Current mood:	listless
Entry tags:	outtakes

Outtakes Film Festival - XXY
Last night's film also had a short, both were centred on young intersex protagonists.



Clouded

This was typical short territory, a beautifully filmed story about a boy with an obvious deformity that he has dealt with and overcome all his life, finding out that he has another condition that has been kept secret from him. A short doesn't give much room to explore something like this, but this one managed its story well.





XXY won awards at Cannes and thus has had quite a lot of exposure, most of which I'd managed to completely miss. An Argentinian film, filmed in coastal Uruguay (I don't think I've seen anything filmed in Uruguay before, except nature documentaries), it is about Alex who at 15 is starting to face choices about continuing hormone therapy, and the surgeries that her father has carefully resisted on her behalf for many years. Alex' mother invites a surgeon and wife and teenage son to visit and varied tensions and relationships develop.

Again this is a mature, layered film, without easy answers, but with definite thoughts on what makes the hell that is adolescence survivable.



I'm continuing to be really impressed with quality of the Outtakes films this year, not sure if it's because they couldn't run the festival last year, so had a deeper range to choose from, or if queer filmmaking is finally coming of age, or if the people choosing the films are just better at it, but these films are on a level with those shown at the always excellent NZ International Film Festival. I have bought a ticket to I Can't Think Straight tonight, wish me luck on getting there on time.

And Crystal's twitter is well over 1000 followers, 24 hours later. Otalia fandom rocks.

http://crystal-chappell.istotallyawesome.com/

Crossposted.