23-25 September 2022
It is the 14th edition of the festival, and we can’t help but think of the old times in 2007 when Some Prefer Cake was born thanks to the imagination and passion of our beloved Luki. 15 years and plenty of lesbian and feminist history behind cannot be forgotten. For many reasons, we feel that this year we’re back to a similar vibe we experienced during past editions: finally we can meet international hosts again (from the US, Germany and France), we’re back with exhibitions and moments dedicated to lesbian desire and sexuality. All bodies are back again, we hope, free of sharing the space, the relation of proximity and human contact more than ever. This great energy, gathered last year by all women, lesbians and queer people walking through the Giardino Lorusso and the Cinema Nosadella’s Scalo hall, has been greatly useful for us in order to create a richer and diverse edition, always deeply political, focused on lesbian feminist culture, on the shared world where our fundamental differences coexist, our orientations and proximities, alliances and osmosis with all subjectivities outside the norm.
With our collective artistic direction as Comunicattive, the essential help of Teresa Sala as coordinator and our brave and curious programmers, Federica Fabbiani, Antonia Anna Ferrante, Silvia Radicioni, Lucia Tralli, Giulia De Rocco and Helena Falabino, we present an edition dedicated to non-conforming identities, historical significance, fight and discovery.
Through the flux of images, almost 30 films will run through important themes for our community: the newly rediscovered historical figure of the butch, an in-between lesbian subjectivity beyond gender and roles – still so relevant to this day – examined and embodied by gender studies pioneer Esther Newton (in the documentary Esther Newton Made Me Gay); the importance of living freely as a lebian in Nelly and Nadine; the fight for the rights of two moms in Hungary, an extremely conservatory country, in Her Mothers; the revolution of love and sexual relationships in Petit Mal; the comeback against racist and lesbophobic hate in Nico; the desire of being protagonists in spite of an oppressive environment for the girls in Sirens; dreams of identity, growth and independence in Marte Um; the physical fight the save oneself from femicide and patriarchal oppression in Luchadoras; the mental fight – together with the physical strugge – to resist illness and face death in Prognosis – Notes on living.
We tried to keep a balance with regards to the countries of origin of all the films, but, although we are always keen to do so, we still miss and keep looking for lesbian, transfeminist and queer productions and views from India, Nigeria or Thailand. On Friday night, for the night-owls and curious souls, we have prepared a space dedicated to lesbian erotic desire and imaginary: Lesbian Pleasure. Valentina Pinza will read some of her Poesie del corpo (Poetries of the body), Ceci Ferox e Tina Pornflakes will lead us through the expected realm of bondage, until the screening of a selection of erotic short film from various countries. Lesbian cinema struggles, changes, explores and this is especially proven by the short films of Corti a Colazione (Short films for Breakfast) on Saturday and Sunday, displaying stories coming from all around the world, presenting experimentation, autobiographical inspirations, homages and exploration of cinematic genres.
As usual, we will meet in the garden to talk about books, especially this year with Elena Biagini e Irene Villa in occasion of the re-publishing of the timely Il nostro mondo comune, a fundamental pamphlet written in the 80’s by CLI lesbian feminist activists, who stood against differentialist existentialism and the erasure of lesbians. Together with Antonia Anna Ferrante, we will travel through the harawayan depiction of the compost, a radically alternative model of cohabitation, during the presentation of What a compost can do. Doing with feminist and queer ecologies.
For all of those who are not able to make it to Bologna, the festival continues even outside the cinema hall: with a small donation, it is possible to stream all short films and most of the films on the independent platform openddb.it, from the 26th of September to the 2nd of October.
Comunicattive