Diversity is not as straight-forward as it seems. We liberals like to think that it is a mandatory requirement for a multicultural, modern and sophisticated society. Yet we often come up with arguments that only serve to perpetuate the most reactionary and short-sighted rhetoric. For example, during the Brexit debate, the discussion around immigrants was almost inevitably linked to their financial and social contribution, something along the lines: “EU citizens have been paying taxes for years, they don’t claim benefits, and so on”. This is a dangerous fallacy.
It’s as if our tolerance of foreigners was entirely contingent on money and, to a lesser extent, social functionality (“they are our nurses, our train drivers, etc”). We have thereby stripped tolerance of its fundamentally altruistic nature. It’s as if we suddenly decided that tolerance has nothing to do with kindness, hospitality or high-mindedness. I have learnt from Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1974 classic Fear Eats the Soul (which is out in cinemas this weekend) that this is a very serious mistake with very pernicious ramifications. Tolerance founded upon economic/ vested interests will develop into an ulcer and kill.
A very downtrodden Emmi is inconsolable by the fact that no one can accept her immigrant lover
In Fassbinder’s world there’s never a happy ending, redemption, a reestablished equilibrium or any sort of feel-good sentiments. In fact, most of his films don’t even have credits at the end. It’s as if Fassbinder suddenly threw an unexploded bomb on our lap and said: “stand up, go home and deal with it”. It’s time to question our most firmly established values, and to recognise our sheer hypocrisy and selfishness even in our most seemingly generous deeds. That’s why Fassbinder is my very favourite director, and I have watched all of his 43 films at least twice each. It’s some sort of spiritual cleansing conducted with the most radical and unorthodox instruments.
So now let’s go back to Fear Eats the Soul and why it’s still so relevant today. The movie tells the story of the unusual romance between the 30-something Moroccan guest worker Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) and a 60-year-old widowed German cleaning woman Emmi (Brigitte Mira). Everyone close to Emmi disapproves of the relationship: her friends, her neighbours, local shopkeepers and even her own children. Fassbinder thereby exposes deeply-rooted cynicism, xenophobia, racism and ageism, with his usual Brechtian streak.
Then suddenly these people change their attitude and begin to embrace Ali, but that’s not because they have changed their prejudices. Their acceptance of the immigrant is entirely related to self-interest, as they have realised that a pair of young and strong hands could be useful in many ways which they did not anticipate. Fassbinder denounces the sheer hypocrisy of social integration contingent on vested interests. The ordeal triggers such anxiety inside Ali that he develops an ulcer that could kill him.
Emmi and Ali encounter their neighbours, who have suddenly turned very nice
The Brexit narrative has done something similar to immigrants (not just EU immigrants but instead all immigrants, as many pundits willfully fail to make the distinction). The debate around immigration has entirely dehumanised immigrants, and even those supporting immigration often use callous and calculating arguments (“tax-paying, etc”) in order to support their values. We have all become just like Emmi’s friends, neighbours, local shopkeepers and children: we only value the immigrant once our self-interests are met. This is not tolerance, this is not diversity. As Fassbinder put it, metaphorically and also rather didactically, this is an ulcer.
Fear Eats the Soul is out in various cinemas across the UK from Friday March 31st, 2017, when this piece was originally written. The classic is available on Mubi in February 2023,
Never has a film title been as misleading as The Proud Valley. You’d think this a nationalistic film movie populated with jingoistic chants, subliminal messages of racial superiority, the perfect place for patriotism its ugly face. Well, quite the opposite. This is not a film about national pride, but instead an extremely audacious statement against xenophobia, racial prejudice, as well as denunciation of the outrageous working conditions in the Welsh mines. It was once described as “possibly the most Marxist British film ever”. And it was made in 1940, at the outbreak of the War.
The film takes place in impoverished Rhondda Valley of Wales, where miners work in extremely dangerous and insalubrious conditions. Tragic deaths are a routinely recurrence. A Black American immigrant called David Goliath (Paul Robeson) suddenly joins the closely-knit community, and – unsurprisingly – at first he struggles to integrate. He gradually begins to win the respect of the very musical society through his singing. Robeson is a renowned bass singer and political activist, who was blacklisted in very his very homeland during the era of McCarthyism due to his working-class activism and socialist inclinations.
The world-famous Paul Robeson is the star of the film, as in the original poster
Goliath is the ultimate foreigner. He literally stands from out from the crowd: not only he’s black, but he’s much taller and bigger than everyone else. Plus he has a strident voice and an enormous heart. He eventually takes up a job in the mines, where he’s always happy to help a worker in need. His heroic altruism knows no bounds, with a film critic at the time describing the character as a “big black Polyanna“. He is indeed a caricature of good, which makes the film borderline didactic as to why we should accept foreigners. The tragic ending of the movie is both inevitable and predictable. Goliath will make the boldest sacrifice in the name of the Welsh people.
