SWEDISH CANDY, SOME VIOLENCE AND A BIT OF A CAT (OmeU)

No More “I Love You’s”

This year, we grew into our 14th edition with 16 feature films and 8 short film programs. We’re proud to expand, not for the sake of expansion but to reflect the varieties of queer stories, communities and characters that are out there. The classic love story is entirely absent in this program, but love is not.

XPOSED has always been about more than the representation of LGBTQI on screen. We love a queer cinema that allows for wildness, for failure, for withdrawal. A queer cinema that refuses the logics of assimilation. Our characters are outcasts, living on the fringes of society. Our directors question the state of the world through the art of montage. Hetero/cis-normativity is observed in everyday life and queered in the archive. Norms take their toll on all of us. Family is central to this, and here, our films open up complexities. Children struggle, but so do their parents, caught in precarious and repressive circumstances. And then, when the subconscious collides with fantasy, new worlds emerge.

With a strong visual language, experimental filmmaking unfolds the loss, love and craziness of our times. Barbara Hammer (1939-2019), whose life and work we celebrate in our program, had mastered this skill beautifully. We love her, and all the other filmmakers that unveil their hearts and minds.

Zum Film:
The newest work from director Ester Martin Bergsmark takes us into a world where realities and experiences merge and transcend the normal, the usual and the narrative. By interweaving three stories, we find ourselves observing a would be infomercial about Gelatin production, then find ourselves following two girls in the forest in what feels like a suspense observational piece that straddles the line between what is good, what is bad, what is accepted, what is detested. As we get drawn in, we are taken then to another linear scenario about two cousins, whose closeness must be controlled, but breaks out when re-enacting a Tarzan and Jane routine they wish to put on for one of their fathers birthday celebrations.

SWEDISH CANDY, SOME VIOLENCE AND A BIT OF CAT is an existential sugar shock which takes us on a fun, candy-filled roller-coaster ride between cruel violence and extreme cuteness – which prove to be disturbingly close together. The humour, the surreal and the shock of your own scream make this piece of work a stand out for most middle length films that push the boundaries in queer film.

Regie:
Ester Martin Bergsmark 2018 Sweden

Supporting Film
THE ANIMAL THAT THEREFORE I AM
Bea de Visser Netherlands 2019 10′

Tickets:
9,00 € | erm. 8,00 €

Weitere Informationen unter:
www.xposedfilmfestival.com

Bild: © Märta Thisner