Ce feu qu'on tait - Fragments d'une jeunesse queer (2025)

Underneath the Sequence, Rage: a History of Drag

The art of drag represents an artistic transformation where individuals create characters by amplifying gendered traits, challenging established social norms. This practice, known for its spectacular performances, has evolved through periods of repression and acceptance. Through humor and self-mockery, drag disrupts conventions and is deeply rooted in the history of LGBT+ movements. This documentary traces the history of Drag in France and around the world, from William Dorsey Swann—a young emancipated slave considered the first drag queen—to RuPaul, Nicky Doll, and Paloma. Featuring contributions from historians, anthropologists, and sociologists specialized in drag, as well as testimonies from drag artists who are shaping or have shaped this history.

Dragphoria

Dragphoria is a short film about drag and identity, finding yourself in a noisy crowd, and slowly accepting yourself after a long-awaited denial.

Burlesque

Student documentary exploring the world of burlesque as a space for artistic expression and personal liberation, where performers channel their creativity and sensuality. Through their voices, they speak about the power of the stage to reconnect with their bodies and establish a deep connection with the audience. Burlesque is presented as a feminist, inclusive, and supportive environment, celebrating gender and body diversity. The action takes place at the Wiggle Room, located in Montreal. It is the only burlesque cabaret in Canada, known for its warm atmosphere and strong sense of community.

Dolores guapa!

Religious-based images and traditions permeate the lives of all the people who inhabit Seville. Historically, the city's mariquitas ("sissies") have also assimilated them in their childhood and, through them, have been creating their own encounter spaces and their own codes. Nowadays, new dissident identities continue to respond to them: they participate or distance themselves, they continue what exists or transform it. This film looks at these traditions from a perspective always relegated to the margins.

Lake

Lake gazes down at a still body of water from a birds-eye view, while a group of artists peacefully float in and out of the frame or work to stay at the surface. As they glide farther away and draw closer together, they reach out in collective queer and desirous exchanges — holding hands, drifting over and under their neighbors, making space, taking care of each other with a casual, gentle intimacy while they come together as individual parts of a whole. The video reflects on notions of togetherness and feminist theorist Silvia Federici’s call to “reconnect what capitalism has divided: our relation with nature, with others, and our bodies.”

Ultraviolette and the Blood-Spitters Gang

After the death of his grandmother Emma, Robin Hunzinger and his mother Claudie find a carefully preserved collection of letters which Emma received from a girl called Marcelle. In the 1920s, Emma and Marcelle met at school in Dijon. Secretly, love blossomed between the two teenage girls, but after two years they parted ways. Marcelle developed tuberculosis and was admitted to a sanatorium. Complementing the sparse photographs of the women, Hunzinger combines archive footage, avant-garde films, and music to create a sensuous, poetic atmosphere.

Corrupt Colour

Corrupt Colour follows childhood friends and self-proclaimed internet pop-stars, Emily and Gia as they set up their first live concert but their delusions of grandeur are compromised when the live show of their dreams becomes a nightmare. The show must go on and with the help of their closest friends, irreverent leads Emily and Gia are forced to reckon with their true place in the public eye. With poignant lyrics, loud personalities, and unique creative decisions, Emily and Gia take us on a hilarious and melancholy journey through identity in the digital age that leaves us all asking "who am I trying to be?"

L'Avenir est ailleurs

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Connection | Isolation

Connection | Isolation presents eight intimate portraits of trans and post-gender individuals navigating the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Amidst moments of connection and isolation, these participants reveal a deepening awareness of gender, their bodies, and trans community. Created by an all trans and queer crew, this hybrid documentary film interlaces portraits with reenactments, integrating archival material documenting what so many experienced and many still do.

Calls from Moscow

A prefabricated estate in Moscow is meant as a transit stop for four queer Cuban exiles – until Russia’s attack on Ukraine radically shifts their outlook. Moving telephone calls back home provide the structure of Luís Alejandro Yero’s debut work.