Despite the trite formulas and one-dimensional lead, The Proud Valley is a a very revelant achievement in many ways. Firstly, the music and the photography are outstanding. Robeson sings twice, and a performance for a funeral inside a medieval is majestic and impressive. Secondly, such working-class realism (you will see workers literally at the coalface) was virtually non-existent. The first working class doc ever Housing Problems (Edgar Anstey/ Arthur Elton, 1935; which was just 16 minutes long) was never widely seen, and Ken Loach was just three years old back then, and so somebody else had to speak up for working people! Thirdly, and The Proud Valley makes a diversity statement long before the very concept of term was concocted in the 1960s.
The Proud Valley has now been fully restored with deliciously crisp and sharp black and white images. It’s available of DVD, Blu-ray and EST. The film is part of the Vintage Classic Collection by Studiocanal – just click here for more information. Below is the film trailer (not restored):
The first thing you should know if you are planning to watch FreeFire this weekend: “from executive producer Martin Scorsese”. Scorsese produces his own films, but apart from them, he doesn’t sign many other productions. Usually they are related to music, such as the HBO TV series ‘Vinyl’ (Allen Coulter, Carl Franklin et alli, 2016), about the Rolling Stones, or they deal with the cinema industry, such as the doc Life Itself(Steve James, 2014), about the Chicago-based film critic Roger Ebert. In fact, FreeFire is a jolly hybrid of opera and thriller. It is a very strange composition. No wonder Marty was curious about the British director Ben Wheatley, a fan of gangster movies based in Brighton.
FreeFire is an opera buffa. It is a love letter to the ’70s. Wheatley told DMovies on the occasion of its premiere at the 60th BFI London Film Festival: “FreeFire is a kind of an action movie and it is pretty funny too. I am going back to the cinema I really like” – click here for our exclusive interview with the filmmaker. As an exaggerated comedic feature, it plays with the sense of likelihood. All characters are stuck inside an old factory in Massachusetts. Usually, in a mafia film, there are three kinds of ending: the criminals go to jail, they are set free, or they die. There is always the runaway sequence in which your adrenaline levels rise. What makes Free Fire different from other gangster movies is that the characters never leave a confined space, a warehouse. And they never die.
More than a reincarnation of a Robocop in the skin of a gangster, Cillian Murphy, Michael Smiley, Armie Hammer and Sharlto Copley are silly men resisting death. They are as shambolic and clumsy as Coyote, the Looney Tunes creation that pursues the Road Runner (“Bib bib!!!”). And they all crawl for a woman, Justine (Brie Larson). She has brokered a meeting between two Irishmen and a gang led by two other men in a deserted warehouse. But then shots are fired during the gun handover and everything turns into a big mess.
The film tempo is quite slow. It works as an adagio in an opera. Because characters are hurt and never die, it prolongs the drama that each gangster experiences. Vernon’s (Copley) drama is that his new suit is now full of dust and has a hole.
As any opera, FreeFire also relies on a spectacular stage setting. Production designer Paki Smith, best known for his work on Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, 2005), got his inspiration to build a warehouse from The Friends of Eddie Coyleas (Peter Yates, 1973) and The Killing (Stanley Kubrick, 1956). The set comes to life as a space composed by three floors of dirt, debris and detritus. It is the perfect stage for gangsters who forget which side they are on. In dust, there is truth.
It is true that FreeFire isn’t a movie with a complex philosophy behind it. It doesn’t profess to be edifying and didactic film about the IRA and how assassinations at that time were treated as “crimes only” and not “terrorist attacks”. Nonetheless, the story is a heart-stopping game of survival. The real show is wild. There is nothing more to add to the adjective. The film reveals that anarchy is in the blood of Britons. Anarchy never dies.
FreeFirewas out in March, when this piece was originally written. It is being made available on DVD, Blu-ray and EST in August.
What would you do if all of a sudden the UK government decided to implement RFID chips inside each one of us? Would you abide and cower in silence? Or would you resist and potentially take arms, without fear of being denounced as a conspirator or a terrorist? Well, you don’t have to imagine it anymore. The British filmmaker Andrew Tiernan has already done it, for his latest flick; UK18 is a nightmare vision of what our society would look like if extreme surveillance is implemented. The film takes place in 2018, suggesting that this isn’t a very far-off reality – our review of the piece if coming up very soon!
Victor Fraga from DMovies spoke with actor-turned-director Andrew Tiernan in order to find out where the idea came from, whether he indeed believes that we are sleepwalking into such a horrific and despondent near future, what he’s hoping to achieve from this audacious independent project, and what ordinary people in the UK can do in order to prevent this dystopian future from ever materialising!
