Shobiz News/Blog Posts

Louise Siffert presents ARCHIVE OF QUEER FEELINGS

Jan 31, 2025 – Feb 15, 2025
Louise Siffert presents ARCHIVE OF QUEER FEELINGS
offers a selection of films based on trans-faggot-dyke sensations and feelings (weird, sad, fun, sexy…).A chance to eat popcorn in front of archives and works that are part of our heritage and that we unfortunately know too little about.

With Pauline L. Boulba, Lucie Brux, Louise Hallou, Aminata Labor, Krissy Mahan, Ji-Min Park, Sacha Rey, Louise Siffert (and other surprises..)

A group exhibition will be shown alongside the screening.
Archive of Queer Feelings pdf

From Production to Festival: Crafting Accessible Films with We Crip Film

From Production to Festival: Crafting Accessible Films with We Crip Film

(written transcript here)

8 October 2024  Scottish Queer International Film Festival (SQIFF) panel discussion in collaboration with the BFI’s We Crip Film. Moderated by Clare Baines (BFI Inclusion Partner), Charlie Little (Matchbox Cine, film exhibition access consultant), and Tara Brown (the queer fat crip film programmer). Topics discussed include access coordinators, including actors with disabilities, audio description, descriptive captions, funding for films and festivals, avoiding burnout, collaboration and resources for funding and increased accessibility.

Autumn 2024 France and Finland!

Free Palestine.
Fall is here and my work for a better world continues on their travels, this autumn to continental Europe.

31 October -03 November 2024  Cineffable Paris International Lesbian & Feminist Film Festival will be showing “Rural Butch Femme Rap.”   PDF of the program here.
PDF of the 2024 Cineffable SCREENING _TOTALLY DYKES_ – Cineffable 2024.

“The Paris Feminist and Lesbian Film Festival, Quand les lesbiennes se font du cinéma, started in 1989.The desire to organise a festival grew out of discontent and frustration with the Women’s Film Festival at Créteil: despite the fact that THE lesbian film always won the People’s Choice Award (prix du public) at Créteil, hardly any space was given to lesbian films and lesbian festival goers.”
i’m happy to share that Espace Reuilly is accessible to disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility (PRM).

4 October – 1 November 2024  Changing landscapes – Look of the other, will show “It Gets Better, Rural Dykes” as part of an exhibition in Helsinki, Finland at Caisa in Helsinki, Finland.  PDF of the program here.

“A landscape is not merely a view, but rather a combination of picturesque elements such as trees, flowers, and rivers, as well as our desires, hopes, realities, and relationships.
Sometimes it can even resemble a dream or a reminiscence of the conditions in which we thrive or barely survive.
Landscape exists within us, as humans, in the multiplicity of our being and existence. Taking this aspect of being which is characterized by its transcendence as it is not limited to a static essence but is constantly in the process of becoming, the exhibition asks: what are the conditions in which we can flourish? What kind of diverse, lush landscapes can we dream and make into being?
The exhibition, curated by Elif Erdoğan and Remi Vesala, invites artists to reflect on these questions through their trans, nonbinary and queer identities, and across various times and geographical locations.”

Get Out Of The Way

This is what happened to my photograph that was in a show curated by @flashnine9 Lola Flash and @junorosenhaus Juno Rosenhaus of @dykearthaus Dyke+ ArtHaus.

As this show closes here on my thoughts.  At the opening event wasn’t there some enthusiastic talk about “giving less fucks” as we become older dykes?

i am so frustrated with the inaction and obstruction of people who should know better. This moment in history calls for people to do some/anything to stop the genocide in Palestine,  and everywhere. What people CANNOT morally do is to stop someone who is actually taking action to end suffering in the world. We know that not everyone can be in the streets, but people can plant food, buy gum from a child on the subway, attend online meetings, write imprisoned people, call their representatives or commit to taking care of nearby person who needs help.  We use the opportunities we have.

I submitted a photo for consideration to be shown in an art show called “Dyke+ ArtHaus Visits the Bureau.” that would be held at the Bureau of General Services Queer Division.  The photo was accepted on April 27, 2024, seven months after the full scale genocidal bombardment by Israel on Gaza began. The @BGSQD is a liberatory space that respects the cultural boycott that @PACBI and Palestinian activists have called for, including posting the boycott on the wall, and who reads a land acknowledgement before events held in the space.

