EIGHTH EDITION OF THE INDEPENDENT QUEER FILM FESTIVAL OF TURIN, DEDICATED TO PIPPA BACCA ITALIAN ARTIST KILLED BY A MAN DURING ONE OF HER PERFORMANCES
MAY 17-18-19, 2024, VIA BALTEA 3 – TURIN
Turin, the city of culture, history, with incredible contradictions and long-standing center of Italian queer movements, once again hosts the Divine Queer Film Festival, the independent festival of international scope, imbued with activism for rights and against all discrimination, ready this year as well to narrate stories of courage, determination, and struggle. Now in its eighth edition, the festival has for years chosen to take place in the Barriera neighborhood of Milan, in the spaces of the community hub at Via Baltea 3, to explore the fluctuating themes of gender identities, disabilities, and migrations even in less mainstream locations, using cinematic language to break down the discrimination associated with them. Cinema thus becomes an opportunity for information, communication, and education on themes that still today (and especially today) become objects of prejudice and marginalization.
Admission to screenings is free and barrier-free, and films are subtitled in Italian and for the deaf audience.
FRIDAY 17 of MAY 2024
19.00 Divine pre-dinner drink
20.30 VOLANO GLI STRACCI – performance con Filo Sottile (60’)
21.30 OPENING CERIMONY
21.45 RED SHOES – IL FIGLIO DEL BOSS
di Isabella Weiss (Italy, 2012 –61’)out of competition – with the presence of Isabella Weiss and Daniela Lourdes Falanga
The true story of Daniela Lourdes Falanga, born Raffaele, the only son of a camorra boss. Daniela, facing countless obstacles, suffering, and many humiliations, manages to become the person she has always wanted to be since childhood. A queer story of strong emotional impact that must be heard to give hope.
23:00 Drink and Divine chatter
SATURDAY 18 of MAY 2024
14.00 NARROW PATH TO HAPPINESS by Kata Olah (Hungary, 2023 –83’)incompetition
A young gay Romani couple from a remote village in Hungary has a dream so absurd that it seems impossible: making a musical film based on their lives. Against all odds, they move to Budapest just as the Hungarian government is becoming increasingly authoritarian and hostile toward LGBTQ+ people.
15.25 RAZZE PURE / PURE BREEDS by Giuseppe Zampella (Italy, 2022 – 20’) incompetition
During a summer course for young farmers, Danilo finds himself romantically and physically attracted to two of his classmates: a boy and a girl. This will upset the balance of their symbiotic relationship.
15.45 LEA E IL FENICOTTERO by Antonio De Palo (Italy, 2023 – 27’) incompetition
In Italy, where the conservative government seeks to imprison all transgender individuals as a threat to traditional family values, Lea, a transgender woman held in isolation in a remote mountain prison, falls into a deep depression. As imaginary scenarios shape in her mind, the country erupts into social conflict and Lea will have the opportunity, mixing reality and imagination, to find a role that restores her will to live and fight for her freedom, and for the freedom of all transgender people.
16.15 HEY MAN by Kai Tillman (USA, 2023 – 23’) incompetition
While navigating between steamy Grindr hookups and their rideshare passengers, Eli reluctantly alters their queer transmasculine identity to pass in a straight cisgender world for their physical and emotional safety.
16.40 CONVERSATION WITH ALBERT KNOLL by Philipp Gufler (Netherlands, 2023 – 25’) incompetition
Albert Knoll has been an employee of the Concentration Camp Memorial Site in Dachau since 1997. He is a founding member of the Forum Queeres Archiv München (FQAM), that was established in 1999. The short film provides a very personal and deep insight into Knoll’s historical work as well as his commitment to the FQAM with a focus on oral and social history.
17.10 THE PRIDE LIAR by Andres Lübbert (Belgium, 2023 – 19’) incompetition
Emzo, a courageous queer activist, escaped persecution in Georgia five years ago, finding refuge in Belgium. This short documentary captures his unyielding commitment to the LGBTQ+ cause, showcasing the indomitable spirit of one individual’s fight for acceptance and equality.
17.30 PLACE/PORTAL by Sean Dorsey (USA, 2023 – 3’) incompetition
with the presence of director/protagonist Sean Dorsey
Set in expansive fields and watery coves, PLACE/PORTAL is a dance film featuring Emmy Award-winning transgender choreographer-dancer Sean Dorsey. What happens when a trans body is allowed to dream about the Future? This short is part of a series of dance films created as part of Sean Dorsey Dance’s THE LOST ART OF DREAMING project.
17.35 OSAS E LE DONNE DI BENIN CITY by Gabriele Gravagna (Italy, 2023 – 17’) incompetition
A wave of violence strikes the city of Palermo between 2011 and 2014: three Nigerian girls in their early twenties are killed within a short span of time, and their bodies are found among the garbage bins. One is charred. Public opinion will say they were just “prostitutes,” but the woman telling us this story – Osas Egbon, 42 years old, president of the first Italian association against prostitution exploitation – reminds us that Loveth, Favour, and Bose were human beings.
18:15 Tavola rotonda “Gender-based violence, wars, and contemporary society. Contrast and languages” on the present and possible strategies also starting from the works of Pippa Bacca. Participants: Manuela Manera – linguist, Federica Tourn – journalist, Non una di Meno Torino; moderated by Federica Rosin of the National Observatory on Femicides, Trans-cides, and Lesbicides of Non una di Meno.