Andrew has acted in more than 100 movies and television series, having worked with the likes of Derek Jarman, Nicolas Roeg, Roman Polanski and Antonia Bird. UK18 is his second feature film as director, writer and producer, preceded by Dragonfly (2015).
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Victor Fraga – Where did the idea to make UK18 come from?
Andrew Tiernan – A few years back we were a struggling microbudget film outfit. A collective, I suppose. A few of us were interested in activism and protest and I think it was Kevin O’Donohoe who first made me aware of the introduction of a program where RFID chips were being inserted into people. Anyway, we’d been making our films, trying to get funding, trying to find like-minded people to work with and we just kept getting knocked back as everyone does. So, I thought about a low budget feature that we could do and finance ourselves. I asked Kevin to come up with a script. We’d just seen Peter Watkins’ Punishment Park (1971), I really liked the use of actors being questioned in a kangaroo court and the freedom of expression that the actors had. We wanted to try get something like that, which involved the RFID program being compulsory in some kind of fascist dictatorship of the future. That version of the script didn’t go into production at the time, I think it was good, but way too similar to “Punishment Park,” so it got put on the backburner.
Then sometime in 2015, we’d just finalised and released our first feature Dragonfly and felt that it was time to go back to UK18. Largely due to everything that was going on in Britain and the world, but the timing felt right. Shona McWilliams and myself did another version of it, which incorporated elements of Kevin’s script, but this time it revolves around the character of Eloise who is a documentary filmmaker who starts to suspect that she is being manipulated by a secret government organisation. In our research with Wayne Anthony, we’d been looking at a lot of online documentaries, conspiracy theories, David Icke, the whole mish-mash of information and we went from there.
Andrew Tiernan and his cat: presumably only one of these two creatures has been tagged with an RFID chip
VF – Your film was made on a relatively small budget. Did this restrain the creative process, or was that liberating in some way? Please tell us a little bit about the financing and the creative process.
AT – We had no official backers or financing. I didn’t even apply. I would have loved financing, but if I’d have gone down that route, I would still be talking about the script and waiting for meetings that might never happen. I suppose I gave up on all that, especially with a project like this. Are you kidding me? I’d never get any financing for this, they’d chuck me out the room if I brought them UK18, let’s face it, I’d probably not even get past reception. I’m still waiting to get greenlit on another film, Lost Dog, and it’s an ongoing process as any filmmaker knows.
We knew we wanted to make something multimedia and very inexpensive without restricting the creative process. Obviously, I didn’t have a lot of kit and we used very basic equipment, but in terms of creativity with the performer, a lot of them felt free to express in ways that they haven’t been able to for a long time. I bankrolled the film on my credit card so that was liberating in a way (albeit costly) and being one of the producers I didn’t have anyone to answer to, apart from my close producer buddies, Shona McWilliams and Nick Reynolds. Our work has a DIY Punk attitude to it, so we make all the decisions, take risks and put the films out ourselves and see what happens.
VF – UK18 blends dialogue with imagination and TV footage, and sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between these various layers. Was this intentional? What did you intend to achieve?
AT – I didn’t want to give anyone an aneurysm with visuals that were going to make them feel nauseous, like swirling cameras going round and around. But I wanted to convey what modern life is like, how we’re bombarded with images and information, yet at the same time isolated. We’ve all got phones, we all have cameras and I suppose people just sit in front of their screens now, being brainwashed with “fake news.”
Eloise is a journalist. Today that job means going with the company manifesto, their propaganda, embedded journalism, the rightwing leaning journalism of the Daily Mail and the other papers of its ilk. The mainstream media has gone that way too as everyone knows, there’s less impartiality than ever. I mean, George Osborne is now the editor of the Evening Standard and in a way it’s more honest as it’s right out there in the open, the way that they think. A lot of journalists have to comply with what their bosses tell them and that must be frustrating especially in an apparently free-thinking world.
Still from UK18: the nightmare vision comes true
I’d worked with Derek Jarman in the past and I’ve always loved The Last of England (1988). The way he played with video and Super 8 and he never worried about being non-linear or a conformist and the editing style was cut up almost in a William Burroughs type way, so I suppose I was going for those ideas and looks with the film. And a big reason I have Katharine Blake (from the classic choral ensemble Mediaeval Baebes) in the film singing, is a nod to Jarman and Ken Russell, as they always loved a musical interlude in their movies and it felt right for UK18 to have this.
VF – Please tell us a little bit about the actors.
