The Mawjoudin Queer Film Festival ( ar, مهرجان موجودين للأفلام الكويرية, mahrajān Mawjūdīn li-l-aflām al-kwīriyya) is an annual

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upon ...

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celebrating the

LGBT community The LGBT community (also known as the LGBTQ+ community, GLBT community, gay community, or queer community) is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay men, gay, bisexuality, bisexual, transgender, and other queer individuals united by a comm ...

. It began in 2018, as the first queer film festival in the country and all of

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

. It is organized by Mawjoudin, a Tunisian NGO whose name translates to " eexist". The focus is on queer identities, especially in people from the Global South.

Motivation

The festival aims to create a space for queer people that is neither

heteronormative Heteronormativity is the concept that heterosexuality is the preferred or normal mode of sexual orientation. It assumes the gender binary (i.e., that there are only two distinct, opposite genders) and that sexual and marital relations are most ...

nor

homophobic Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy, m ...

. Because of security reasons, the location of the festival is not disclosed; people interested in participating in the festival first need to get in contact with the organizers. The organizers see the festival as a form of activism: "We are trying to fight not only in the courts but through art."

History

First edition

The first festival took place from January 15–18, 2018. It received funding support from the

Hirschfeld Eddy Foundation The Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundation (Hirschfeld-Eddy-Stiftung) was founded in Berlin in June 2007. It is a foundation focused on human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Name origin The Foundation's name remembers two per ...

. Major themes were gender and non-

sexuality. In addition to showing 12 short- and medium-length films, the festival included concerts, debates, and the panel discussions "Queer as Art" and "Queer as Resistance".

Second edition

The second edition of the festival was March 22–25, 2019, in downtown

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. The 2019 festival aimed to cover the full

LGBTQI ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is an ...

spectrum, and have a strong focus on

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

. A total of 31 films were shown, including Argentinian, Chinese, Indian, Kenyan, Pakistani, Portuguese, and Tunisian films. In addition to films, there were performances, debates, and a theater workshop entitled "Towards a Queer Theater".

Third edition

The third edition of the festival planned between the 20th and 23 March 2020 was postponed because of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. File:Poster of First Edition of Mawjoudin Queer Film Festival.png, Poster of the first edition in 2018 File:Official poster of the 2019 edition of Mawjoudin Queer Film Festival.jpg, Poster of the second edition in 2019 File:Logo of Mawjoudin Queer Film Festival 02.png, Official mascot of the festival

Films

At the 2018 festival, "Upon The Shadow" was screened on the opening day. The film is a Tunisian

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event". Docudramas typic ...

by Nada Mezni Hafaiedh, which received recognition at the Carthage Film Festival. Films screened during the festival in 2019 include: * "Extravaganza", a Chinese documentary by Matthew Baren * "

Rafiki is a 2018 Kenyan drama film directed by Wanuri Kahiu. ''Rafiki'' is the story of romance that grows between two young women, Kena and Ziki, amidst family and political pressures around LGBT rights in Kenya. The film had its international prem ...

", a Kenyan film by

Wanuri Kahiu Wanuri Kahiu (born 21 June 1980) is a Kenyan film director, producer, and author. She is considered to be “one of Africa's most aspiring directors, being part of a new, vibrant crop of talents representing contemporary African culture”. Sh ...

* "Sisak", a silent short film by Faraz Arif Ansari * "Today Match at Three", an Argentinian film by Clarisa Navas about women's football in the wake of the

2019 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup was the eighth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international Women's association football championship contested by 24 women's national teams representing member associations of FIFA. It ...

* "Travesty", a documentary by Safwen Abdellali that follows the story of a transgender person * "A Tribord, Je Vomis", by Tarek Sardi, co-produced by festival organizers Mawjoudin * "Ymin el Baccouche", by Tarek Sardi, which denounces

biphobia Biphobia is aversion toward bisexuality and bisexual people as individuals. It is a form of homophobia against those in the bisexual community. It can take the form of denial that bisexuality is a genuine sexual orientation, or of negative ste ...

References

External links

Mawjoudin Queer Film Festival official website

Mawjoudin We Exist
on Facebook * {{cite web , url=https://creativenesstn.wordpress.com/2018/01/20/mawjoudin-queer-film-festival-when-art-is-a-way-to-struggle-against-homophobia/ , title=Mawjoudin Queer Film Festival; when art is a way to struggle against homophobia , date=January 20, 2018 , website=creativenesstn.wordpress.com Film festivals in Tunisia LGBT culture in the Arab world LGBT film festivals LGBT in Tunisia Events in Tunis