Intro av Yaffa
If cinema is about representation then Palestinians are the most represented right now. The world has seen us die in every way imaginable, seen us raped, individually and by the masses, seen our beheaded and exploding children, seen NICU babies murdered, seen… yet, the world does not see us at all.
Cinema is not solely about representation, it is not about making the unseen visible, for the visible can still be invisible, we see this with every marginalized identity. For example, I receive hundreds of comments telling me my people would throw me off of a roof due to my transness, yet those same people do not see the queer and trans palestinians being killed in Gaza by the zionist apartheid state or the abhorrent conditions queer and trans palestinians are required to live in the Zionist Apartheid state. Those same people will not fight for queer and trans justice either.
To assume representation is always positive is to deny that representation is weopanized against the most marginalized daily.
Cinema is more than representation. Done well cinema allows individuals to connect to individuals that are over or under represented and moves us away from the weopanization of identity.
Cinema is about representation that claims itself instead of being claimed for us by others; it is about connection. Claiming is connecting and allowing it to become a part of your day to day reality and for you to be transformed within this new recognition.
Queerness is about marginalization. Queer cinema then is about making visible marginalized connection in undeniable ways that support individuals to transform their lives with this new understanding and recognition.
As I write this I am in Palestine, what we consider 48 Palestine and what the majority of the world considers “Israel”. I am in the belly of the beast as genocide unfolds to the south in Gaza, and bombs fall mere kilometers away from where I’m staying due to escalation with Lebanon. This lived reality, of killed by enemy and ally is an experience that many of us experience around the world, as Palestinians, as disabled people, as queer and trans people, and as other global majority people. Both sides of this pain is represented out there and erased. The pain in the middle, the contradictions we experience right now and have been are not. Queer cinema is meant to find these contradictions, tease them out, and ask the question of what comes next? Where do we go from here?
Queer cinema is about building a world beyond marginalization through the immense power of connection.
As you witness the films shown at Cinema Queer I invite you to reflect on these questions individually and with other attendees and other community members to guide and support the transformation necessary to move us towards the world we yearn for and deserve.
Cinema is a tool for reclaiming our stories, our bodies, our communities, our lands, our beings. May we all remember we are made of bodies from land and community and we are what we yearn to reclaim.
Yaffa
Author of Blood Orange and desecrated poppies
Editor of Inara: Light of Utopia
