Screening
‘Trans stories are elevated when trans and gender diverse collectives lead the narrative.’
Our premiere shorts epitomise this festival theme, centering TGD directors, producers, cast and crew. From the sublimely absurd Australian premiere of In their dreams all jellyfish are wet to the visionary mind of director Karimah Zakia Issa in Scaring Women At Night, when we disrupt the norms of filmmaking the results are exquisite!
This year TILDE is collaborating with TGD festivals across the world, with our first sibling festival exchange. Partnering with TRANSlations film festival Seattle, TILDE is thrilled to present the world premiere of Green Castles directed by Anto(n) Astudillo and Kelley Van Dilla. In exchange, our First Nation filmmaker commissions will screen at TRANSlations in June.
The Script
Victorian Premiere
USA, 2023, 15 mins, Documentary, Dir. Brit Fryer Noah Schamus, Unclassified
Blending personal interviews with dramatised genre recreations, THE SCRIPT explores the complicated relationship between trans and nonbinary communities and medical providers regarding gender affirming care. With a playful approach toward experimentation, the film invites its participants and its audience to examine the limits of language and the nature of performance in building safe and affirming futures.
The Robbers
Victorian Premiere
Austria, 2023, 15 mins, Drama, Dir. Isa Schieche, PG, In German with English subtitles
Three trans women meet in a country house to plan a robbery. The trick of the heist is that, in order to create a false trail, they disguise themselves as men. While they share everyday life as a well-established team and lovers, they practise speaking in a deep voice, walking manly and behaving in a masculine manner. In this process, they reach their emotional and physical limits and repeatedly fail to imitate male connoted behaviour.
Green Castles
World Premiere
USA, 2024, 35 mins, Drama, Dir. Anto(n) Astudillo & Kelley Van Dilla, In Spanish and English with subtitles
Green Castles follows Polo in their day-to-day life while they navigate medically transitioning, looking for work, and living alone in a lonely city. Though they find caring for plants easier than caring for themselves, an elder wise woman, Tia Silvia, constantly checks in on them and helps them on their journey. Every night Polo has the same dream: that they’re slowly turning into a being made of plants. Green Castles, the first collaboration between Anto(n) Astudillo and Kelley Van Dilla, represents a deepening of friendship through exploration of shared synchronicities in their lived experiences as trans and queer filmmakers. Anto(n) and Kelley also collaborate in building trans+ community, and healing care-centred filmmaking environments.
Scaring Women at Night
USA, 2022, 11mins, Drama, Dir. Karimah Zakia Issa, Unclasssified, Captioned
Two strangers are scared on a late walk home. As they try to escape one another, their worlds collide at an intersection forcing them to question who they’re afraid of and why.
In their dreams all jellyfish are wet
Australian Premiere
Austria, 2023, 27 mins, Comedy, Dir. Marie Luise Lehner, 16+, Captioned
This film is a manifesto for the fact that the rules by which we behave can be changed and transformed. The rules that determine the course of a sauna visit provide the structure. Orlando, who tries to master an inconspicuous visit to the sauna does not know the rules. After he has to leave the sauna during the infusion because his nipple piercings get too hot, he settles down hidden on a lounger and falls into a strange dream in which Laura’s beautiful cousin dances as a devilin an empty pool.