AT – Some of the actors in UK18 we’ve worked with before on our previous projects like Frank Boyce, Wayne Norman, Sean Cernow and Simon Balfour. And then there are new people like Jason Williamson from the band Sleaford Mods. Myself and Shona produced the documentary Sleaford Mods: Invisible Britain (2015) about the band (which our cameraman Nathan Hannawin directed) and we asked Jason to play a part in this, as he’s got a lot of presence and is a great performer, so this in fact is Jason’s feature film acting debut.
Jean-Marc Barr and Ian Hart are brilliant actors and like-minded old friends of mine and we’ve acted together in numerous projects in the past. Both have appeared in classic movies, too many to name, but I got very lucky as they both agreed to be in the film. The same with Nisha Nayar who I’ve known for many years. And of course, Jack Roth and Tim Bentinck, who I just recently worked with as an actor on the feature Us and Them (Joe Martin, 2017; which recently had its premiere at South by Southwest).
VF – It will be 2018 in less than a year. Do you think that there is a chance that the UK government could implement an RFID chip program, or a similar initiative, so soon?
AT – What the UK Government is currently doing is shocking, worse than fiction. The state of funding to the NHS. The rise in the need for use of foodbanks. Homelessness. What they’ve been doing to the disabled community is utterly appalling. The deaths of over 10,000 people who were sanctioned off their benefits, I mean those things are the stuff of nightmares.
But coming back to the chips, the RFID (Radio Frequency Identity) chip. Well, we’ve already got them in our phones, in our passports, in our pets, in GPS devices. The process of introduction began a long time ago in the UK with the cashless society through contactless payment, eventually what will happen is people will use an RFID chip rather than cash or credit cards.
The idea behind them is that they will be multipurpose: rather than carrying identification or money you’ll have one in your forearm. People will also be trackable through GPS and more sinisterly whoever controls them will be able to remotely trigger elements within them. We’ll never quite know what they implant in us, completely putting our faith in the lap of the gods, but they will be compulsory. There was discussion at one point of an RFID chip filled with a fatal dose of cyanide, so basically they could switch someone off, if they felt they were a danger. Pretty terrifying really.
Shona McWilliams and Jason Williamson in UK18
So, a RFID chip program for people could very well be implemented in the next few years, it will cause a bigger divide between classes, they will make it seem like a must have item, exactly in the way they convince us to upgrade our phones for the newest model even though we don’t need them. In fact, I believe that the US have already started talking about implementing the RFID programme for their citizens.
VF – How do you think that the UK compares to other countries in Europe and beyond in terms of surveillance? Do you think that we are more advanced, or behind?
AT – The recent attack on Westminster has prompted calls for the increased use of phone tapping to be utilised even more by the authorities. But we knew that was coming.
The UK has more security cameras than anywhere else from what I’ve read and heard. We also have the Snooper’s Charter, which from what I can gather, we are the only country so far to introduce such extreme measures. But we’ve always been a nation of nosey parkers, sticking our noses into other people’s business, it’s the Great British way. We’re probably not as advanced in our technology in comparison to somewhere like China, but that’s who we buy it all from, ain’t it? But they can see you through your TV now, your phone, your computer. They see everything. Apparently.
The English actor Ian Hart is featured in UK18
VF – How can people engage in the battle against extreme surveillance and neofascism after watching your movie?
AT – I’d like them to look at themselves and ask how brainwashed are we? It’s very easy for me to offer some kind of suggestion of what people should do, but they wouldn’t listen.
Instead, I went out and made a drama about it, but I think that 99% of people won’t watch this film because it’s not on TV, they’re too tuned into what is brainwashing them. Maybe I’m talking about the people who don’t vote, or those who vote without researching what they’re voting for, or vote with hatred. Apathy and narcissism is in abundance and they’re worldwide issues. It’s terrifying what people are allowing the powers that be to get away with. The trouble is that most people have been made to feel that they’re powerless and anything they do won’t make a blind bit of difference, so they just switch off.
People need to fight against neofascism and corporate corruption. Become alert, wake up and start being more considerate to their fellow man.
Perhaps these actions won’t be through social media or the internet, but more through direct action or personal interaction. I’d like to say that the situations in UK18 would never happen, but sadly I might be proved wrong.
VF – Finally, please tell us about your future projects?
AT – We’re working on getting Lost Dog made, it’s a film about two friends. Icky has cerebral palsy, he gets kicked off his benefits, loses his flat and turns up on his old mate Robbo’s doorstep after being the victim of hate crime. As the film goes on, we see that Icky faces hate crime from all sides of society every day. It’s a look at the rise of disabilism, which statistics show has risen even more since Brexit. It’s going to star Jamie Beddard and Jason Williamson, both who appear in UK18. Asides from that I’ve got some decorating to do, that’s when I get my best ideas.
