Seven films compete for the XIX Sebastiane Award

On September 28, the Gehitu association will present the Sebastiane Award 2018 to the film production screened at the San Sebastian Festival which best reflects the realities, liberties and social progress of the LGBTI collective. Said award, which celebrates its 19th edition this year, will be chosen from among 7 candidates selected in Horizontes Latinos, Perlak, Zabaltegi-Tabakalera and Made in Spain at the Festival’s 66th edition. A short film will participate out of competition.

Similarly, the opening film of the Horizontes Latinos section will be the winner of the Sebastiane Latino 2018 Award for best film of the year on the subject of LGBTI topics, Las herederas (The Heiresses) (Paraguay, Germany, Brazil, Uruguay, Norway, France), directed by Marcelo Martinessi.

The Gehitu association and its Sebastiane Award jury wish to highlight the participation of 13 festivals from 8 countries in the 4th Meeting of Ibero-American LGBTI Festivals. The gathering, which will take place from September 24-26, in collaboration with the San Sebastian Festival and Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) by means of its PICE (Programme for the Internationalisation of Spanish Culture), aims to build bridges and serve as a framework for reflection and gathering.

EL ÁNGEL

Luis Ortega

ARGENTINA – SPAIN

Carlitos is a seventeen-year-old youth with movie star swagger, blond curls and a baby face. As a young boy, he coveted other people’s things, but it wasn’t until his early adolescence that his true calling manifested itself: to be a thief. When he meets Ramon at his new school, Carlitos is immediately drawn to him and starts showing off to get his attention. Together they will embark on a journey of discoveries, love and crime. Killing is just a random offshoot of the violence, which continues to escalate until Carlitos is finally apprehended. Because of his angelic appearance, the press dubs Carlitos “The Angel of Death”. Showered with attention because of his beauty, he becomes an overnight celebrity. Altogether, he is believed to have committed over forty thefts and eleven homicides. Today, after more than forty-five years in jail, Carlos Robledo Puch is the longest- serving prisoner in the history of Argentina.

GIRL

Lukas Dhont

BELGIUM – NETHERLANDS

Lara, aged 15, dreams of becoming a ballerina. With her father’s help, she pushes herself to the limit in the interminable endeavour. But her body doesn’t lend itself easily to the discipline imposed upon it, because in fact she was born a boy.

LAS HEREDERAS

Marcelo Martinessi

PARAGUAY – GERMANY- BRAZIL – URUGUAY – NORWAY – FRANCE

Asunción, Paraguay. The relationship between Cela and Chiquita is deteriorating. Particularly since they started selling off the goods they had inherited to confront their complicated financial situation. When Chiquita, the most dynamic of the two, is sent to prison for fraud, Chela is obliged to leave the comfort of her petit bourgeoisie existence and start running a sort of taxi service with her own car, mainly for a group of elderly women. One day she meets Angy – the daughter of one of her clients – a younger and hugely extoverted woman. Together with her sudden work, this new relationship will deeply affect Chela’s life and trigger an internal revolution.

ENIGMA

Ignacio Juricic Merillán

CHILE

Nancy receives the offer from a TV programme on unsolved mysteries to participate in the episode telling the story of her daughter, a young lesbian beaten to death, a crime for which no-one has been declared guilty eight years after it was committed. Nancy confronts her family and each one’s version of the events, as she decides whether or not to participate in the space and learn more about the person her daughter was.

MARILYN

Martín Rodríguez Redondo

ARGENTINA – CHILE

Marcos, a 17 year-old farmhand, discovers his sexuality in a hostile atmosphere. Nicknamed “Marilyn” by the other village teenagers, he becomes an object of desire and discrimination. Marcos feels increasingly more penned in.

LAS HIJAS DEL FUEGO

Albertina Carri

ARGENTINA

Three women meet by chance at the end of the world and set out on a polyamorous journey which will change them to the extent of returning them to their native city as different people. Subjects who suffer from the established order, from the irreversible nature of passion and from the Utopian approach of a single love, they are caught up in the search for new kinds of relationships, far from possession and pain as the unavoidable finality of love and obeying none of the rules. That’s how they become The Daughters of Fire: a band dedicated to accompanying other women in the search for their own erotica, for the way each one wants to be in a world ignorant of the voluptuousness of detachment.

I HATE NEW YORK

Gustavo Sánchez

SPAIN

New York, 2007-2017. Over a decade, and filming only with a home video camera and no script, the director delves into the private world of Amanda Lepore, Chloe Dzubilo, Sophia Lamar and T De Long; four artists and transgender activists from the city’s underground scene. Little by little, their testimonies reveal fragments of a past –sometimes dramatic, always fascinating and simply extraordinary– that formed their identities and transformed their lives. Their words, fears and hopes take the audience from an outsider’s point of view to being emotionally invested in their destiny.

INCONFISSÕES

Ana Galizia

BRAZIL (22 min)

Luiz Roberto Galizia was an important theatre artist in the 1970s and 1980s. He was also my uncle although I did know him.