Fighters of yesterday and today

As could hardly be otherwise, the documentaries selected for the 2016 edition of FIRE!! also, each in their own way, celebrate diversity in many of its forms. As has become customary at our festival, these films do this through portraits of people, all exceptional in their way: various brilliant minds belonging to artists, authors, athletes, dancers, social activists and so on. They all stand out, not only for their extraordinary capacity for innovation in their respective professional fields, but also for their clear discourse concerning the diversity of our emotive, sexual and gender options. Theirs is a discourse capable of substantially changing how we see things and helping us to increase our empathy, our tolerance, our open-mindedness, our ability to live in harmony together, our generosity. A diversity of chosen destinies that, in short, broadens our view of the riches that reside in humanity, our ability to create, resist, love, and fight against the roots of discrimination, which are closed-mindedness and ignorance.

All this is illustrated by Greg Louganis on his return as a coach to a sport that, in its day, cruelly turned its back on him, and the tailors in Suited, who restore to transgender people a pride and a dignity that had been hurt, by providing them with better designed clothes. In the field of pure art, the creative power and personality of the choreographer Yvonne Rainer and the devil-may-care gay hedonism that emanates from many paintings by David Hockney also speak to us of the importance of trying to live our affective identities to the full and of continuing to work towards our professional goals. In a similar way, the protagonists in Oriented, young gay Palestinians, also look to culture to improve their difficult circumstances. All these brilliant people of today are the heirs of many from the past, people who suffered a much worse fate: the hundreds of artists whose promising voices were extinguished by the awful violence that the terrifying, deadly storm that was Aids unleashed on New York in the 1980s. Their countless voices, which now ring out once more, if only fleetingly, in Let the Record Show, are just some of the sparks of intelligence and humanity that FIRE!! invites you to admire, year after year, on the big screen.


Antoine Leonetti, Co-director of Mostra FIRE!!

Since the launch of the Trans Screen season four years ago, we have witnessed a veritable explosion of media representations of the trans experience, in series, films and documentaries devoted to the subject, some on prime time television, some even winning Oscar nominations. However, in most cases these are only partial depictions of a reality that is much more complex and diverse.

This year’s Trans Screen season, once more the result of cooperation between Cultura Trans and FIRE!!, seeks to expand this image by featuring stories that eschew the established narrative arc. Some portray cultural contexts that are similar to ours, others are set in more distant environments. Contexts in which dissidence with regard to gender expression and identity are perhaps not classified as “trans” but which, nevertheless, illustrate the fact that gender experience is enormously diverse in nature and, above all, that gender is a cultural product. Some may wonder why we have included films in which no character identifies as trans on our programme. This does not denote a trans colonisation of the stories; on the contrary, we hope that these films can transform our way of thinking about the trans experience in our context, help us to escape from essentialism, suggest other points of view.

We hope that you enjoy these films and that the images we are going to see will help us to continue thinking, fighting and advancing towards new horizons full of different points of reference, opening up the path that lies before us. Here are a few stories to make our trans experiences easier to live whilst raising their profile, filling our imaginations with trans culture.

Pol Galofre and Miguel Missé
Cultura Trans

Takashi Nishihara ("Starting Over"), Takuro Nakamura ("West North West") i Andrew Ahn ("Spa Night") address each in its own way those emotional worlds in conflict with the environment where their protagonists live: they discover themselves when contacting with each other, leading to changes in their lives that society does not always agree with. A cinema that connects geographies ans stories in which, in a way or another, we can recognize ourselves. Takashi Nishhara has directed three films, he is also the author of the script in this drama, designed to portray a young generation of adults who must cope with the hostility of the big cities and the loneliness of the urban environment; Takuro Nakamura, in turn, explores the cultural, sexual and relational borders through three women, whose uncertain future is not an obstacle, in the end, to test their feelings; and finally, Andrew Ahn, who debuted at the Sundance Festival (2016) with the film presented here in this cycle, after having received an award for Best Short Movie Narrative, in the San Diego Asian Film Festival in 2011.