The renowned Brazilian composer Caetano Veloso famously compared Brazil and Haiti in one of his songs. The song says “Haiti is here. Haiti is not here”, and then it describes an educational plan for the country that could miraculously extinguish corruption. This week internationally acclaimed director Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, 2007) returns with a universal study of corruption in Romania, also proposing a solution to the problem. It is as if he reinvented Veloso in a film: “Romania is here”.
Graduation reveals a father-daughter relationship in the moment when Eliza (Maria-Victoria Dragus) is about to graduate and to leave Romania in order to study in the UK. She still needs to do her finals and achieve a very high average so that she can get the scholarship and study abroad. The problem is that one day before her exams, she is raped on her way to school. Her father Romeo (Adrian Titieni), a physician living in a small town in Transylvania, will do everything he can in order to support his daughter overcome the trauma and succeed in her exams.
Mungiu believes that the only way to change society is through education. “But we are passing the wrong values to our children.” So how can society change? For him, “Romania needs a collective solution”. His character Romeo is trying to help his daughter to make the right choices than he couldn’t make. Romeo’s position is that “the UK is a more civilised society”. He doubts his daughter will suffer the same violence in Britain. Romeo’s mother, on the other hand, thinks her granddaughter should stay. There is only hope for a change if young people stay in Romania.
The dialogue about living or leaving is developed throughout the 128 minutes of the film. In order to build a close and psychological portrait of each character, the filmmaker opts mostly for close and medium shots. There are very few wide shots, except in the end, when the film reveals the borders of Romania. The idea behind the story is that there is probably no exit.
The landscape is also very meaningful. The building where the family lives is in a suburban communal palace – a kind of Peckham Rye Council flat and widespread neighbourhood. The train line invades the property loft; there is not even a fence dividing the train tracks and the back of the palace. Romeo is following a person who threw a stone into his window and he stops suddenly 2 meters from the train tracks. He is nearly run over.
In a sense, the Graduation is a microcosm of Romanian society, where abuse, invasion and corruption know no bounds. The fact that Romeo almost never answers his mobile is another aspect of “invasion”. Presumably as a doctor, Romeo must get many calls in from patients. He doesn’t turn off the mobile. It is always vibrating. There is no exit and he cannot stop.
All actors are formidable, and Mungiu is a fine and confident director who deserved the Best Director Ex-Aequo award last year in Cannes. The prize was shared with Olivier Assayas, whose interview you can read here.
Cristian Mungiu will oversee the student and short film juries at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The Cinéfondation selects between 15 and 20 student films each year for its competition. You can read more about Cinéfondation in Cannes here. Rest assured that Mungiu will be an inspiring tutor!
Graduation was out in cinemas in March, and it has now been made available on DVD and Blu-ra.
Polish director Michal Marczak delves into the wonderment of youth in this outstanding semi non-fiction work which won him the prestigious Best Director Award at Sundance Film Festival in 2016. Produced by Pulse Films, All These Sleepless Nights focuses on two male friends as they restlessly roam the streets of Warsaw, drinking, smoking, taking drugs and falling in love.
All These Sleepless Nights takes its audience into an unparalleled journey of self-discovery and hedonistic excesses whilst managing to make a strong, yet unbiased commentary about Polish millenials. The film opens with 20-something Krzysztof (Krzysztof Baginski) watching fireworks from his apartment window and wondering about life and things yet to come. After a break-up with his long-term girlfriend, Krzysztof makes a pact with his friend Michal (Michal Huszcza) to enjoy life without limits and to let destiny take them wherever it chooses to. As they walk around the city, as if walking through a series of tableaux, the two find themselves crashing parties, attending raves, making fresh acquaintances and new enemies. Things however turn sour when Krzysztof is introduced to Michal’s ex girlfriend Eva (Eva Lebuef). The two soon embark on a passionate affair which leaves Michal wondering about his own relationship with them.
Krzysztof and Michal as their evening journey culminates in the morning twilight
Marczak chose to base his story on his actors’ own experiences and relationships, which in turn allowed for the beautifully nuanced dynamics between its protagonists. As the characters fall in love, fall out and then make up, there is a sense of charming camaraderie between them, even when they resent each other. All These Sleepless Nights more than borrows from French New Wave, it openly references films such as Jules and Jim (François Truffaut, 1962), Band of Outsiders (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964) and other poetic, existentialist works from the ’60s. With a soundtrack imbued with classic French pop from the same decade, including the brilliant Tout ‘les Garçons et les Filles’ by the legendary singer Francoise Hardy. The film plays with themes revolving around love and youthful adventure.