So imagine my surprise May 17, 2024 at the opening when there was no mention of Palestine or any of the international catastrophes happening right now. The curators seemed content with the slogan “Buy Dyke Art” – leaving unquestioned the fact that capitalism is one of the core reasons the world is literally on fire.  Being better consumers did not stop the AIDS crisis then or now. Attendees were not asked to wear masks, (my friends and i did) and i wore my “Saoirse don Phalaistín” shirt.

I returned to the BGSQD on June 16th and wrote “Stop The GENOCIDE” “Free Palestine” “From The River To The Sea” with marker across the full image. On June 20th I received a text with an image of my photo off the wall and the message “Hey Krissy, any chance you were the one who wrote on your piece in the bureau show?”  and I texted back, “I did.”

When i arrived for the artist’s conversation on Jun 21, 2024, i saw that my photograph had been removed from the show. The curators did not tell me in advance that they had removed it.  There was a video conversation on 6/23 to talk about the piece being removed which was poorly attended, only 7 (3 of those 7 being a facilitator, Juno and me) of the 40+ artists. Juno Rosenhaus attended but Lola Flash did not.  Lola Flash sent an email the next day that said quote “I am sorry that I was unable to make the Zoom meeting yesterday. Though, I’m happy to hear that there was the opportunity to talk about this unfortunate (my words) situation.”

The photo was rehung 6/27 with a note stating “This piece was modified by the artist on June 16, 2024.”

Here are the reasons i am so disappointed:

Anti-Arab:  It is racist and anti-Arab to assume that a pro-Palestine message was vandalism. I told Juno that I had written on it when she asked. In their initial message’s photo the piece had already been taken down. What if I had written “Yay Dykes!” on my own work?  Would that have been seen as a criminal act?    If the curators sincerely thought a random person had written on my piece, they should have told that i need to come quickly so i could clean the glass if i wanted to.  They jumped to an assumption of a negative and criminal act — that is classic anti-Arab racism.

Zionist: Immediately removing an artwork with a pro-Palestine message reflects the normalization of colonial zionism.  Why wasn’t there any mention of Palestine in the original curatorial statement of the show – a show happening during atrocities in Congo, Palestine, and Sudan?   Why did they unilaterally remove an artwork that responded to the political/social context in which the show was happening? Who/what were they trying to protect?

Paternalistic:  They knew i wrote on it, they asked me immediately  — but still removed it. Did the curators feel they were protecting someone — either me or the other artists — or their reputations as curators?   In a city where the Dyke March does not get a permit from the NYPD to march by the thousands, at a show with older lesbians proclaiming how they “give less fucks as we get older” and in the neighborhood where groups like Lesbian Avengers and ActUp did whatever it could do to get the government to support AIDS research! The curators to claim that they took the work down because i was “inconsiderate” and “it wasn’t the piece that what was selected by them.”   Removing the photograph was not feminist, and their response after taking it down is ingenuous.

i will continue to do what i can to end forced starvation — with or without anyone’s permission. The only thing that keeps me going is that i still try to use my creativity in the service of a world where people and all the earth can survive.  i participated in a 24-hour fast yesterday sponsored by the Nenagh Friends of Palestine, a solidarity group opposing the Israeli occupation of Palestine supporting a just and peaceful settlement to the conflict. i will continue to promote and observe #BDS, the cultural boycott of the apartheid state, and will continue to speak about Palestine at every opportunity i can, as i have done for the since the mid-1980s when we were also trying – and succeeded in freeing Nelson Mandela.

 

 

 

 

 

More Summer 2024 screenings

Hello! As the genocides and wars rage on, cultural work that speaks to these times is a way to give our spirits some breath.  Here are some festivals that have graciously included my work – which has always observed the cultural boycott of the apartheid (and made-up) state of israel.
i’m very proud to be included in every one.   This summer, my movies “$4 Billion Reasons.” “M or F” and “Rural Butch Femme Rap” will be seen in Australia, France and/or the United Kingdom and online internationally.

