmmakers. One of his latest short films, O corpo de Afonso, reflects on the past and the present by staging an audition for Galician men, called in front of the camera to play the (mythical) first king of Portugal. Fratelli, by artist and filmmaker Gabriel Abrantes, is a queer and humorous retelling of the preface to Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Possidónio Cachapa adapts his own novel O nylon da minha aldeia, a tender look at two outcast characters set in the Alentejo region in the 70s. O inferno, by Carlos Conceição, is a solid and cynical look at the intimacy of a high-class family, resulting in a twisted coming-of-age story.

João Ferreira and Ana David, directors of the Queer Lisboa Festival

FIRE!! ON STAGE

Rae Spoon concert
Rae Spoon, a trans singer-songwriter, is currently on-tour in Europe and we have the pleasure to have him in Barcelona for a small, intimate and unprecedented concert, since it's his first time playing in the city. With several records out and more than 10 years on Canadian and North-American stages, Spoon presents here his last work, My Prairie Home, that also gives name to the documentary that premieres at this year's FIRE!!

Trans-Art Cabaret
After three editions, Trans-Art Cabaret is here to stay - both in Barcelona's cultural scene and at FIRE!! -, as a space of cultural resistance from the stage. A platform that gives voice to multidisciplinary artists who come from different backgrounds: dance, circus, theatre, etc. A platform from which these trans artists are able to experiment and to portray themselves without fear. Trans-Art Cabaret is venue to try, to let go, but also a place to come back. In this edition of Trans-Art Cabaret we present Viruta FTM (singer and songwriter), Miryam Mariblanca (body expression), Beck Hiedeberg (dance), Joel Maldonado (physical theatre), Lady Pink (performance) and Popper (urban dance). The whole night will be hosted by Montserrat Escopinya and pianist Clara Peya, with appearances by Laura Vilar.

FIRE!! goes GLAM!!
In a year that celebrates glam, FIRE!! wants to bring back a great tradition with a party for the Mostra's audience and friends. It'll be a night of live music and DJ sessions where they will all be able to dance together. And we go back to Barcelona's legendary Sala Apolo. Come celebrate with us such a thrilling night!! With the performances of Cannibal DJ (Juanma Carrillo), Chanson Mormon (live), Yann González (Les Rencontres d'après minuit / M83) and Ferdiyei.