Latinamerican Queer Archives and Restorations
75 min, all film have English subtitles
Wednesday Sep 30 at 19.30, Kulturhuset Hartwig
This selection brings together marginalized works, or works nearly lost to time, from South American queer cinema, some of them recently restored. Shot on a variety of formats—Super 8, 16mm, and video—these films capture the raw, intimate essence of bodies and desires. Through meticulous archival recovery and digital restoration, they offer a rare glimpse of lives unfolding against the backdrop of authoritarian regimes and social prejudice.
Susana
Susana Blaustein Muñoz / Argentina / 1980 / 25 min
An experimental autobiographical portrait; like a diary in moving images. Susana leaves her homeland in Argentina to live her life free from the cultural pressure and family structures. In those 23 minutes, she confronts her entire family—but especially her sister—about her life as a lesbian, interspersed with images from her personal archive and interviews with her friends and lovers. This is a politically significant film, as it is the one that explicitly mentions lesbianism in Argentine cinema for the first time.
Old Love Dies Hard
Susana Blaustein Muñoz / Argentina / 2013 / 8 min
Many years later, this is another biographical short film from Susana Blaustein that tells her story with Christina and takes us from Stockholm to Buenos Aires. Susana and Christina met when they were in their twenties and reconnected on Facebook 35 years later. Their love was rekindled when they were 60, and this is a brief account of what happened.
Private House
Gloria Camiruaga / Chile / 1990 / 9 min
A portrait of travesti marginality crossed and altered by Christian signs in the daily metaphor, acquiring a meaning that mixes the pagan and the divine. This video was censored in Chile by the Cinematographic Qualification Commission. As a result of this, the artists Pedro Lemebel and Francisco Casas, known as ”Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis”, carried out a famous protest performance, in solidarity with Gloria Camiruaga.
Red Was The Colour Of Their Lips
Henrique Magalhães / Brazil / 1983 / 15 min
At a Carnival camp, two boys meet and get involved. This independent production portrays discrimination among homosexuals themselves and stereotypes often attached to gay men. One of them catches the other dressed as a woman. A disagreement ensues. The film was scanned by CineLimite from the original Super 8 camera element, which had been preserved by director Henrique Magalhães.
Helô E Dirce – Mangú Bangue
Luiz Otávio Pimentel / Brazil / 1972 / 18.27 min
On the street, two boys meet. The film moves towards homoerotic suggestions of delicacy and violence, accompanied by a fast camera. Performances, soundtrack, graphic elements and posters make up the narrative. This film is considered a lost film. The restoration was carried out from the last known surviving element, a VHS copy. Through a careful digital restoration, CineLimite was able to recover a significant amount of image detail and reconstruct the film’s original color as faithfully as possible.