Using several outdoor locations and shooting mostly in gentle morning twilight, Marczak manages to produce something of unequalled beauty. The film might, at times leave its audience feeling as if they’re looking in from the outside, but in no way does this make it less enjoyable or indeed less believable. The film is sure to strike the right chord with audience members of the same demographic as those on screen, but there’s plenty more to discover for those who are a little older. All These Sleepless Nights is a brilliantly filmed and fantastically executed production by a director who is sure to make his mark in the next few years to come.
You have the opportunity to catch All These Sleepless Nights on Wednesday March 29th at the Barbican (in London), followed by a debate with the filmmaker. Just click here for more information about the event plus watch the film trailer below – in case you’re still wondering what’s the best thing you could do Wednesday evening!
Socio-economic Apartheid is alive and kicking in Brazil: rich kids pay $700 in order to be close to Beyoncé as she performs at Morumbi Stadium in São Paulo, while poor kids have to queue for up to two months for a similar position. But the waiting game is not without disadvantages: the passionate fans enjoy a vibrant atmosphere throughout, as they exchange friendly banter, insights into their lives and have a lot of fun in the provisional camp erected under the sweltering sun of a heavily-polluted concrete jungle. What what harm could a few days of toxic car emissions do when you are about to fulfill the biggest dream of your life?
These young people are “camping” in both senses of the word: they sleep in makeshift tends for weeks, and they also camp it up in very good, swingy and extravagant Brazilian style. Virtually all the males queuing up are either gay or bisexual, a phenomenon for which they are unable to pinpoint the reason. But there’s something else they can explain with confidence: Beyoncé has, in one way or the other, liberated each one of them and changed their lives for the best.
The film title has a twist that only Brazilian Portuguese speakers will grasp. “B” (pronounced “bee”) is how gay men address each other in Brazil, being short for “biba” or “bicha” (both meaning “queer”).
Beyoncé are always ready to camp it up and confront homophobia
Beyoncé is a landmark for these young people. She’s more than a pop star: this is a personality cult. They want to incorporate her dancing, her singing and her song lyrics into their lives. The American dancer and singer is a role model for both Black and LGBT people. She has given many fans the motivation to learn English, or provided them with inspiration to go to university. To others, she has given the strength to confront a prejudiced family and society. Never underestimate the power of music, even if it’s in a foreign language.
During the unusual two-month stint, the fans reflect on a number of peculiar paradoxes, such as the prejudice that gay and Black people have to face in Brazil. They note that Black people are often racist against Black, and that gays often discriminate each other (the most effeminate ones tend to suffer the most). A fan notes that Beyoncé’s skin is always pale and her hair is straightened, and concludes “she wants to be white”. There are also reflections on family, classism, lack of social mobility and the so many woes affecting these people – who are almost entirely dark-skinned and living in the suburbs.
Waiting for B showed as part of the BFI Flare London LGBT Film Festival, when this piece was originally written. The film won the Best Film prize at the Mix Brasil, the largest LGBT film festival in Latin America, and also the Best Documentary award at the Lisbon Queer Film Festival. it shows at Fringe! on June 30th (2019) – just click here for more information.
Labels are extremely double-edged. On one hand, they can provide much needed representation for marginalised minorities, groups and communiites, such as Blacks, LGBT or a specific nationality abroad. On the other hand, it can generate an expectation, and easily disappoint when certain criteria are not met. Such is the case with I Love you Both, which is being marketed as an LGBT film. The title itself – accompanied by the picture of two siblings – suggests that there is an ingenious homosexual romance. In reality, the LGBT topic is very secondary.
I Love you Both tells the story of Donnie (played by the director Doug Archibald himself) and his twin sister Krystal (played by his sibling Kristin Archibald, who is his twin in real life), who are smitten with the same man, the good-looking and bisexual Andy (Lucas Neff). But the focus of the film is not the romance, and there are no picante and risqué moments. Instead, the relationship between the two doting twins is the central pillar about the movie. This is a movie about fraternal love, which will come as a disappointment to LGBT fans hoping for sassy gay humour, antics, sex and aesthetics. But this does not make I Love You Both a bad movie. Quite the opposite: this a very warm, convincing and funny movie.
Krystal and the charming Andy are pictured here
The romcom genre has become very hackneyed and trite, and finding a new and effective angle can be very difficult. Yet the first-time director comes up with a refreshing twist: twins of different sexes in love with the same person. He uses the well-established formulas for the genre : a touch of screwball, silly jokes, flat characters, fun indie or pop music, mellow dialogues and subtle of twists of fate. The film is never cheap and vulgar, and it will keep you hooked and smiling throughout.
You will enter Donnie and Krystal’s private space, and work out how they maintain their warmth and respect towards each other at the face of adversity. Their caring and non-intrusive parents are present throughout, providing the occasional obtuse attempt at parental guidance. But it’s the director’s gentle hand at portraying every day hurdles that the twins have to overcome that makes this movie special. Don’t expect high-octane action, just settle in for the balmy and refreshing.
