The Swedish Arts Council and Podcasts
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This episode is in English
This episode is a recording of the event Nightfall - Queer Talks & Screenings which took place on Zoom in April 15, 2021. Nightfall is a series of events hosted by SAQMI in both online and physical space. The point of Nightfall is to give a place for LGBTQ+ artists and filmmakers to talk about their work and processes - both for finished works and works in progress.
During this nightfall we showed two films: Space is quite a lot of things by August Joensalo, An Ode to Self Exploration made by Sofia Aedo Zahou choreographed by Demba Sabally.
Both films in this programme centered around the experience that we as trans and queer people go through of discovery and exploration of our identities.
Where An Ode to Self Exploration uses the body as a site to explore and project this newfound identity, Space is quite a lot of things dives into the abstract and dreamlike quality of internal exploration so you get this nice contrast between public/private.
Aesthetically there was also a really nice contrast between the two films, with An Ode to Self Exploration in the concrete city landscape and Space is quite a lot of things much more ethereal and natural.
Good to note here that August was using the name Aniina during the time of this recording.
Bridge to Nika & Eliot
After talking to Demba and August more about their processes and visions for their work, we brought in two of those featured in August’s film Elliot - who identifies as non-binary - and Nika - who identifies as a non-binary woman.* Here we wanted to continue this theme of self-exploration within our semi-public semi-private intercommunity space on a more personal level - to deepen the experience of the film. By bringing more personal experiences into the conversation to encourage those in the audience to share their experiences too.
Biographies:
Sam Message (Host)Artist using culture to cultivate a more inclusive, supportive and sustainable LGBTQ+ community. Drag-something working with the surreal, the subversive and the political. Curator specialising in queer and feminist histories. Researcher of queering practice and theory. Evaluator and facilitator working with accessibility and engagement. Activist and active community member and socialite. All singing, all dancing, installations, workshops, tours happenings, the whole package. Currently curating for SAQMI and working on their new organisation Status Queer.
August JoensaloAugust Joensalo is a Helsinki based film director and writer who uses film as a medium for creating relatable utopias for queer and trans people.They aim to find ethical ways to represent queer bodies on image, with a special focus on trans narratives. Through their practice, they propose alternative ways of being and existing in this world – ways that fall outside the binary of language, bodies, and identities. They are graduating from their MFA in Film at HDK-Valand in 2021. Homepage.
Demba SaballyDemba is 24 years old and born and raised in Gothenburg, Sweden. Right now he’s working in retail and studying on the side. He’s always loved to dance and started voguing about 4 years ago, since then he’s competed in Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen and Paris.
Elliot HagströmElliot is a queer and trans student studying education with a specialisation in arts and crafts. Their interests include community organising, visual expression, giving people cool haircuts and cute animals.
Nika Dahlberg-MelinNika (b. 1986) is a visual artist based in Gothenburg, Sweden. She works in the intersection of photography and non-photographic visual languages, including sculpture, drawing, collage, written and printed text, and two-dimensional design.
*During the podcast, Nika was described as identifying as non-binary at the time of recording when in reality she identified as a non-binary woman.
Briefly about the movies that were shown during the evening:
Space is Quite a Lot of Things by August Joensalo2021, 11:25 min, Color, Experimental DocumentaryCuriosity about a world without gender sets a journey through a world of jellyfish and disco uncles, creating space for four trans people to share how they relate (or not) to their own gender, imagine visions of their own queer utopia, and reveal whether gender can be felt in your toes.
An Ode to Self Exploration by Sofia Aedo Zahou2020, 5 min, Color, Hybrid FilmA young man works in his father’s shop when he meets someone who, in the blink of an eye, broadens his perspective of himself and who he can be. An Ode to Self Exploration is a declaration of love for the different identities and nuances that exist amongst us. A short dance film built around the song Mussulo by the artist Mansa.
Credits SAQMI Play:Producers: Anna Linder and Malin HolgerssonDesign and code: Vincent OrbackComposer: Amanda LindgrenEdited and Mixed by Malin HolgerssonHost: Sam MessageOriginal: Nightfall #6 curated by Sam Message and Kolbrún Inga SöringPublisher: Anna Linder
SAQMI Play is produced with the support from The Swedish Arts Council and Gothenburg City.
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This episode is in EnglishFurther down you can also see the movie SUSANA.
In this episode of SAQMI Play we meet the Argentinian filmmaker Susana Blaustein Mūnoz, who became an early queer pioneer with her neverendlingly relevant autobiographical film Susana.
This film from 1980 marks one of the first Swedish lesbian stories to be portrayed in moving images - although Susana is not originally from Sweden, she lived in Stockholm for a while in the late 70’s - and was hanging out in circles involved with Lesbisk front (Lesbian Front). Christina, her Finno-Swedish girlfriend at the time, who was also new to Stockholm, also appears in the film. 40 years later their reborn love is depicted in the short film Old Love Dies Hard, which was meant as a longer follow up to Susana,But seems not to have made it past the 8-minute long documentary form that its in today.
Susana Blaustein Munoz had her broad international breakthrough in 1985 with the documentary film Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, which was nominated for an Oscar.
Las Madres is a film about the Argentinian women who challenged the nation’s military rule and waged a tremendous struggle for the right to know what happened to their children who’d disappeared during the years when Argentina was a military dictatorship. Every Thursday the women gathered in front of the President’s residency at the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. Their white scarves became a symbol of their movement, and the movement grew famous across the world.