19.15 Divine pre-dinner drink
20.30 OPENING
21.00 SONO INNAMORATO DI PIPPA BACCA
by Simone Manetti (Italy, 2019 –76’)out of competition – with the presence of one of the Pippa’s sisters
On March 8, 2008, from Milan to Jerusalem, “Brides on tour” begins, the performance of the artist Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, stage name Pippa Bacca, and her friend Silvia Moro. The journey involves hitchhiking through eleven countries, with stops at the homes of people contacted in advance. At each stop, they meet local midwives so Pippa can wash their feet; an evangelical ritual learned from childhood on the Camino de Santiago, expressing gratitude to those who foster life in post-war contexts. On the road to Istanbul, Pippa is raped and killed by a man who offers her a ride.
23:00 Drink and Divine chatter
24:00 Party AMORƏ at Associazione Culturale Variante Bunker in via Nicolò Paganini – Torino.
SUNDAY 19 of MAY 2024
14.00 FUTURE COMES AT THE RIGHT TIME by Elena Bongiorno, Sofia Merelli, Gabriele Umidon, Martina Tamburini (Italy, 2023 – 26’) incompetition
As of today, sexual freedom and gender self-determination are punished with detention or death in several countries. The documentary tells the story of Nelson and his escape to Italy after a violent aggression. He was born 25 years ago in Benin City, one of the most unstable areas of Nigeria. In 2018 the territorial commission that examined his case considered his testimony not sufficiently credible and rejected his request for international protection. In 2021 Nelson appealed to the Venice Court. Awaiting for his verdict, which can take months, Nelson spends his days working, hanging out with friends and making music, hoping to become a great singer one day.
14.30 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US by Imran Siddiquee (USA, 2023 – 24’) incompetition
An undocumented immigrant in Philadelphia starts to fall for a roommate she’s never met — forming a connection that will test the limits of her romantic imagination.
15.00 CIURE’ by Gianpiero Pumo (Italy, 2023 – 110’) incompetition
Life in suburban Palermo can be tough: Salvo is a young father who struggles between makeshift jobs and criminal-grotesque affairs to support his son. When the spiral of violence turns against him, he runs into Ciurè, a transgender dancer who helps him, opening doors to a kaleidoscopic gay night club where she performs every night.
17.00 #CHANGETHENARRATIVE2 by Gentian Minga (Albania, 2023 – 1’) incompetition
There is a lot of hate speech out there, especially online, but also on the streets. With little effort, fighting the bystander effect, we can change the narrative and turn hate messages into love ones. Like this graffiti artist.
17.01 THE BIRTH OF NAIKEE by Clémentine Decremps (France-Germany, 2023 – 20’) incompetition
Naikee is a black trans woman. At 38, she looks back on her transitional journey, abandoning her birth name and gradually changing her appearance. To gain her « right to exist » differently, she creates a tableau that reinvents and reinterprets the codes of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. As she confronts her connection to her body and her right to exist differently, she is reborn in front of our eyes.
17.20 MAGHREB’S HOPE by Ben Brahim Bassem (Tunisia, 2023 – 23’) incompetition
Through a mix of drawings, animations, and real images, the film retraces the journey of queer individuals from the “Greater Maghreb,” including Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. They challenge the social taboos associated with their non-normative gender and sexuality identities, confronting familial, social, and legal pressures.
17.45 L’ULTIMA dei ROMANOV by Andrea Cozzolino (Italy, 2023 – 36’) incompetition
with the presence of Andrea Consolino (director), Alex/Alessia Romanova (star), Sergio Fiorucci (editing)
Testimonies of life in the LGBT reality in the years preceding the civil rights movements: 60s, 70s and 90s, in Turin, North Italy. Alex/Alessia talks during a dinner with friends about her artistic activity as a variety showgirl, “soubrette” (she doesn’t recognize herself as a drag queen) and about the clandestine room, the Paradis, which hosted playback performances by Turin artists. Story in 6 chapters: the beginnings; the Paradis; Yesterday and today; Identity; Love; 1990 and 2000.
18.15 VIOLET BUTTERFIELD: MAKEUP ARTIST FOR THE DEAD by Brooke H. Cellars (USA, 2023 – 13’) incompetition
The short mpvie weaves a captivating narrative centered around a unique protagonist—an enigmatic mortician beautician who goes beyond the ordinary realms of her profession. Set in the eerie yet alluring atmosphere of her mortuary, the story follows Violet as she anticipates a calm and uneventful evening. However, her expectations are quickly shattered when a new client enters her macabre domain. As Violet engages with her visitor, she unveils a profound truth.
18.30 UNNAMED by Iranmehr Salimi (Iran, 2023 – 13’) incompetition
Zainab is a successful girl who supports her family financially, but considers herself a boy inside; therefore, she has decided to undergo sex reassignment surgery. Zeinab played in Iran’s national volleyball team for a while and is now playing in the premium league. If she becomes a boy, she won’t have a chance to play for men’s professional teams due to her shorter height and less stamina compared to men. Zeinab not only will lose her professional future in Volleyball, but she puts herself and her family, who depend on her financially, in trouble.
19.00 Divine pre-dinner drink
20.15 CLOSING CERIMONY AND AWARDS
20.30 NICOLA – COZZE, KEBAB & COCA COLA
by Nicola Palumbo (Italy, 2021 –85’)out of competition – with the presence of Nicola Palumbo.
Antonio, a director short on ideas, has a vision of the city’s patron saint, San Nicola, who asks him to make a film about his true story. So, Antonio sets out on a journey following the myth, crossing all the countries where the saint is venerated: Turkey, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Russia, and finally the United States, where he is better known as Santa Claus, or Father Christmas. A journey amidst a melting pot of cultures and popular traditions, with all their contradictions, a path between colors and religious rigor mixed together giving life to a sacred figure that is, at the same time, a consumeristic model.
23.00 Drink and Divine chatter