I Love You Both is showing as part of the BFI Flare LGBT Film Festival – click here for more information about the event. The film has commercial potential, and DMovies hazards a guess that it could reach an independent cinema near you later in the year. Just follow us on Twitter or Facebook and we will keep you update. You can watch the film teaser below, where the director explains that this is a film about the relationship between two “co-dependent twins”:
For most of us, coming out of the closet means facing social and family barriers, which most of us eventually succeed to overcome. Yet for most people in the Middle East, coming out of the closet almost inevitably translates as coming out of the country. Either that or being murdered, as homosexuality is mostly perceived as some sort of contagious disease for which the only solution in death.
This documentary follows the footsteps of Nayyef Hrebid and Btoo Allami from the days when they met in a US military camp in 2004 in Iraq (following the American and British led invasion of the country), through their struggle to stay together and to leave the country, all the way to their marriage in Seattle (in the US). Nayyef worked as a translator and had a university degree, which helped his entry to the US. On the other hand, Btoo was denied refugee status several times, and he fled to Lebanon, where he lived in a limbo for several years waiting for an application with UN Human Rights Commission to be approved. Nayyef and American human rights lawyer and activist Michael Failla supported him throughout his dangerous predicament. Btoo only left the Middle East when a gay Canadian vice-consul lent him a hand, and so he moved to Vancouver.
The resilience of the love between Nayyef and Btoo is remarkable. They never gave up hope, and they communicated daily and several times through Skype throughout the years they were apart. Nayeef had a giant wallpaper with a picture of Btoo right next to his bed. The two men remained an integral part of each other’s life during the ordeal, constantly emphasising that they have a physical, emotional and spiritual connection. Many gay westerners have become desentitised to love by the vast availability of channels for relationships (night clubs, phone apps, etc), and they may find it difficult to relate to such an epic and profound relationship. Out of Iraq is a refreshing reminder that such vigorous and long-lasting love does indeed exist.
Westerners viewers may also find the kitsch aesthetics of the film a little unusual. The images are often doused in plush colours, the two lovers sometimes appear with a shining pink aura supported by piano notes. At one point the face of Btoo appears in the sky. This is not a problem per se, as such devices are more acceptable in Middle Eastern cultures and it’s natural that the filmmakers vouch for authenticity, it may just cause a little alienation to viewers used to more sophisticated visuals.
The adorable lovebirds met in a very unlikely environment
You’d be forgiven for thinking that the military background of the two lovebirds constitutes an instrument of pinkwashing and a lame excuse for the invasion of Iraq. This is not entirely true. The movie reveals that US refugee policy is not a walk in the park, and that was long before Trump came along. Concerns that Btoo may have witnessed torture in Abu Ghraib (and therefore became a whistleblower) prevented his consecutive applications from succeeding, in a further testament that Americans weren’t so supportive at all.
Yet towards the end of the movie Nayyef does literally fly the American flag, oblivious to the fact that the US caused the war that destroyed his country. He does, however, recognise that gay men enjoyed far more freedom under Saddam Hussein (he studied Fine Arts, wore tight and sparkling clothes and had many gay relationships in university) than now. Ultimately Btoo and Nayyef embrace the American dream and settle in the much coveted land of the free. Their journey has many similarities to America, America (Elia Kazan, 1963), in which a Middle Eastern man dreams of reaching the US at any cost, and despite so many adversities.
Out of Iraq is showing as part of the BFI Flare London LGBT Film Festival. Very significantly, the film was introduced just a couple of hours after that the terrorist attack outside the British Parliament. Before the film, the event staff rightly noted that she not point fingers at each other and let such events divide us, and that we should instead promote love and diversity. Click here for more information about the Festival, and don’t forget to watch the film trailer below:
This is Jesus like you’ve never seen before: he’s in an amateur k-pop band, he’s arrogant, he’s insecure, he’s violent, he’s bisexual and he has a very stormy relationship with his father. And unlike the Christian Messiah, he does not save and redeem people. Quite the opposite: he murders instead. Our protagonist here is the antithesis of the citizen any society would cherish and value.
Jesús (Nicolás Durán) is an 18-year-old “lazy bone” (as described by his friends) who leads an empty and hedonistic existence in Santiago of Chile: he dances, he takes drugs, he watches trashy television and he has sex in public places. He lives with his father, with whom he barely communicates except when he chastises his son for his behaviour and lifestyle. One day Jésus and three friends (one of which happens to be his occasional sex partner) brutally torture and kill a young gay man called Gonzalo in a park, in a morbid display of homophobia and feigned masculinity. The four men take enormous pleasure in their misdeed; it’s as if they discharged their sexuality through violence.
