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Fifi az khoshhali zooze mikeshad

Bahman Mohassess was a celebrated artist at the time of the Shah. Trained in Italy, he created sculptures and paintings in his homeland. But audiences often took offence at the pronounced phalli on his mostly naked bronze figures and his work was regularly censored. All traces of him were lost after the revolution. It was said he destroyed his remaining paintings and disappeared. Mitra Farahani, who began her career as a painter, finds Mohassess ...

Fig Trees

An operatic documentary about the struggle of two Aids activists – Canadian Tim McCaskell and South African Zackie Achmat. Both have fought tooth and nail for the provision of anti-retroviral drugs to treat Aids. In John Greyson’s film they are ably supported by Gertrude Stein, a singing albino squirrel, and St. Teresa of Ávila. FIG TREES is nonetheless based on true stories. Tim McCaskell has spent more than twenty years fighting Aids and address...

Filth And Wisdom

Andriy Krystiyan, or A. K. for short, has come to England from the Ukraine. A. K. is a philosopher (at least that’s what he claims to be), a poet, and an authority on all aspects of life. At the same time, he is following his grand plan to become an international star. Global stardom is how A. K. describes the goal that he and his band Gogol Bordello are pursuing with their particular brand of boisterous gypsy punk. For the time being, however, h...

Final Stage

The present, the whole present and nothing but the present. A young man on a footbridge, a bus departs, his friend is gone. This is followed by a majestic parade through a shopping centre. This central shot in the film is a fragile balancing act between documentary observation and subtle direction. Deliberately asynchronous sound serves to heighten the sense that events are nothing more than a construction of an apparently familiar reality. The ...

Finding Vivian Maier

An older gay couple in a city in northern Italy talk about their decades-long relationship. A man describes how he was physically abused by his father because of his sexual identity. Another, who had a high-flying career, recounts a sexually fulfilled life and mentions numerous homosexual politicians. Gay men from across the social classes and regions of the country have their say and discuss the different conditions which determined gay life in ...

First a Girl

The fashion salon employee Elizabeth dreams of a stage career, the small-part actor Victor of a bright future as a Shakespearean mime. Both dreams fail miserably at the artists' agency. Victor will have to continue to appear as a female impersonator. When Elizabeth loses her job and Victor his voice due to a cold, the young woman stands in for him. She puts on trousers and now plays a man as a woman playing a woman. Her performance becomes a ...

Five Ways to Kill Yourself

Along with his other short film "My New Friend" Gus van Sant was awarded with the first TEDDY AWARD for best short film in 1987.

Fjellet

Two years ago, Nora and Solveig’s five-year-old son, Vetle, died on a mountain hike. Their grief over his death has weighed heavily on their relationship ever since. For Nora, the child’s biological mother, the pain of her loss has caused her to become increasingly bitter. Although Solveig loved Vetle just as much, Nora begins to question the sincerity of Solveig’s grief. The boy’s death has changed Solveig and she now finds that she can’t imagin...

FLUIDØ

It is the year 2060 and AIDS has been eradicated. However, in some, the HIV virus has now mutated into a gene from which a drug can be produced that has become the white powder of the twenty-first century. With a virtually supported scanning system, secret police are trying to identify anyone who carries this gene. Meanwhile, elsewhere, young men are hooked up to a system of cables and ordered to produce sperm for the production of pharmaceutica...

Fogaréu

 

Football Under Cover

Teheran in April 2006. Iran’s national women’s team and a local Berlin women’s football team are playing their first official friendly match – before a crowd of more than a thousand cheering women. The atmosphere at the stadium is electric and super-charged with girl power. Outside the stadium, a few men peer through the fencing, trying to catch a glimpse of the
proceedings, because today, men are barred from the game.
Although their only desire ...

Forbidden Fruit

This film tells the story of two women lovers named Nongoma and Tsitsi who live in the country in Zimbabwe. Lesbian relationships are very much taboo in Zimbabwe and, when their secret affair is discovered, Nongoma is obliged to run away from her village and escape to the city. Meanwhile, Tsitsi’s family are convinced she is possessed by an evil spirit. Two years later, the two women meet again by chance in Mutare...

Forever Enthralled

Bertolt Brecht was one of his admirers, as was Charlie Chaplin and Sergei Eisenstein, who even filmed him. Chinese actor and singer Mei Lanfang (1894 –1961) was one of Peking opera’s most significant performers and innovators. His performances helped considerably to popularise Peking opera in the West. His life unfolds in this opulent period drama.
Mei Lanfang was born into a family that had performed Peking opera for generations. Like his grandfat...

Första gangen

The first time can be really hard, especially when you feel you've got something to prove to your mates. Alex and the others hang out at the beach, chatting and bragging. He tries to get closer to Sofia with a joke she finds totally unfunny. Nevertheless they go off together. A first awkward kiss, they lie in the grass, zips get undone. They both want something to happen but it simply doesn't work out. Nevermind, they think, but what will they tell the others?

Four Quartets

He waves his arms in the air while his lithe body soaks up the beat and transfers it to his legs. Raf literally breathes in the music. At the same time he is constantly scanning the room. There is desire and expectation in his gaze, but also anxiety and shyness. Moving to the film’s rhythmic pulse and the intoxicating music in the queer club, we dance with Raf and cast off all inhibitions.

Francine

After serving time in prison, Francine settles down in small-town North America. Through a series of temporary jobs, she tries to regain a foothold in society. However, this security proves just as elusive as the connections she tries to forge with people in the town. As her human relationships falter, Francine looks to animals for support, a development that leads her in a tragically wrong direction.
Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky’s fiction...

Franswa Sharl

Twelve year old Greg inherited the competitive spirit of his father. During a family vacation, both have the chance to express their differences. While the father pushes the son into a swim contest, Greg prefers to practice at playing telephone pranks and dressing in drag. The father is hoping mad about Greg‘s passion, but Greg tries at reconciliation by entering a beauty contest for women. The film is based on a true story.

Frauenzimmer

This documentary tells the story of three grandmothers who earn a living as prostitutes. Christel, Paula and Karolina either work in their own apartment, in a brothel, or receive clients at a dominatrix studio. They have no desire to justify what they do, nor do they make a show of their profession. These three women are engaged in a constant merry-go-round of slipping into different identities, selling dreams and trying to manage their own priva...

Freak Show

‘Being fabulous, no: being relentlessly fabulous is damn hard work. I should know. I've dedicated my life to the pursuit of it.’

Could Billy Bloom be like everyone else if he wanted to? It would certainly save him a whole lot of trouble. But he has absolutely no desire to be like them. When others call him theatrical, he takes it as a compliment; when his classmates feel provoked by his drive to be different, it only motivates him further. ‘T...

Freier Fall

Marc is shaken to the core when he meets a fellow police officer, Kay, on a trainingcourse and begins to develop feelings for him. When Kay asks to be transferred to Marc’s unit, his well-arranged life begins to sink into chaos. Torn between his love forhis pregnant girlfriend Bettina and the rush of a completely new experience, his life begins to spin increasingly out of control. He soon finds himself increasinglye stranged from his family, but ...