The third film program of 12 Moons juxtaposes two films: the lesbian-feminist classic Born in Flames (USA, 1983, English with German subtitles) by Lizzie Borden and the trans*-queer anarcha musical Folkbildningsterror (“Popular Education Terror”, Sweden, 2014, Swedish with English subtitles) by Lasse Långström and Göteborgs Förenade Musikalaktivister. Both films position themselves against the individualized fight and rely on the revolutionary power of collectives.
Born in Flames can be interpreted as a direct intervention into left debates – then and now. It allowes a critical glance onto collectivity and its recurring exclusion mechanisms. The film addresses the polyphony and disparity of various feminisms with great sensitivity, but a harmonious solution fails to happen. Folkbildningsterror on the other hand depicts anarcha-feminist collectives that are different from each other. Genderqueer, trans*, lesbian, gay and posthuman, they utilize gender theory with a sense of irony and fight against the growing sellout of the Swedish welfare state. The collective as an expression of solidarity and the immense importance of the queer family are at the center of the radical political glitter pop musical. In the area of tension between the authenticity of DIY aesthetics and staged plot with a broad spectrum of actors and resistant actions, both films allow self-critical reflection on the potentiality of collectives and their collaborations: How can political conflict and queer future be shaped in the 21st century? And what is the role of the arts in that scenario?
Accompanying Program
6.4.2018: Film Screening and Artist Talk
Lasse Långström discusses collective queer practices and politics of film with Atlanta Ina Beyer. Film can be a powerful tool in creating visions, for example for negotiating or creating new understandings of community, queer collectivity and politics. The discussion will focus on the politics of narratives and aesthetic, but also on collective production processes and the specific potentials of musicals. How can we create and sustain queer communities and can film and its narratives help us manifest our political and sexual desires?
Lasse Långström is a film director based in Gothenburg, Sweden, often collaborating with his queer community and friends. His work merges the personal with the political, the anarchic with humor, the musical with the sexual. He just toured his most recent movie Who will Fuck Daddy? (2017) around Europe and in the US. The film won the ZINEGOAK prize for Best Experimental Movie at the Bilbao Film Festival. He has directed a number of short movies, e.g. Robert Frank (2013), Shave me, mirror me (2015) and Cry Alliance of Our Hatred (2010). His work has been screened in festivals like MIX New York, Korea Queer Film Festival, TILDE Australia, Berlin Porn Film Festival and Transcreen Amsterdam. In December 2017, the Anthology Film Archive in New York showed a mini retrospective of his work.
Lasse Långström is available for interviews.
Atlanta Ina Beyer ist an anthropologist, journalist, and author. In her dissertation project, she is researching (intermedia) aesthetic strategies conceived in zines and musical productions that were created in the context of queer punk movements. She is interested in the utopian-projective powers of the queer aesthetic in (re-)negotiations of the political – the communal and the contested – within and beyond queer movements. She is co-editor of Perverse Assemblages. Queering Heteronormative Orders Inter/medially (Revolver Verlag, Berlin, forthcoming – together with Barbara Paul, Josch Hoenes, Natascha Frankenberg and Rena Onat).
Swedish filmmakers Göteborgs Förenade Musikalaktivister created Folkbildningterror, a musical committed to radical-queer militancy. The film presents a challenge to ticket inspections and gay marriage, employment agencies and the captivity of animals, to the pathologizing and discrimination of trans*people and to state violence. The neo-liberal Swedish state makes Theo’s mother sick. Beaten down by the ghost of over-economization, Theo meets trans*women Kleopatra and a rabbit for violence. An ever-growing group joins the three protagonists who end up in a plenary debate about whether they should consider EU-funding for their resistance. They define themselves as queer feminist, anti-capitalist and left-wing autonomous. They make self-mocking comments about their political scene, take hormones without prescriptions, ban toxic masculinities from their anarchist spaces, believe in black magic, live out their sexual fantasies and are accountable to one another. And then: “Glitter and Guns!”. Drawing on self-taught songs and choreography and with the help of a Danish terror cell, they go into armed battle singing and dancing. Their songs are instruments of resistance – they deal out criticism and map out redeeming utopias.
18.00 Film Screening: Folkbildningsterror (Swedish with engl. subtitles, 20 minutes)
20.00 Artist Talk: Director Lasse Långström with Atlanta Ina Beyer, Moderator: Vera Hofmann
The talk will be in English!
12.4.2018: Work in Progress
Stephanie Bart reads from her manuscript Ums Ganze (working title). The novel follows Gudrun Ensslin with her fight within and with the Red Army Faction against the imperialism. As in her last novel (Deutscher Meister, 2014), the author examines the possible practices of resistance in dealing with the ruling power.
Stephanie Bart, born in 1965 in Esslingen am Neckar, studied ethnology and political sciences at the University of Hamburg. She lives in Berlin since 2001. For Deutscher Meister, she received a scholarship by Deutscher Literaturfond in 2011 and was awarded the Rheingau Literaturpreis in 2012. Her current novel is supported by the Senate of Berlin and the Foundation Alfred-Döblin-Preis in the Academy of the Arts (Berlin).
19.00 Reading Work in Progress with Staphanie Bart, Moderator: Dr. Birgit Bosold
Further information and film descriptions can be found here.
Team:
Program Curator: Vera Hofmann
Scenography: Carolin Gießner, Théo Demans
Project Assistance: Felix Roadkill, Anina Falasca
Curation 3rd Mond: with Merle Groneweg
Thanks to Marit Österberg and Edition Salzgeber
Translation: Noemi Y Molitor
Vera Hofmann is a Berlin-based artist and member of the board of directors at Schwules Museum.
Screenings
Born in Flames is shown on a monitor, Folkbildningsterror on the big screen, both in continuous loops. Screenings start with the museum’s opening hours.