FIRE!! ON TOUR

Like last year, FIRE!! goes on tour to other cities in Catalonia, to bring the spirit of the festival to everyone. On June the 17th, in the evening, we will start with the screening of the Swedish film Girls Lost, by Alexandra-Therese Keining, at Cinema Olot, in Olot. We’ll also be present with this movie at Cinema Catalunya, in Terrassa. We’ll then go back to Olot, with Stories of Our Lives, by Jim Cuchu, and, after a screening of FIRE!! in Shorts in La Garriga, we’ll end up in Sabadell with That’s Not Us, by William C. Sullivan.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

Casal Lambda has always argued that culture and education are key to real social transformation, and the FIRE!! festival is one of the best educational tools we have.

We are forty years old! Four decades that have seen many events and many life stories unfold. And lives reflected in different ways in different types of film. The FIRE!! festival enables us to narrate circumstances, stories, wishes, gains, injustice… But, above all, the hope that a better world is possible. The FIRE!! festival is, clearly, an educational forum, and this reality, this commitment, is behind the establishment of the Education Programme. This programme is designed and created as a platform to show documentary, short and feature films, as well as commercials with educational content and approaches. To show realities and hold debates with guests, sharing and identifying ways of becoming better people.

The present also drives us in our efforts. That is why, this year, besides celebrating our fortieth anniversary and presenting a study on LGBT teachers, we also focus on two other main themes: firstly, the situation of the LGTB community and rights in the world; and, secondly, the reality closer to home with regard to gender identity and transgender issues amongst young people. We therefore invite you to the Forum at FNAC Triangle. Three days of positive, educational reflection on homosexuality and transsexuality, three days to continue trying to become better people.

Jordi Samsó, Coordinator of the Educational Program

FIRE!! ON STAGE

MORE FIRE!!

EXHIBITION
ON CASAL LAMBDA’S 40TH BIRTHDAY
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[ INAUGURATION: Thursday 30th at 6pm ]

> French Institute (Moià, 8)

From 30th of June to 28th of July.
Monday to Friday> from 9am to 9pm.
Saturday and Sunday during the festival> from 4pm to 9pm.

Barcelona’s Casal Lambda centre celebrates forty years since Spain’s first not-for-profit association was founded in 1976 with a clear goal: to achieve the normalisation of homosexuality. To this end, the centre provides gays and lesbians with a space to meet and find guidance and an information and documentation centre on sexuality aimed at professionals and researchers, as well as performing an important task of social projection by organising cultural activities and constantly working to raise awareness amongst public institutions, political parties and society as a whole.

BOOK PRESENTATION:
"PER LA CORDA FLUIXA; RESPOSTES DAVANT EL REPTE I EL RISC DE SER DOCENT I LGBT",
de Eloi Biosca
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> Antinous Bookshop (Casanova, 72)

Friday 1st of july> 7.30pm

Free entrance – Limited seating

Through the review and analysis of 72 personal interviews with LGBT teachers from all educational levels and the appointment of hundreds of fragments of their statements, the Eloi Biosca’s book (Bellatera Editions) shows the big picture that LGBT teachers can have from the “heights of the rope”, describing the fears, the dangers, the attitudes and the strategies of their protagonists.

BOOK PRESENTATION:
"YOU ME THE WOODS"
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> Antinous Bookshop (Casanova, 72)

Wednesday 6/7> 7pm
[ In the presence of the author, Vincent VI ]

Free entrance – Limited seating

The photograph album You Me The Woods focuses on the relationship between two gay men. In it, in highly cinematic shots, the characters reflect on the passing of time and the importance of small things: the wind caressing our bodies, silence, the stars… Toni and Ale, the protagonists, are a couple in real life. Vincent VI, who lives in London, has been an audio-visual artist for fourteen years. He has worked as a digital artist on some of the most visually striking Hollywood movies of our time, including Gravity, Guardians of the Galaxy and Everest.