During the past few months I’ve been part of a group that organizes a filmfest called Villainz. It’s a 4-day series on the queer villain in fiction film taking place from November 12th to 15th. To describe the aim of the event I wanna quote from the proposal a friend of mine: “Villainz will create the unique opportunity for attendees to watch and discuss a diverse collection of films, and to consider topics relating to the creation, history, impact, control and diversity of queer images in cinema. Questions to consider will include: What are the different ways of presenting and interpreting the villain in films? How does the “queer villain” impact a diverse public? What value is there in discussing the impact of vilifying queers in film on health, politics, culture? How are technical qualities of film manipulated to nuance presentations of villains? How do these films inform about historical social attitudes and cinematic representations? In what ways might we want to control these images, or the ways that they are dispersed and interpreted by society?” Interested? Click here for the program or/and join our Facebook group.

Starting tomorrow, Berlin’s arsenal cinema presents “LIVE FILM! JACK SMITH! Five Flaming Days in a Rented World” an event everybody here seems to be really excited about. It is not only a retrospectice of Jack Smith’s work, but also some kind of a festival: “With performances, films and videos, slide presentations, exhibitions, concerts, lectures, and discussions, we look at the gender-bending and genre-breaking works of Jack Smith, Andy Warhol and other avant-garde artists of the 1960s, from a number of angles. The work of Jack Smith is juxtaposed with recent works of numerous international contemporary artists. A special guest is the legendary drag performer and underground superstar Mario Montez, who on this occasion will appear in public for the first time in thirty years.” The whole announcement here.