So we kick off Encounters’ Queer Joy series with Red Aninsri, a spy film about a trans woman sent to seduce a gay student activist, set in Thailand. The film deliberately plays with anachronisms to highlight the impact of the past on the reality of today. The short film starts by saying it is inspired…
A surreal animated short film about dealing with fatphobia and its damaging internalisation. Managing to be funny and adventurous despite also doing justice to the all-consuming impact physically and mentally of negotiating misogynistic diet culture, it has a healing message. Watch out for goose-stepping arse-angels and an eight-bit fight scene with a Sauron-esque gigantic scale.
Pretty little animated short film using collage and photographs about childhood and remembrances of the past. Upbeat nostalgia made with bright images and punchy music.
A kind of humorous send-up of anti-feminist women, their activism, and their demonisation of feminism and feminists. There is a sort of revelling in it all, having fun instead of feeling the cut, but the way it is shot is kind of confused and confusing. I respect the ‘fuck you’ feel of the film, but…
In this short documentary the filmmaker presents us with images of people on the Ukraine’s border with Russia, where Russia’s initial invasion almost 8 years ago led to an unsteady ceasefire. The film speaks up for victims of war, people who are not vying for geopolitical influence, but just trying to live their lives and…
With a sardonic bemusement, this short documentary looks at the removal of statues of Lenin from Ukraine. In snippets throughout the film is interspersed footage of a séance taking place in the 80s Soviet Ukraine, where people sit very seriously around a makeshift ouija board and try to contact Lenin’s ghost. Archival footage shows the…
Sweet little short film about a woman talking to her grampa about coming to her wedding. He’s elderly and in a wheelchair but she is trying to encourage him to fly from Ukraine to England for her wedding to her English man. He jokes around with her, and when she tells him the English word…
A short film about a professional Ukrainian weightlifter preparing for a major championship. The film contrasts his increasing physical mastery as he loses his grip on his inner turmoil and up-ends his life. At the beginning of the film, he shares a flat with his happy, beautiful girlfriend, who is devoted to their fluffy, pregnant…
A beautiful little animated short about a wee grub finding another like itself to love and grow. The film manages to be surprisingly beautiful despite being quite gross, and surprisingly tender despite being quite morbid. The grub inhabits the corpse of a decaying dog, like some kind of Pickle Rick. He lives in a garbage…
Hungry Joe is a short horror film about a mother whose son’s appetite knows no cessation. The film starts with Laura, happy with her husband in a new home with a new baby on the way, but that quickly changes once her son arrives. He screams constantly, needs fed nonstop, and has chewed her breasts…