They wear red dresses, search for their identity between two cultures, or long for a queer community in which they don’t have to assert themselves but which they are simply allowed to be part of.

The issue of belonging is one that’s raised by our opening film at the 40th FILMFEST MÜNCHEN. THE PERSIAN VERSION is part culture-clash comedy, part family drama. Coming from an Iranian-American family, queer Leila is accustomed to contrasts. Yet she would never have thought that her mother, too, was once a young woman who had dreams and traumas of her own.

At FILMMAKERS LIVE! CELEBRATING DIFFERENCES, American-Iranian director Maryam Keshavarez talks to her two leading actresses, Layla Mohammadi and Niousha Noor, about the cultural and sexual differences they experience in their on-screen mother-daughter relationship. This tragicomedy, which earned the Audience Award at Sundance, is a cross-generational journey of discovery that confidently dances across borders and finds reconciliation in unexpected places.

The persian version

Films that transcend boundaries are those that test their own limits and accept their own darker side. But what happens when certain boundaries can be sensed but are almost impossible to breach? Discussing this at FILMMAKERS LIVE! (DE-)CONSTRUCTING MASCULINITIES are directors Dionne Edwards and Elegance Bratton and their producers, Chester Algernal Gordon and Georgia Goggin. They will talk about their at times tragic, at times comedic approaches to portraying masculinity and ask: Who actually decides what is masculine? And how can images of masculinity be (de-)constructed in our society and on the screen?

The films of these two directors speak for themselves. In PRETTY RED DRESS, Dionne Edwards tells the story of a former prison inmate and “bad boy” who discovers a new side to himself when he puts on a red dress. This leads his family to ask what unspoken truths and desires lie dormant within them. In an affectionate and musical way, PRETTY RED DRESS tugs at the pigeonholes in the mind which relate to queerness and black masculinity. Writer-director Dionne Edwards is known for her sensitive analyses of interpersonal relationships and her characters’ inner conflicts.

In THE INSPECTION, Elegance Bratton turns to the story, inspired by his own experience, of a queer recruit in the US Marine Corps. Ellis, the sensitive protagonist, finds himself immersed in a thoroughly homophobic environment and must navigate the thin line between subordination and rebellion. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Bratton captures untold stories in order to reveal the universal power of humanity.

the inspection

rotting in the sun

ROTTING IN THE SUN by Sebastián Silva operates in the realm of the in-between, where long-range plans that seemed certain no longer apply: What does a filmmaker do when things aren’t going his way? His boss sends him on vacation to a nude beach, where he tries to regain some of his vitality through anonymous sex with lots of men. This is an uproarious trip across all meta levels and a search for meaning imbued with a mockery that spares nothing and no one.

Showing, celebrating, and critiquing queer and female-identified sexuality on screen: FILMMAKERS LIVE! URANIANS, a program of films and videos curated by artist A. L. Steiner, is being presented by FILMFEST MÜNCHEN in cooperation with Museum Brandhorst and QFFM I Queer Film Festival. The evening of June 30 will begin with a screening of COMMUNITY ACTION CENTER, a “socio-sexual video that embraces the eroticism of a community where the personal is not only political but also sexual”. This will be followed by a panel discussion involving Steiner and such international protagonists of the art and film scene as Bruce LaBruce, cult director of underground films, and Jürgen Brüning, founder of the Pornfilmfestival Berlin. They will talk about portrayals of erotic encounters and queer sexuality in film, about community and collaboration, and about the emotionally charged genre of porn.