L'âme indienne Martiniquaise

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Frantz Fanon, trajectoire d'un révolté

Frantz Fanon alone embodies all the issues of French colonial history. Martinican resistance fighter, he enlisted, like millions of colonial soldiers, in the Free Army out of loyalty to France and the idea of freedom that it embodies for him. A writer, he participated in the bubbling life of Saint-Germain with Césaire, Senghor and Sartre, debating tirelessly on the destiny of colonized peoples. As a doctor, he revolutionized the practice of psychiatry, seeking in the relations of domination of colonial societies the foundations of the pathologies of his patients in Blida. Activist, he brings together through his action and his history of him, the anger of peoples crushed by centuries of colonial oppression. But beyond this exceptional journey which makes sensitive the permanence of French colonialism in the Lesser Antilles at the gates of the Algerian desert, he leaves an incomparable body of work which has made him today one of the most studied French authors across the Atlantic.

The Life and Death of Lily Savage

Intimate documentary exploring how Paul O'Grady's creation, Lily Savage, took mainstream TV by storm. Unravel the real story of Lily with insights from Paul's daughter and famous pals.

How I Learned to Love the Numbers

A New York film and at the same time the study of a young man suffering from an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The Berlin filmmaker Oliver Sechting (37) and his co-director Max Taubert (23) travel to New York with the idea of documenting the art scene there. However, the project is quickly overshadowed by Oliver's OCD, and the two directors fall prey to a conflict that becomes the central theme of their film. Encounters with such artists as film directors Tom Tykwer (Cloud Atlas), Ira Sachs (Keep the Lights On), and Jonathan Caouette (Tarnation) or the transmedia artist Phoebe Legere seem more and more to resemble therapy sessions. At last, Andy Warhol-Superstar Ultra Violet succeeds in opening a new door for Oliver.

On Lavender

A documentary that is a deep exploration of gender identity within the context of Greek society, providing a multi-layered narrative that reflects the experiences of individuals navigating the complexities of gender in a culture where these topics are still emerging. Over four years, the filmmakers captured intimate stories of people confronting their gender identities, revealing how personal, societal, and familial expectations shape their journeys. The documentary aims to challenge the traditional norms of gender and to give voice to those whose experiences are often marginalized. It marks a significant step in Greece’s cinematic exploration of LGBTQ+ themes and is a pivotal contribution to the global conversation on gender identity.

When the Beat Drops

A documentary exploring the origins and evolution of bucking, as well as the life stories and struggles of various Atlanta performers.

All That Drag

Deepening into the contemporary Brazilian drag scene, "All That Drag" answers many questions about a little known story. The film investigates this artistic expression and the freedom it represents through five drag artists.

A Queer City

A documentary following three young nascent drag artists as they navigate a rising queer scene in Norwich City - a place wherein they express their queerness and identities freely through performance, visual artistry, and community.

Escape From Rented Island: The Lost Paradise of Jack Smith

In his essay film, Jerry Tartaglia, longtime archivist and restorer of the film estate of queer New York underground, experimental film, and performance legend Jack Smith, deals less with Smith’s life than with his work, analyzing Smith’s aesthetic idiosyncrasies in 21 thematic chapters. It's a film essay about the artist’s work, rather than a documentary about his life. An unmediated vision of Jack Smith, an invitation to join him in his lost paradise.

ANDRO

ANDRO DADIANI's political performances dissect the oppression by state and church in Georgia and conquer Tbilisi's urban spaces. As a queer, non-binary protest and performance art figure, their identity remains a secret. The danger of open resistance is too great.

Don't Cry for Me All You Drag Queens

A short film that pays homage to the legendary Mother Cavallucci by weaving together the present and past to provide a striking portrait of belonging and memory. Poetically merging archival photographs and present-day footage from a community drag show, the film sparks conversation about the modern-day issues Mother Cavallucci revolutionized.

An Act of Affection

While making a portrait of a single gay man in Lisbon, a Vietnamese filmmaker offers his character a little gift from the bottom of his heart. This is a film about the act of filming.

Pink Motherland

A documentary about Néstor Perlongher. His life, his poems, and his activism in Argentina's Frente de Liberación Homosexual (homosexual liberation front).