Susana Blaustein Munoz, now 68 years of age, has an art degree from the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem - Israel, and a master in film from the San Francisco Art Institute in the US. Today she once again lives in her hometown of Mendoza in Argentina.
In just a sec we’ll let Susana talk about her work herself. Straight off the bat she mentions her self-portrait Susana, which came to life while she was studying film in San Francisco. Susana is a kind of diary of moving images as well as a meeting between two sisters who’ve chosen different ways of living their lives.
Susana weaves together cinema vérité and interviews to create a collage of stills, amateur films, and animations, to portray the cultural context in which female, sexual, and ethnic identities are formed. In the film, she asks her family members, lovers, exes, and friends to talk about her in front of the camera. What do you think about Susana? she wonders. Just like many of Susana’s films - The film ended up being censured by the Argentinian state. She says that today it’s almost impossible for her to work as a filmmaker in her home country.
Malin Holgersson and SAQMI’s founder Anna Linder had this discussion with Susana on the 28th of June, 2021.
Susana is sitting in her home in Mendoza in Argentina and Anna and Malin are sitting in Anna’s home in Majorna in Göteborg.Text by Malin Holgersson. Translated to English by Alex Alvina Chamberland. Voice by Sam Message.
Trailer for the film SUSANA:
Related material:
Screen: 'Las Madres' of ArgentinaText by Walter Goodman, The New York Times, April 2, 1986
Swedish article:Relationer blir film långt borta och nära, SvDText av Henrik Sahl Johansson, Publicerad den 4 augusti 2014.
Texts and films by Susana Blaustein Muñoz:
Filmography:SUSANA, 1980, US/Argentina, 25 min, Black/White, 16mm. Experimental documentary about Susana Blaustein Muñoz life. In this autobiographical portrait, Susana leaves her native Argentina to live her life outside the strictures of Latin American cultural and family pressures. Susana interweaves cinema vérité interviews of her family and lovers with snapshots, home movies and even a Disney cartoon to render the cultural context in which female, sexual and ethnic identity is shaped.
See the film SUSANAPrice: 40 skr. The money goes directly to the filmmaker.Las Madres; The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, 1985, 64 min, 16mm. Co-directed and produced with Lourdes Portillo.Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1986, Las Madres documents the courageous political actions of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group of Argentine women who gather weekly at the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires to remember the children that "disappeared" during the Dirty War (1976-1983). La Ofrenda - The Days of The Dead (El Diade Los Muertos), 1989, 62 min. Produced and Directed by Lourdes Portillo and Susana Blaustein Muñoz. Filmed simultaneously in Oaxaca DF and San Francisco. A documentary exploring the varying cultural practices of the "Day of the Dead" in both Mexico and Chicano/a communities in the United States. Nominated for Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival 1989.My Home: My Prison, 1993, 60 min. My Home: My Prison is based on the autobiography of Palestinian journalist Raymonda Tawil, one of the first Palestinians to engage Israelis in dialogue twenty-four years ago. She was arrested several times by the Israeli military and accused of being a collaborator by some of her own people. Yet today, she is considered a pioneer of the peace process in the Middle East. My Home, My Prison is also about the struggle for women's rights. Raised in a misogynistic society that limits the freedom of women. Raymonda grew into a person who dared to speak her mind. Now exiled in Paris, she remains controversial; her daughter Suha married Yasser Arafat. Directed with intensity by two Jewish filmmakers. Erica Marcus and Academy Award nominee Susana Blaustein Muñoz, the film, set against the backdrop of the last fifty years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, goes beyond traditional documentary by interweaving archival footage, interviews and reenacted scenes from Tawil's memories, accompanied by dramatized excerpts from her writings. It screened at the Haifa Film Festival 1994 -1996.Ave Phoenix, 1995, 27 min. Short Film. Directed, produced and written by Susana Blaustein Muñoz. Starring Mira Furlan a former actress of Emir Kusturica. Sponsored by AFI in Hollywood,Awakening from Sorrow: Buenos Aires 1997, 2009, 40 min, Directed by John Knoop and Karina Epperlein. Produced by John Knoop, Susana Blaustein Muñoz, Karina Epperlein. A documentary about the rise of the movement called HIJOS. Children of the disappeared. The film is about a crucial moment in history when the grief of young Argentines - whose parents disappeared and were tortured and killed during the 'Dirty War' (Argentina's dictatorship organized mass killings of civilian dissidents during the 1970s until 1983) erupts into public action, and becomes a cornerstone for social movements from South America to Serbia. Until these young people began to organize and demand explanations from their government, the predominant coping strategy has been to pretend that the missing are still alive. This film documents the power to transform pain into action to lift the veil of repression that has gripped a generation of young people.
Old Love Dies Hard, 2013, 8:30 min. This autobiographical film shows that there is no agelimit for falling in love. The story of Susana and Christina takes us from Stockholm to Buenos Aires. Susana and Christina met in their 20`s and reconnected via Facebook 35 years later. Their love was rekindled at age 60 and they made a commitment to settle together. Never say never is the message!
See the film Old Love Dies Hard:
Credits SAQMI Play:Producers: Anna Linder and Malin HolgerssonDesign and code: Vincent OrbackComposer: Amanda LindgrenEdited and Mixed by Malin HolgerssonVoice: Sam MessagePublisher: Anna Linder
SAQMI Play is produced with the support from The Swedish Arts Council and Gothenburg City.
