IRIS PRIZE
As the UK’s best LBGT+ film festival plants its flag once again in Cardiff, Fedor Tot looks ahead to some of the highlights of this year’s festival.
Hardly a week goes by without a debate flaring up online about issues of representation these days, often starting in the twisted mirror image of our world that is Twitter before making its way to the major news outlets. A recent furore over Jack Whitehall being cast as Disney’s first openly gay character, for example, was matched the following week by debate over the success of Crazy Rich Asians. One of the best things about festivals like Iris is that they provide a comparatively calm and level-headed place to discuss such things without the immature screaming matches and sensationalist headlines that mark the former two.
A number of talks will touch on these subjects. It’s Called Acting Darling, named after the remarks of one high-profile actor at a previous edition, discusses whether LBGT+ roles need to be played by LBGT+ performers, whilst They Don’t Go To The Cinema looks at the travails of lesbian and bi cinema in a male-dominated industry. Finally, there’s Retelling The Story, which will discuss the history of AIDS onscreen, as the crisis nears its 40th anniversary.
At its heart though, the purpose of film festivals is to watch films, and Iris doesn’t skimp on that front. That the first ever Iris Prize winner Dee Rees had her film Mudbound nominated for a number of Oscars stands as a valediction of the work this festival has put in other the years over building up filmmakers and audiences, and this year’s short film selection looks as exciting as ever. The international section covers 35 films, grouped into topics as varied as Gender & Family, Masculinity, and Finding Pride, with entrants from places as varied as Norway, Brazil, India and Lebanon. The British shorts, sitting alongside that, includes sections on queer history (Queer Then), the ties of familial relations (Family And Faith, and the queer present (Queer Now), covering the best homegrown talent.
The feature film selection is as exciting as the rest of course. There’s A Moment In The Reeds by Mikko Makela, about two men in Finland, one a Syrian asylum seeker, who connection with each other in a lakeside house, with distinct tones of last year’s success story God’s Own Country. There’s Dykes, Camera, Action! by Caroline Berler, looking at the history of lesbian women behind the camera. Elsewhere is Cola De Mono, a Chilean film set on Christmas Eve 1986 in the midst of Pinochet’s regime, as tensions and the suffocating heat gets to a family gathering.
Two feature films particularly stand out, however. Sauvage, directed by Camille Vidal-Naquet, tells the story of Leo, a 22-year-old selling his body on the streets for cash, homeless and addicted to drugs. Led by an astonishing performance by Felix Maritaud (120 BPM), who brings sensitivity and tragedy to Leo, this agonisingly painful character study delves deep into our universal need for love, and sometimes our rejection of it also. Rife with neorealist touches, this is ultimately an actor’s film. But what an actor.
The other one that’s likely to blow minds is the surreal, bizarre, and utterly masterful M/M [pictured], directed by Drew Lint. It tells the story of Matthew, a Quebecois émigré wandering through Berlin’s bustling nightlife. He becomes attracted to Mattias, a fellow wanderer, and starts to become obsessed with him, taking on his features and trying not just to be like him, but to be him. Lint’s direction is masterful, throwing in all sorts of fantastical associative images into the mix. At only 80-something minutes, M/M doesn’t overstay its welcome, lasting just long enough to sustain its glorious atmosphere of the sweat and wooze of late-night megacity intimacy.
Ultimately, for all the debate about representation in the media, such issues are resolved by the audience. The mainstream is what we make it, and by engaging and getting out to see films such as those shown at Iris, we can make a statement about what kinds of films we want to see. And of course, with parties every night after screenings, we can also enjoy ourselves.
Iris Prize Festival, Cineworld, Cardiff (+ various other Cardiff locations), Tue 9-Sun 14 Oct. Tickets: £23.75 – £125. Info: www.irisprize.org
