Though gay protagonists on screen often belong to an urban setting—against and through which their identity is expressed—these films relocate their arc in a provincial environment. Here, queerness circumvents its stigma in ways that are inherently tied to nature, in the small and intimate gestures of rural life.
These are stories that morph throughout their duration, slipping in and out of genre. Untethered from a straight timeline, they don’t have to abide by the arcs of their heteronormative counterparts. Popular cinema—led by protagonists self-assured in their purpose—has a clear beginning, middle and end. Queer storytelling usurps this kind of teleological thinking. Refractive and disorienting, it coils around itself, no longer aiming towards a definitive conclusion. In this liminal zone between dream and landscape, time comes undone. Characters are left to navigate queerness at a slower pace and with a gentle sadness; a vulnerability only the great expanse of nature could afford them. Incorporated like this, in the shifting constellations of natural life, their cinematic existence is one of ceaseless transformation.
A Note on Environmental Affect
The programme has been scheduled with open air screenings in mind, during the season when the sun reaches its most northerly path (June 10–30). The showings begin at 9:00 to observe how dusk flows into night.
Curated by Irene Bakola