Showing presence: This means overcoming invisibility and breaking down obsolete, harmful patterns through deliberate provocation.

In an old shoebox, tucked deep at the back of a wardrobe in her childhood home, Logan finds the pink silk dress. The young, usually much more masculine-presenting woman slips it on. In front of the mirror, she twirls, trying to recognise herself and her body in the dress. Soon, a cowboy hat completes the unfamiliar outfit. In this rural American town, old Westerns still shape the local perception of gender; a cinematic ideal that has gone unchallenged for decades. With a smile on her lips, Logan’s hands dart forward as if engaged in a pistol duel. She finds her own path between two traditional roles. (GREENHORN)

“Beautiful”. This small word is uttered time and again: during Ali and his mother’s shopping trip as they playfully “try on” bolts of fabric, and finally backstage as Ali applies his make-up for a drag performance. It is a term used almost excessively, yet beauty is a deeply subjective perception. It took a long time for the mother to accept her son’s sexuality; the boundaries of country, people, and tradition were – and remain – too narrow. But on stage, Ali is free – and his mother sees her beautiful son through an unclouded lens. (ADEMI)

A determined leap from the third floor; the avenger glides through the void in slow motion. No sooner has he touched the ground than he approaches the group with a dancing lightness. Where men harass a woman, a fight breaks out that resembles a choreographed dance of whirling bodies. They defend themselves almost weightlessly – an act of pure physical mastery through which they reclaim, bit by bit, the sovereignty over their own existence. (STUPORIA)

These six short films are shown exclusively as part of the Queer Short Special and are not featured in the regular programmes of their respective competitions.