Bella Demhat aka Ms. K.

This year’s guest of honor is none other than Bella Demhat aka Ms. K. She began her activist career in Turkey, where she worked at Pembe Hayat (Pink Life) in Ankara as an event coordinator. For two years, she organized Pride parades in Ankara and Istanbul. She wrote for Kaos GL, including columns on migration and reports on police anti-trans violence in Manisa, Adana, and Istanbul. When she came to Sweden in 2018, she started DJing and has played at Södra Teatern, Slakthuset, Under Bron, Trans Fest Stockholm, Boiler Room, and many other venues around Stockholm. For several years, she has faced the threat of deportation and fought for both her own and other LGBTQ people’s right to asylum. A few weeks ago, she was released from Migration Agency detention and is awaiting further word on her future. She comes to Cinema Queer to give the opening speech and DJ at our big Friday party.

JorgeTheObscene

He is a Chilean porn creator, performer, film curator, therapist, and sex worker, currently based in Europe. Since 2014, he has been part of the queer/alternative porn scene as a producer, performer, and editor on several films.

He co-hosts Cinema Queer’s big porn night together with Valentina del Pantheon, presenting the short film program Fuck the Fascism and the performance project Terrorismo Teatral Migrante — a performance in which, when justice is not served, space is made for revenge.

Kolbrún Inga Söring

Kolbrún Inga Söring (they/them) is a gender queer artist based in Gothenburg whose work spans several areas of artistic expression from performance, video work and site-specific installation to community cultivation and cultural production. Their personal artistic research explores possibilities of using the body as an autonomous site of provocation; problematising cis-heteronormative ideals while questioning the deeply rooted myth of masculine desire. Söring uses a process of performative writing: rethinking popular narratives by unpacking their own troubled relationship with said ideals and desires within a framework of self-representational body politics, body modification and politics of desire. Söring is best known in Gothenburg for their work with their artist duo Status Queer, and their collective CULT of Drag, their free Drag school Initiations, their extensive engagement in engagi ng with, building and providing culture to and by LGBTQIA+ individuals. Söring has also worked extensively with SAQMI taking on various roles like: curator, producer, technician and social media manager.

Markku Heikkinen

Markku Heikkinen (born 1966 in Kajaani, Finland) studied sociology and philosophy at the University of Tampere from 1987–1992, as well as film directing at the University of Art and Design Helsinki from 1999, graduating in documentary film directing in 2006. Heikkinen has worked as a freelance TV and radio journalist for Yle since 1986 and as a freelance documentary filmmaker since 1993. He served as chairman of the Finnish Documentary Guild (Dokumenttikilta) from 2004–2005.

He comes to Cinema Queer with his latest film The Arctic Circle of Lust.

Raymonde Gaunoux

Raymonde Gaunoux is a transgender danish-north american composer, singer and multimedia artist with an MFA in Experimental Composition & Creation from The Academy of Music and Drama in Gothenburg. As a performing and composing artist, Raymonde has for many years been engaged with representing queer and transgender narratives in music and popular culture. He is currently working within the field of mixed media, that centers transgender visibility.

Silas Lilo Jensen aka REMBODY

Silas Lilo Jensen works at SAQMI as a technician and podcast producer. They are a musician, artist and culture producer with many years of experience in organizing queer meeting places and events.

Still Sam

Still Sam works experimental with the collaboration as a central concept, looking for what emerges from connections and in-between positions. The collaborations stretches from experiments where the material agency is allowed to direct the way by embracing chance, to concrete collaborations between artists and to the meeting with the viewer in interactive installations. Their practice uses photography as a starting point, but does not stick to the medium. They work with stop-motion film, games, puzzles and interactive performances, among else. Currently studying a bachelor in fine art photography at HDK-Valand in Gothenburg after 25 years as a tattooer.

Valentina del Panteon A.K.A MariaBasura  

She is a South American monstrosity and social agitator. Actor, performance artist, dancer, sex worker, independent filmmaker, and designer of fetish accessories.

She visits Cinema Queer’s big porn night together with JorgeTheObscene, presenting the short film program Fuck the Fascism and the performance project Terrorismo Teatral Migrante — a performance in which, when justice is not served, space is made for revenge.

Anarchist South American multidisciplinary art and DIY activism, where antifascist, anticolonial, antiracist, and transfeminist voices take over architecture and infrastructure in our shared spaces.