In reality, Fernando Guzzoni intended his film to centre around the father and son relationship, as a metaphor of his country’s turbulent political landscape. While he was writing his film script in 2012, the homophobic murder of Daniel Zamudio by four males – including a bisexual man and a Michael Jackson impersonator – shook his country, and so he decided to incorporate a murder under very similar circumstances in his movie. He replaced Daniel with Gonzalo, and the Michael Jackson impersonator with a k-pop dancer. And he retained the fact that at least one of the perpetrators of the homophobic crime had homosexual tendencies.
One of the most memorable and symbolic moments of the film is when Jésus cuts his hand with a knife, then proceeds to clean it and bathe in a local creek. Is it just his hands that are dirty, or is his whole body muddied with self-hatred? Can he wash his crime away? Can he cleanse himself of his homosexual tendencies?
The director did stumble across one problem when changing his movie script to include the homophobic crime. The infamous murder diluted the father-son relationship, which was originally intended to be the main story. The metaphor with the political landscape is pretty much absent, and the film instead became a social statement. Perhaps this was intentional.
Jesús is not easy and light watching. The violence is graphic and prolonged, serving as a painful reminder that homophobia is, quite literally, alive and kicking. This is not the only Chilean film to deal with the sadistic murder of Daniel ZamudioÇ last year the rock star Álex Anwandter directed You’ll Never Be Alone –click here for our review of the film. It’s remarkable that Chile is using cinema in order to atone for its homophobic transgressions.
The recent transphobic murder of transsexual woman Dandara in Brazil (which was filmed and published online) has caused indignation both in the Latin American country and the world. Let’s hope that the largest country in Latin America reacts to this barbarous crime in the same way as Chile: using cincme as a tool to remember and to denounce such gratuitous violence and the lives cut short.
Jesus is showing right now at the BFI Flare London LGBT Film festival, when this piece was originally written.
Brazilians are expressive, colourful and gregarious by nature. Homosexuals embracing Camp in this movie lend these characteristics an yet more vivacious and boisterous outlook. In other words, this is Brazil in a leopard print leotard.Body Electric takes an intimate look at a racially and sexually diverse LGBT group living in São Paulo, revealing their high spirits, joy and exuberant sexuality, and how they find comedy in every day ennui.
Elias (Kelner Macêdo) is a very good-looking 23-year-old working working as an assistant manager in small clothes factory. He’s very popular with other members of staff, and he often cross the work boundaries (something Brazilians are particularly good at!) to develop a more intimate relationship with some of his subordinates. He has recently broken up with the older and wealthier Arthur (Ronaldo Serruya), but the two still enjoy the occasional shag. Elias seem to incorporate the sexual liberation lifestyle, that many people in Britain associate with Brazil.
The movie is populated with Brazilian Camp, and this is extremely difficult to translate. Camp is performatic, theatrical, so it’s already a subversion of language per se. Adding another another layer of subversion (the translation into a foreign language) is complex and problematic – I’m a Brazilian gay man myself, so I have been faced with this problem for 20 years, since I moved to the UK. For example, gay men often speak about themselves and refer to each with feminine adjectives, and that doesn’t work in English. The highly nasalised tone is more universal, as are the wigs, the heels and the outfits. In other words, there are plenty of elements which will enable you to relate to the film.
The camerawork in the movie is mostly static and dark. In the sex sequences, it’s difficult to make out exactly what’s happening. It’s almost as if the first-time director Marcelo Caetano wanted to tone the Camp, and keep a distance, so it doesn’t come across as vulgar and tawdry. The result is a convincing, realistic portrayal of small group of young people of all genders (masculine, feminine plus everything in between) and origins (Elias is from impoverished state of Paraíba in the country’s Northeast, while a co-worker is a Black man from Guinea-Bissau, and so on).
The film narrative is mostly observational and flat, and there is no climax, which could come as a disappointment to those searching for a fast-paced, action-packed LGBT adventure.
The best moments of the movie are the picante sex conversations, which are far more creative and interesting than the sex sequences themselves. Elias describes how flirtatious and adventurous his life can be, and he goes into a lot of graphic detail, not too different from the historical sequence from Bergman’s Persona (1966) – often described as the most erotic sequence in the history of cinema (and one which translators also struggled with a lot!!!). Sex here is highly conversation, but never tedious, in talking heads style.
It’s crucial to remember, however, that this film represents a niche group, and Brazilians in general do not have such a libertarian attitude towards sex. Contrary to general belief and clichés, the average Brazilian is far more conservative and prudish.
Body Electric showed earlier this year the BFI Flare London LGBT Film Festival, when this review was originally written. It’s now available on BFI Player.
