Online catalogue

Although Queer Animation is a relatively young genre, there has been an array of ground-breaking films by a new generation of filmmakers that have arisen in the last few years. From gender identity in Purpleboy and Cut to the early internet chat room culture in Guy 101, these films all explore a unique perspective on queer culture and queer identity. A variety of approaches is displayed from first-person narrative anthropomorphic realisations in I Like Girls to the imaginative otherworldly female-led visions of Entropia. Some utilise humour and imagination, some are factual accounts of experiences lived. From all across the globe, including Hungary, Canada and Singapore and using stop-motion, hand-drawn or pixilation animation, the one thing these films have in common is an engaging account of the queer human experience. 

Entropia 
Director: Flóra Anna Buda, Hungary, 2018, 10 min

Hi, It’s Your Mother
Director: Daniel Sterlin-Altman, Canada, 2016, 5 min

Guy 101
Director: Ian Gouldstone, United Kingdom, 2006, 8 min

The Saint of Dry Creek
Director: Julie Zammarchi, United States, 2015, 4 min

I Like Girls
Director: Diane Obomsawin, Canada, 2016, 8 min

Between Us Two
Director: Tan Wei Keong, Singapore, 2017, 5 min

Purpleboy
Director: Alexandre Siqueira, Portugal, France, Belgium, 2019, 14 min

The Night Cleaner
Director: Blair Fukumura, Canada, 2017, 5 min

Cut
Director: Dar Laor, Israel, 2015, 3 min

Erma Fiend 1
Created by: Erma Fiend for Adult Swim (producer: Anca Vlasan), sound designer: Mason Brown, United States, 2020

Erma Fiend 2
Created by: Erma Fiend for Adult Swim (producer: Anca Vlasan), sound designer: Mason Brown, United States, 2020

Goodbye Forever Party
Director: Jonni Phillips, United States, 2017, 19 min

This showcase presents a diverse mosaic of themes, approaches and forms of queer animation in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the millennium. It uses the perspectives of authorship, possibilities of queer interpretation, theme, work with the genre and the activist potential of the films to look at the limited number of queer animations made in this period. Barbara Hammer reflects on the AIDS pandemic, prominent Austrian artist Maria Lassnig explores the boundaries between manhood and womanhood, Barry Purves works ingeniously with the aesthetics of the male body and ancient myths in Achilles and the legendary Norman McLaren thematises violence in the fight between two neighbours over a delicate flower. The block presents ground-breaking titles made on a minimal budget but originally reflecting the period views on sexual identity or disrupting genre stereotypes: in the 1970s, Paul Kim had a moustached boss fall in love with his muscular employee; in her noir film, Heidi Kull has two lesbian assassins face each other. With a public toilet blowjob, Craig Boreham unites Jesus, leather aficionados and aliens and May Trubuhovich worships female icons in a variation on classic works of art. The relationship of John and Michael, suffering from Down syndrome and searching for one’s identity in 1977 reflects the rise of interest of film festivals in queer animation. A peculiar contribution to the fight against HIV – paradoxically overflowing with negative stereotypes – can be found in a French television campaign promoting safe sex. From drawings on the edges of a sketchbook for communities to films appealing to an international audience. Eleven films from six decades.

Neighbours
Director: Norman McLaren, Canada, 1952, 8 min

Shapes
Director: Maria Lassnig, Austria, 1972, 10 min

Queerdom
Director: Paul Kim, Lew Gifford, Unites States, 1978, 9 min

Snow Job: The Media Hysteria of AIDS
Director: Barbara Hammer, United States, 1986, 8 min

Beloved Murderer!
Director: Heidi Kull, Germany, 1991, 9 min

The Assumption
Director: May Trubuhovich, New Zealand, 1995, 4 min

Achilles
Director: Barry Purves, United Kingdom, 1995, 11 min

Blow
Director: Craig Boreham, Australia, 1997, 3 min

John and Michael
Director: Shira Avni, Canada, 2004, 11 min

AIDS Awareness Campaign – Sugar Baby Love
Director: Wilfrid Brimo, France, 2006, 3 min

1977
Director: Peque Varela, United Kingdom, 2007, 9 min

It’s Christmas time and the streets of Tokyo, illuminated by commercials featuring happy families with children, are swarming with people. But Hana, Gin and Miyuki can only dream about the ideal life seen in the commercials. After all, they’re not even related. They’re homeless and it’s their dismal lives that have brought them together, so their ‘family’ is built on something other than genetic kinship. Together, they experience a real Christmas miracle when they find an abandoned newborn in a dumpster. And so begins an extraordinary comical story (despite the film’s theme) of the trans-gender woman Hana longing for a family, the loser Gino, who has alienated his own family, and the young girl Miyuki, who ran away from hers. Despite their different points of view, they eventually decide to find the baby’s parents. This unusually narrated film was made by the late Satoshi Kon and it’s one of his films in which heated and crazy situations play a part equally important to coincidence, which often reveals more details about the three main characters, their troubled past and prospects of a better future. Anifilm screens the film with the latest redacted version of the English dubbing (with Czech subtitles). It was created by the company GKIDS with extra emphasis on the language and factual accuracy of the reality of the trans character Hana, voiced by American transgender actress and activist Shakina Nayfack, while her nightclub patron is voiced by dramatist and gender theorist Kate Bornstein.