For this special event in the Spanish capital, we curated a selection of short films received on our radar, in a mix of premieres and Visionär past editions’ favorites. Three works from Italy, Germany, Spain and France, made by Monica Manganelli, Èrika Sánchez Marcos and Naïla Guiguet respectively, will explore the idea of identity with a queer eye. Rethinking the conventional binary system, the result of a patriarchal and capitalist hegemony, means to open the spectrum of possibilities and accept diversity. The latter intended as an enrichment of the system and as inclusivity instead of aberration of normality – which nowadays as a concept means so little.

From a very personal angle, each of these works explores the need for human beings to be comfortable in their own skin. The discomfort doesn’t come from an intrinsic pain, but rather from a lack of acceptance, empathy and openness of the surrounding society. Going from a binary to a non-binary understanding of gender – and, ultimately, of people’s life, decisions and way of being and feeling – is an urgency that we can’t ignore. How much pain can be spared if we open up to understanding instead of judging and the attempt to protect an old and malfunctioning status quo?

Cinema, in its creative, artistic and critical freedom of observing and reproducing the human condition, can help us to discover the enriching worlds that diversity and inclusion bring. And in their aim to entertain us, films have the power to take us into universes through the magic of beautiful audio-visual storytelling.

– Panthers (Panteres) by Èrika Sánchez Marcos | Spain | 2020, 22′
– Butterflies in Berlin by Monica Manganelli | Italy, Germany | 2019, 30′
– Dustin by Naïla Guiguet | France | 2020, 20’