Trans Excellence

Total length: 75 min / All films have English subtitles or are in English
Tuesday Sep 29 at 20.00, Kulturhuset Hartwig

Welcome to enjoy a short film program by and for trans people!

SAQMI creates an artistic space for and by trans people. With a fantastic film program as a starting point, we talk about what we have seen together after the screening. This year’s program is filled with visual experiences, existences beyond the ordinary, snails, mermaids and lots of music. See them in a room where trans is the norm and where w(å)ld is banned. WELCOME!

Chevron Moustache
Kolbrún Inga Söring / Sweden / 2025 / 18:15 min
Chevron Moustache is a film born through my performative processes and creative writing. The film uses a script which was first a performance both in different installment editions but also in its entirety. The film takes on camp and theatrical essay film characteristics. Through processes of rethinking and expanding upon the story of The Little Mermaid a narrative emerges around body modification, desire and self representation – focusing on the euphoric experience of gaining a mascara moustache.

We Owe You Nothing
REMBODY / Sweden / 2023 / 5:32 min
The music video for Rembody’s debut song We Owe You Nothing. Video recording and production in collaboration with artists Kai Merke and Mo Moesgaard. Paper Mache Beings made by Anne Louise Fink and Mo Moesgaard. Recorded in the North Forest in Kulhuse, Denmark. Edited by Silas Lilo Jensen aka Rembody.

Slugs, Snails and Slurs
Zafira Vrba Woodski / Sweden / 2025 / 5 min (Swedish Language only), Premiär!
Slugs, Snails and Slurs is based on questions and statements that trans people are expected to answer. Unlike in real life, where a clever answer could make the situation even more unsafe, the slugs in the film have an endless supply of flirtatious, witty and sarcastic comebacks.

Roads to Relief
Still Sam / Sweden / 2024 / 8:34 min
Roads to Relief is a journey with the ambition to find the feeling relief. Through confusion and pain, but also care, rest and euphoria. The film is made out of around 5000 still images from the bigger project Stories of relief, collaborative portraits communicating gender euphoria.

Shapeshifter X
Raymonde Gaunoux / Sweden/ 2026 / 36:48 min
SHAPESHIFTER X is a hybrid music video documentary exploring transgender embodiment, narrative and voice through sound and image. Structured around nine musical chapters interwoven with interviews with transgender artists and advocates, the film aims to amplify transness and nuture transgender community within within artistic fields. Using archival footage from different stages of the filmmaker’s life alongside newly created material, the work connects past and present selves through sonic, poetic and visual collage, depicting emotional states of struggle, healing, and becoming through a transgender gaze.

Inspired by Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto and transgender interpretations of mermaid and seahorse analogy, the film aims to highlight the empowering nature of shapeshifting transgender bodies. The material for the music and film was created in collaboration with 28 artists and transgender advocates. 21 of these collaborators identify as transgender or non-binary.

After the screening there will be a talk with the directors Raymonde Gaunoux,  Zafira Vrba Woodski, Still Sam, Rembody, and Kolbrún Inga Söring. The talk will be moderated by Theo Vasilopoulos.

Live Technician: Siri Landgren. File Technician: Careen Koleilat. Curator: Anna Linder.

SAQMI – The Swedish Archive for Queer Moving Images is one of the only archives in the world for queer moving images.