Gender & Identity
Canady Creative arts Center, Bloch Hall Theater
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
comme tous les garçons
Morisha Moodlet
Year: 2022
Synopsis: comme tous les garçons meditates on images and ideas of masculinity and transmasculine identity. The film combines found footage and personal archive in an act of assemblage that mirrors the erratic and eternal piecing together of a queer identity. Showing, too, how this process first consumes, then corrupts and queers.
The film attempts to trace a story of becoming, laying bare the moments of conflict along the way. It asks what it means to be and become like all the boys, what it means to want this and how the spectre of Whiteness haunts the wanting.
Bio: Morisha Moodley (b. Durban) is a London and Chicago based moving image artist, filmmaker and arts administrator. They are currently pursuing an MFA in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University.
Run Time: 10:13
Country: United Kingdom
Für Lilith
Mariam Elene Gomelauri
Year: 2021
Synopsis: In the hands of a young filmmaker, a handycam primarily used for homemade family movies, transforms into a tool for self-reflection. Compilations of personal archives and images from the subconscious prompt us to embark on a journey of reexamining their gender-identity formation in a conservative, post-soviet Republic of Georgia.
Bio: Mariam Elene Gomelauri is a 3rd year audio-visual arts student from Tbilisi, Georgia. Self-image, class struggles, social perceptions, gender and identity are some of the themes Elene’s filmography often centers around. They enjoy using various types of mediums in their work, generating visual images using artificial intelligence, creating costumes, as well working with analog technology, backed by experience of working as a darkroom laboratory technician.
Run Time: 10:00
Country: Georgia
Second born Son: A transsexual documentary
Merit Thursday
Year: 2023
Synopsis: In 2019, I started making plans to undergo gender affirming surgeries. It made me deeply uncomfortable and distressed to learn that body tissue is discarded uncaringly after surgery. I took steps to receive the tissue back from the surgeon so I could carefully bury it in a special spot. There is something sacred about being received and recycled back into the earth, and I wanted to be able to have that experience. This film details this story.
Bio: Merit Thursday is an experimental animator, video artist, and textile artist. Their process is highly material-based, and they are fascinated by the human body. A member of the LGBTQ+ community, Thursday's works also focus on the queer identity, the queer fascination with artifice and fabrication, and the natural/unnatural forces that shape us.
Run Time: 4:57
Country: USA
Shield Ambiance
Gia Abucejo
Year: 2022
Synopsis: An imagined, untitled future where a queering world can be purely digital is the fantasy of many people who are in difficult positions due to their identities. This film explores this idea by centering technology as a medium for the self-discovery of people of color. Here, technology functions as a medium for connection and amplification of these discoveries. Every glitch is intentional in its disruptiveness, announcing its existence loud and clear. Souls and identities transcend bodies. The emergent voices cultivate an eclectic domain.
Bio: Gia is a Filipino-American emerging artist, dedicated student, and aspiring polymath studying at the University of Pittsburgh. Her artistic interests began in childhood, with deep roots in performance, but shifted more towards creation-based work as she matured. Now, her focus is primarily on moving-image arts, mixed media, and multimedia. Gia’s filmic interests span experimental, narrative, and documentary work. She loves operating in and around these spaces. In her practice, she likes to explore motifs such as simulacra, identity, technology, and the body. One of her recent projects, Shield Ambiance, will be screened at Immix Gallery in Paris, France from March 24 - May 13. She is currently based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Akron, Ohio.
Run Time: 6:08
Country: USA
Have her cake and eat it too
Bella Irwin
Year: 2022
An abstract film on being transgender and sapphic.
Bio: Belle Irwin is a queer student filmmaker at West Virginia University. She is a student of the electronic media minor.
Run Time: 3:22
Country: USA (WV)
Brides and Monsters
Neil Ira Needleman
Year: 2021
Synopsis: For centuries, men have created visions of the ideal woman. And, for reasons that baffle me, many women have accepted that ideal and model themselves after it, making themselves slaves to ridiculous fashions and fads. Isn't it time to put an end to this horror-movie madness?
Bio: I was born in Brooklyn, New York toward the middle of the last century, and I began tinkering with moving images shortly after that. Throughout the decades, I’ve continued to capture and manipulate images, attempting to develop a sense of vision that is honest, engaging, provoking, inspiring, and worthy of repeated viewing. Sometimes I actually succeed.
Run Time: 4:28
Country: USA
Three Pride Flags
Tom Bessoir
Year: 2022
Synopsis: Inspired by the joint Jasper Johns retrospective exhibitions at The Whitney Museum of American Art and The Philadelphia Museum of Art, I created three permutating pride flags.
Bio: Tom was born and raised in the Astoria section of Queens in New York City in 1957. From there he commuted by subway to attended The Bronx High School of Science. Tom studied mathematics and electrical engineering at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. While attending the Engineering School, he took advantage of Art School classes, focusing on film theory and studying experimental filmmaking with Robert Breer. In the late 1970s, he started photographing the downtown music scene. His photographs have appeared on dozens of records as well as in films, books, magazines, and newspapers.
Run Time: 2:00
Country: USA