Georgie Girl

In 1999, the largely conservative Wairarapa district in New Zealand elected a former cabaret performer/actress named Georgina Beyer to the country's House of Parliament -- a seemingly unremarkable event in that country's history except for the fact that Beyer is a transsexual and may very well be the first transsexual in the world to be elected to a national office. In their 2002 biographical documentary Georgie Girl, co-directors Peter Wells and Annie Goldson highlight the popular Member of Parliament's rapid rise through local government to prominence in the New Zealand national government.

There are things in this world that are yet to be named

"There are things in this world that are yet to be named" centers around Solanum plastisexum - an Australian tomato whose sexual expression is unpredictable and unstable, challenging even the fluid norms of the plant kingdom. Footage of the team of botanists who recently used their Solanum research to explode notions of sexual normativity in any plant or animal is combined with a voiceover of letters sent between science writer Rachel Carson and her lover Dorothy Freeman. "There are things in this world that are yet to be named" is a meditation on erasure, indefinability, and the intersection of queer and environmental histories.

Tomatoes

Across the installation's multiple channels, the camera circles a group of artists as they sit together in a field eating, licking, and squeezing ripe tomatoes. Throughout the ever-changing scene, kisses, whispers, and caresses are shared with a casual, gentle intimacy that reflects interconnectivity and abundance. These queer and desirous exchanges constitute a portrait of collectivity wherein individuals come together as distinct parts of a whole.

The Queen

In 1967, New York City is host to the Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant. This documentary takes a look behind the scenes, transporting the viewer into rehearsals and dressing rooms as the drag queen subculture prepares for this big national beauty contest. Jack/Sabrina is the mistress of ceremonies, and their protégé, Miss Harlow, is in the competition. But, as the pageant approaches, the glamorous contestants veer from camaraderie to tension.

A-Okay

Sex. Something that is part of human nature. Everyone does it and strives to have their happily ever after… Right? In a society where intimacy and romance are constantly everywhere, someone breaks from the mould after years of self-discovery. They send a letter to their past self full of their experiences and lessons learned, in the form of a short documentary. A-Okay brings attention to the hyper-sexualized and romanticized society we live in and how it’s expectations, stigmas, and stereotypes can be harmful to individuals on the aromantic and asexual spectrums.

Pink Feathers

Richard Rhodes, AKA Cookie MonStar, has been in the drag industry for 21 years. This Documentary follows the highs and lows of his successes and failures. It focuses on following your dreams, what it is to be a man and the pressures of life within the industry. This is an insight into the entertainment industry; shows you the underground and commercial drag scenes; asks you what it is to dream and inspires you to question yourself and your beliefs.

Drag Becomes Him

An intimate glimpse inside the life of internationally acclaimed drag performer Jinkx Monsoon.

Teenage and Gay

A documentary that follows five British teenagers as they come out, capturing intimate first-hand experiences, and empathizing with them as they seek acceptance for their sexuality. From the 14-year-old footballer who describes herself as a ‘butch lesbian’ to the transgender boy forced out of home and school, the program features a cross-section of characters. Intimate, confessional, and raw, the film celebrates their bravery and exposes the ostracism and bullying they can suffer.

Cherry Valentine: Gypsy Queen and Proud

At 18, George Ward left the Gypsy community. He had felt rejected having come out as gay. Leaving his Gypsy identity behind, he invented Cherry Valentine, a drag alter-ego. Now he wants to find out if he can be accepted as a queer Gypsy and feel proud.

Aimé Césaire, Un homme une terre

Alternating interview segments, shots of Martinique landscapes and scenes from Aimé Césaire's play La Tragédie du roi Christophe (1963), Sarah Maldoror portrays her friend as a politician, a poet, and a founder of the Négritude movement.

Queerkamp

It takes courage to be a queer teenager at an LGBTQIA+ youth summer camp. Along with 65 other queer youngsters, Faas, Fano, Jeroen, and Finley are on their first summer camp, spending five intensive days of workshops that teach them how they can love themselves more. For the first time in their lives, the youths are surrounded by peers, all struggling with the same problems and feelings. As different as they are, they all share one thing: the need for contact and understanding. Mutual recognition of each other’s childhood or coming-out stories stirs up more emotions than they may have thought. Will this help them get closer to each other and eventually themselves?