AN/Other Film Festival  (tickets)  Another Film Festival puts people with disability at the centre of storytelling and filmmaking. Join us for a week of films by and about people with disability.
Encompassing a program of film screenings and conversations, AN/OTHER Film Festival 2024 presents diverse stories and perspectives from around the globe.
The program is shaped around three themes: Wide Open Spaces and Urban Landscapes, The Simple Things in Life, and Queer Minds and Bodies and Chosen Families.
All films are audio described and captioned.
Queer Minds and Bodies and Chosen Families
Screening 1 | Fri 19th July, 2024 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Screening 2 + Q&A with Steven Fraser | Sat 20th July, 2024 7:30 pm – 10:00 pm

Queer Minds and Bodies and Chosen Families examines the intersection of queer identities and disability, and difficulty of not fitting neatly into categories of disability, sexuality or gender. How do we navigate this in a world that can struggle to understand one type of difference, never mind more than one embodied in the same person?

AN_OTHER Film Festival Screening Queer Minds and Bodies and Chosen Families Humanitix

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Gilbert Baker Film Festival’s  focus is celebrating and amplifying authentic 2SLGBTQIA+ / Queer Stories on Screen and the Creators who bring those stories to life and connecting a Global film loving and film making community (our GBFF Gilbees) by allowing folks to be seen, heard, valued, loved, and respected. Streaming on Eventive June 07, 2024 thru August 19, 2024

Gilbert Baker Film Festival- GBFF takes a unique approach and hosts interactive, international pop in/drop in discussion groups, watch parties, Q & A, networking and social events throughout our festival run.
My film “M or F’ is included in this screening.

M or F (2024) _ Out of This World Collection GBFF2024 _Experimental, original, and fantastical; let your imagination run wild!_ _ Gilbert Baker Film Festival GBFF2024

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36th Cineffable Paris International Lesbian & Feminist Film Festival (31 October -03 November 2024) have chosen to screen my humorous story about “date nights” and being queer outside of urban areas, “Rural Butch Femme Rap.”

From the festival website: ” The Paris Feminist and Lesbian Film Festival, Quand les lesbiennes se font du cinéma, started in 1989. The desire to organise a festival grew out of discontent and frustration with the Women’s Film Festival at Créteil: despite the fact that THE lesbian film always won the People’s Choice Award (prix du public) at Créteil, hardly any space was given to lesbian films and lesbian festival goers.”

Summer 2024 screenings

Hello!  When you need to decompress from all the protests, here are a few movie options in which my work has been gracefully included.  Free Palestine.

Pebbles Underground (available June 8 to 18, 2024) is focused on showcasing and promoting experimental, avant-garde, underground, and no-to-low budget projects by artist-humans from all over the world. Absurd, uncanny, witty, humorous, slow-video – all are welcomed, and loved.  My Crazy Boxers is included in the “Scene” program.

Curated by April Lin 林森, theOtherness Archive, a visual archive documenting queer films. 

Gilbert Baker Film Fest:  “Our focus is celebrating and amplifying 2SLGBTQIAplus stories on screen and the creators who bring those stories to life and connecting a Global film loving community by allowing folks to be seen, heard, valued, loved, and respected.

Gilbert Baker Film Festival- GBFF takes a unique approach and hosts interactive Pop In/ Drop In social events, discussion groups, and filmmaker networking events throughout our festival run.”
“M or F” has been included in this festival, which runs June 7 through August 19, 2024.

 

My Crazy Boxers

One method to control populations is to use administrative violence is to pathologize difference and dissent. In this film, I reenact what actually happened to me in a psychiatric setting.  The clothes I wear provoked a very violent response by medical professionals – I was locked up and forced to take psychotropic medications. This film uses experimental visuals to highlight the insidiousness of the therapist’s words.

From eugenics to ethnonationalism, here we go again.  Also, Free Palestine.

Watch the movie I made about my experience in My Crazy Boxers.

 

Trans Film Fest Stockholm – World Premiere of “M or F”

Thrilled to announce the festival World Premiere for my new movie “M or F” at the Trans Film Fest Stockholm.  My movie will show 30 March 2024 in the “Fun” program, Section 5 – FUN – 20.30 – 22.00.

Warehouse
Ahuatl Amaro, United States
A queer, Latino-Indigenous, warehouse worker must choose between keeping his job or standing up to his boss when his LGBTQ colleagues are fired for demanding better working conditions.

Hormonal

Maz Murray
United Kingdom

The Beach Boys
Milo Talwani – director/writer (and cinematographer/sound/score/whatever)
United States
Two trans surfer bros are on a mission to suicide bomb Jeff Bezos…but not before spending one last, perfect day riding epic waves and smoking dank kush.

