In this special event, Campbell X (film, theatre, TV writer and director, Stud Life/DES!RE/VISIBLE/Still We Thrive/TOXIC) and Alice Blanc (Trans+ on Screen) take on a journey filled with short films, clips and discussion to reclaim trans villainy in films and TV. Fear and Loathing explores whether we can embrace the power of badness?
Campbell X is a writer/director who directed the award-winning queer urban romantic comedy feature film Stud Life. Stud Life was voted by the Guardian as one of the top 10 Black British feature films ever made, selected by the British Film Institute as one of the top 8 queer films to view while we were all on lockdown and was in Vogue magazine as one of the best films to watch in 2020.
Alice Blanc is the founder of Trans+ on Screen, an organisation focusing on trans and non-binary professionals in Film & TV. Alice has worked in pre-production and in TV & Film Distribution and is producing a couple of projects. Alice sits on BIFA’s advisory board.
Short film programme:
Coming Out
Directed by Cressa Beer/US 2020/2 mins
Coming Out is a tender, bite-sized stop motion animation about identity, love, and giant monsters. Endorsed officially by Toho, the studio responsible for the iconic creature, this short brings awareness and support for LGBTQ stores into the Godzilla canon. After going viral the day of its release, attracting millions of views and praises from the likes of Netflix, The Wachowski sisters, GLAAD media, and more, Coming Out has become a small beacon of optimism in an otherwise harsh cultural climate, bringing smiles to kids and adults alike, and providing a tiny way for Trans people to feel seen and supported
Director Cressa Maeve Beer has spent over a decade in video production and animation, working with brands such as Refinery29 and the New York Post, to artists and musicians like Chelsea Wolfe and M83. She uses her experiences as a Trans woman to bring advocacy to her art.
Love You Forever
Directed by Sepi Mashiahof/US 2021/21 mins
Trapped in a time-warped house, two sisters try to survive the immensity of each other’s love. When an anxious young woman comes to visit her impassive sister in a seaside vacation home, she comes to find that her fears of death are warping time and that her dreams of loss are distorting her reality. Spectres of grief haunt her as she struggles to hold on to her sanity, culminating in her worst fears coming true as she enters the nightmare of what it means to lose the one she loves most in this world. Will she ever learn that expecting the worst makes her complicit when the worst comes?
Ruptured
Directed by Max Disgrace/UK 2021/15 mins
After a night out, erotic hallucinations haunt Lina. As her world starts to morph, and a mysterious latex-gloved, masked figure joins her in a wet and slimy power play of pleasure.
Ruptured re-envisions erotically charged moments from mainstream horror through a queer pornographic lens. Centering queer sexuality, and POC female and non-binary characters, the film subverts what would usually remain hidden, absent or cast as deviant within the genre. Ruptured creates images that trigger and host pleasure, and presents an interchanging power dynamic of the characters, with no one remaining fixed as ‘villain’ or ‘victim’.