Berlin Feminist Film Week 2018 Opening Screening: They

We are opening our 5th annual Berlin Feminist Film Week with the film They by Anahita Ghazvinizadeh and the short film Fee by Guen Murroni. After the films, Hengameh Yaghoobifarah (Missy Magazine) will have a conversation with Anahita Ghazvinizadeh about filmmaking in Iran, gender identity and her film debut feature They.

Films

They /Anahita Ghazvinizadeh / US /Qatar / 2017 / 80 min

Fourteen-year-old J goes by the pronoun ”They” and lives with their parents in the suburbs of Chicago. J is exploring their gender identity while taking hormone blockers to postpone puberty. After two years of medication and therapy, J has to make a decision whether or not to transition. Over this crucial weekend while their parents are away, J’s sister Lauren and her Iranian friend/partner Araz arrive to take care of ”They”. They, just like Needle, is a poetic film about that time just between childhood and adolescence. ,

Fee / Guen Murroni / UK / 2017 / 10 min

Fee is out celebrating with her friends, but a voice from the past keeps plaguing her. Escaping the pub for a breath of fresh air, Fee comes across a church and follows her impulse. As her heels echo in the silence of the cathedral, that voice, the person who has rejected her all her life appears.

Conversation with:

Anahita Ghazvinizadeh's award-winning short film Needle was screened at the Berlin Feminist Film Week in 2015. The 28-year old Iranian filmmaker presented her debut feature "They" at the Cannes film festival in 2017. The film is executively produced by acclaimed filmmaker Jane Campion and was nominated for a Queer Palm in Cannes.

Hengameh Yaghoobifarah (b. 1991) is a German journalist, DJ and blogger. They are currently an editor for Missy Magazine in Berlin and write a regular column in the newspaper taz.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le5KZkw5q2E