M or F
krissy mahan
United States
The idea that there are only two ways to be in this world is untrue and dangerous. We know there are infinite fabulous ways of creating one’s life journey. I hope the metaphor in this film can help more people understand that trans people make the world a better place to be for everyone.

FAGHOUSE
Enzo Monzón
Argentina
Anjelica feels that death is near her, and decides to fake his funeral in a weird way, kind of a rehearsal. Birdie, her human pet, supports her faithfully in every one of her spells.

Sanaa, Seductress of Strangers
Jan Eilhardt
Germany
A cheerful tour guide shows us historical locations in her neighborhood, before her baser desires land her in a transphobic entanglement. alternativt For years, Sanaa has been working as a tour guide in the Berlin district of Wedding. But work is not enough to satisfy her. She is stubborn and trans. Her passion for the migrant men in the neighborhood, in fact, really keeps her on her toes.

Trans P.I.
Jayve Fleming
United States
While recovering after her unspecified surgery, Michelle receives a call for her services as a private investigator. She goes on a journey to find a missing girl, and has some challenging conversations on the way.

*Midwestern Last Name* Family Reunion
Elle Schwiderson
United States
*Midwestern Last Name* Family Reunion is a stop-motion animated film that is a culmination of my interdisciplinary art practice. It focuses heavily on how my identity as a queer person interacts/clashes with my familial structure and it all comes together in an emotional and existential rollercoaster ride.

pdf of program: Trans Film Fest 2024 – Trans Fest Stockholm

 

 

Asheville Fringe Arts Festival (North Carolina) showing CAROL

Asheville Fringe Arts Festival 2024 laurels“A war profiteer with a gun takes a young working class woman cross country then chickens out when he (whoops I mean she) realizes that actions have consequences. What could go wrong????” Whose version of CAROL is aging better? This one. Lucky attendees of @avlfringefest the Asheville (North Carolina) Fringe Arts Festival has a night of short films on Monday March 18, 2024 and my parody of that schamltzy mess about a rich white lady behaving badly is on the program. The program is being held at the Grail Moviehouse#cateblanchett stop playing lesbians. Love me some #FringeFestival and wish I could attend.

Monday March 18, 2024  9:00pm
Program:

VERTIGO by Maison Mouton Noir (France)
Fish by Sara Bolandakhtar (Iran)
Carol by Krissy Mahan (United States)
DIVINATION by Eric Thornabar (United States)
Dove by Igor Gladkov (Russia)
Musical Television by David Wightman & Jacob Ciocci (United States)
Sincopat by Pol Diggler (Spain)

Spring 2024 -the time of apartheid’s genocide of Palestinians

Hello, as you all know i’ve been trying to be a human worthy of this planet. I’ve tried to use my cultural work in the service of justice, exposing the pinkwashing of the apartheid state of you-know-who, and supporting the call for #BDS.  All of that does not seem to have helped the Palestinians, but i am not going to allow myself the luxury of being discouraged.  Maybe the organizing we are doing now will blend into refugee support and other new forms of trying to keep one another alive in a more just world.

My movie CAROL was selected for the Brighton Animation Festival, and will screen on Sunday, April 7, 2024 at 6:15pm at Fabrica.

April 7, 2024  6.15pm  

Queer as F++k and Q+A

Special curated out of competition programme of Queer Animation that explores an array of contemporary queer culture from lesbian plumbers and gender f**kery to the drag queens of 1940’s Paris.Expect narrative shorts, documentary and experimental from Countries including Denmark and France through to UK.

Aikane
Dir. Daniel Sousa, Dean 15′ (USA)

Falling For Greta
Dir.  Gustavo Arteaga 11′ UK

Layered Identities: Intersectionality and LGBT+ rights
Dir.  Isolde Godfrey 6′ UK

Carol
Dir.  Krissy Mahan 6′ (USA)

CW: contains the hottest lesbian sex scene you’ll ever see

Maurices Bar

Dir. Tom Prezman, Tzor Edery 

15’ (France)

Strokes 
Dir.  David Colin William 4′ (UK)

TFG – SWALLOW SPERM 
Dir.  KHLOARIS 4′ (USA)

I Would Like to Live on the Moon
Dir. Emily Burke 2′ UK

1st DAY & NEXT MINUTE
Dir.  Sara Koppel 3’ (Denmark)

66’ 

Tickets 

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/fabrica2/1163004

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