Six short films are rebellious, angry, grieving, and joyful for Pride
I couldn’t let June go by without a Pride-themed week, could I?
This week’s films are not necessarily about Pride events, but instead exemplify the spirit of Pride for me, as an expression of intersectional revolution, celebration, community, art, and care. From protests around the world, to music and dance, to connecting the personal to the political, and to finding ourselves, we can still wrest Pride from the hands of the corporations who tried to make it sanitized and profitable and the state-backed armed forces that tried to make it assimilationist and supportive of state violence. Pride is none of those things, and never will be.
“When I started to shine, they became afraid.”
Wo Fie | In Your Home, a music video filmed and directed by Kubulor Cini, stars Ghanaian singer Maxine Angel Opoku, known by her stage name Angel Maxine, and features siblings Wanlov the Kubulor and Sister Deborah, also Ghanaian musicians. If you’ve been on Tiktok in the past couple years, you may have heard the song or seen snippets of the video before, but many on Tiktok initially made fun of the video without realizing that Angel Maxine, a trans woman, is a powerful advocate of LGBTQ+ rights in Ghana.
The video speaks out against Ghana being “colonially homophobic” and queer and trans Ghanaians facing state-backed violence and persecution. “Music is the tool for my advocacy,” Angel Maxine told The New York Times. “This is the only way my voice can reach the politicians, the president, the homophobes, the layperson.”
Wo Fie | In Your Home
“I dance especially for our Two-Spirit youth, so that they can feel reaffirmed and that they will have the medicine and power to claim who they are.”
Two Spirits, One Dance for Native American Artist, filmed by Courtney Quirin for AJ+, features Ty DeFoe (Ojibwe and Oneida Nations), a Two-Spirit performance artist, activist, and writer. DeFoe performs a sacred hoop dance at the Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirit Powwow (which you may remember from Matika Wilbur’s docu-short Largest Two-Spirit Powwow in the Nation, which I featured here last fall), and speaks about what dancing means for DeFoe’s Two-Spirit identity and how DeFoe aims to decolonize gender through these practices.
“In my Trans* /two-spirit communities, we can use theatremaking tools to express, to heal, to celebrate, and to tell our stories on stages. There is a teaching I received when I was given a sacred hoop dance. It was that we are all connected in this great circle of life. The symbol of the hoop is important because it unifies all living things,” DeFoe wrote in a powerful essay for HowlRound Theatre Commons. “In a circle there are no corners in which to hide, and in this circle unifying all living things, we must stand next to and across from each other as equals. Healing, celebrating, telling together, though our stories differ. A new nation of theatre.”
Two Spirits, One Dance for Native American Artist
“What’s wound up happening, it’s gotta be better, but it’s not where it should be.”
I could not have a Pride week newsletter without featuring a film by Tourmaline, the creator of The Personal Things, an animated interview with Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a Black trans elder, organizer, activist, formerly incarcerated prison abolitionist, and community leader who, during over forty years of organizing, helped catalyze the modern trans rights movement. While Miss Major is known for her political and public advocacy, she speaks powerfully here about how the personal things matter for ourselves and in the search for justice.
Tourmaline, the co-creator of the film Happy Birthday Marsha and incredible Black trans artist and activist herself, released The Personal Things on Trans Day of Remembrance in 2016. The film focuses on the “small every day ways Miss Major Griffin-Gracy fights back and challenges the status quo,” Tourmaline wrote for Queer Art. “At a moment of increased violence I wanted to release it on Trans Day of Resilience/Remembrance because Miss Major is someone whose life and labor has allowed for so many of us to live, including myself.”
The Personal Things
“Dreams that I’d drawn every day.”
I’m Not Afraid, a music video starring Holland, is a simultaneous coming out narrative and celebration, portraying a party with Holland’s queer community and love interest. The song is very personal for Holland, the first openly gay K-pop artist.
“The message [of I’m Not Afraid] is really how you identify with it and how you feel personally, but a bigger aspect and message I generally wanted to deliver was that it doesn’t really matter who you are, where you come from, what race you are or whatever background you have, you shouldn’t have any fear: Just be who you are,” Holland said in a Billboard interview. “After my debut, I’ve messaged with fans and realized they come from all different places with various backgrounds. It was mostly for my fans to know and get the message that they shouldn’t be afraid and they should be who they are — wherever they come from, whatever they’re interested in or whatever they look like.
I’m Not Afraid
Embrace, created by Tesha Merkel, is a touching animated short released just this month. The film is about an asexual person who first experiences alienation and isolation from their identity, but eventually finds community and meaning in it instead. “This short is the animation I made for my grad school thesis, following the narrative surrounding a common asexual experience,” Merkel said in a creator’s note. “While there’s a lot I would change now looking back, I’m still very proud of it and wanted to share it publicly for pride month.”
Embrace
“We are here to overcome the tradition of silence.”
Uma Paciência Selvagem Me Trouxe Até Aqui | A Wild Patience Has Taken Me Here, directed by Érica Sarmet, is a beautiful film about Vange, a lonely, middle-aged lesbian who meets four young queer polyamorous people at a club and goes home with them in the morning for a day of talking, smoking, laughing, and sex. A mixture of personal testimonials, retro clippings, vlogs, and narrative film illustrates the connections that the characters have across generations and upbringings, and does not shy away from the continued tragedies and violences of systemic homophobia and transphobia, while still celebrating and embracing the journey towards queer liberation.
With an all-queer cast and a heavily queer and trans crew, director Érica Sarmet sought to make a film about lesbian desire – not only in the sense of sexual or romantic desires, but also the desires for happiness and freedom. “A Wild Patience is an archive of feelings not only because it brings these unseen images from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, but also because the images we produced are a record of our time, our lives, and the encounters made possible by the making of this film. It has given rise to many friendships, romances, some breakups as well, and a lot of transformations,” Sarmet wrote for MUBI. “The experience is very different when the crew is emotionally attached to a project, and it’s this collective affective dimension that resonates onscreen. I was fortunate to have a powerful cast who did not know each other before filming, but who came to love one another.”
Uma Paciência Selvagem Me Trouxe Até Aqui | A Wild Patience Has Taken Me Here
