The five best films from Queer Lis­boa 2016

“This fes­ti­val makes sense and we’re here to stay.” Artis­tic direc­tor João Fer­reira is talk­ing at the clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny of Queer Lis­boa. Tick­et sales are up, and the mood is rap­tur­ous as Fer­reira hurls com­ple­men­tary packs of pants at the audi­ence occu­py­ing the Manoel de Oliveira screen of the São Jorge Cin­e­ma. The fes­ti­val opened eight days pre­vi­ous­ly with a trib­ute to the 49 peo­ple killed in the homo­pho­bic Pulse night­club killings on 12 June in Flori­da. The defi­ance of Queer Lis­boa – its desire to cel­e­brate queer and ques­tion­ing works of film art, uncowed by vio­lent con­ser­v­a­tive forces – is what infus­es the pro­gramme with vitality.

It’s a priv­i­lege to attend, and an over­whelm­ing priv­i­lege to do so as one third of the doc­u­men­tary jury. There is a Derek Jar­man ret­ro­spec­tive at the Cin­e­mate­ca, a loca­tion with floor-to-ceil­ing stacks of film cans act­ing as pil­lars. I ask a soft­ly-spo­ken man with long hair and longer eye­lash­es about his role in the Jar­man Ret­ro­spec­tive Crew. ​“I cared for Derek dur­ing the last six years of his life,” he said. It comes out that he is Kei­th Collins, who act­ed in three Jarman’s films (The Gar­den, Edward II and Wittgen­stein). The rest of the fes­ti­val is spent won­der­ing what it takes to care for a dying man. Below are our top five picks from the 2016 edi­tion of Queer Lis­boa. They are doc-heavy, because that was my strand, but also because doc­u­men­tary cin­e­ma is a thriv­ing, cut­ting-edge art form.

The male body is both the medi­um and the mes­sage in this sen­su­al, com­ic, delib­er­ate­ly frus­trat­ing rela­tion­ship dra­ma. In one film, direc­tors Mar­co Berg­er and Martín Fari­na cre­ate a ​‘will they/won’t they?’ sit­u­a­tion as ago­nis­ing as Friends did with Ross and Rachel. The premise is sim­ple: a young gay man, Ger­mán (Gabriel Epstein), comes to vis­it a pal, Fer­nan­do (Lucas Papa) who is host­ing sev­en friends in his par­ents’ sum­mer house. The men are semi-naked as they swim, have saunas and spend time togeth­er in a state of total relax­ation, dis­cussing sex and life but main­ly sex. Ger­man yearns for Fer­nan­do. His feel­ings sits qui­et­ly beneath the bois­ter­ous dynam­ic of the group. The two men grow clos­er but it’s impos­si­ble to tell whether this is a film about a slow-burn romance, or a film about an unequal friend­ship. Berg­er and Fab­ri­na excel at con­jur­ing an atmos­phere of fever­ish sug­ges­tion – show­ing the invis­i­ble tor­ture-induc­ing line between young, fit male bod­ies bond­ing in a straight way, and what could be a pas­sion­ate gay encounter.

Irrawad­dy Mon Amour man­ages to hold con­trast­ing truths with­in one com­pelling whole. It is his­tor­i­cal­ly impor­tant – as a doc­u­men­tary about the first gay mar­riage in Myan­mar, a coun­try in which homo­sex­u­al­i­ty is a crime pun­ish­able by jail-time – but it feels more like a poem, with cin­e­matog­ra­phy cap­tur­ing the beau­ty of the land and the serene rhythm of life here. Struc­ture is pro­vid­ed by the build-up to the wed­ding between street ven­dor, Soe Ko, and a mason, Saing Ko. Their wed­ding is made pos­si­ble because they live close to Kyauk Myaung, a rare LGBT activist com­mu­ni­ty on the Irrawad­dy Riv­er. The film­mak­ers (a col­lec­tive made up of Vale­ria Testa­grossa, Nico­la Grig­nani and Andrea Zam­bel­li) allow an array of sub­jects to set the pace, giv­ing time for peo­ple to reveal their pas­sions nat­u­ral­ly. Gay pride is mean­ing­ful and dar­ing in this place that looks like par­adise but is imbued with the sense that vio­lence, from the army or fam­i­lies that have dis­owned their off­spring, could erupt at any minute.

What does it mean to grow up into a young woman who doesn’t resem­ble the fem­i­nine ide­al? Do you fight against the hand nature dealt you – dili­gent­ly shav­ing and pluck­ing body hair, or do you forge a new space to live in your own way. Las Lin­das (‘The Pret­ty Ones’) is a mean­der­ing essay film by 24-year-old Argen­tin­ian, Melis­sa Lieben­thal that asks such ques­tions. By exist­ing, it expands the scope of female mod­els in our film world. Melis­sa light­ly mocks her non-pho­to­genic qual­i­ties with a mon­tage of pho­tos of her younger self, glar­ing in bag­gy trousers. Mass­es of old pho­tos and home movies depict a female friend­ship cir­cle that has altered over the years but broad­ly remained con­stant. It’s fas­ci­nat­ing to behold at what stage some of Melissa’s friends morph into con­ven­tion­al beau­ties, and a new mea­sure of social pow­er is born. A present day Melis­sa inter­views her ener­getic and opin­ion­at­ed pals, in the process reveal­ing a range of per­spec­tives on becom­ing women.

It’s hard to explain how this aim­less 41-minute film from 1984 of Edwyn Collins hang­ing out in his flat comes to feel intox­i­cat­ing. Derek Jar­man, behind the cam­era, talks up a storm, some­times dis­cussing what they’re doing (cre­at­ing footage for the music video,‘What Pres­ence?’), some­times telling unre­lat­ed sto­ries, like the one about the time he saw a hand stick­ing out of a cof­fin in Italy. Collins and his band­mates are unpre­pos­sess­ing screen pres­ences. These Scot­tish indie waifs pot­ter about, act­ing good-natured, and a lit­tle baf­fled by Jarman’s filmic aims. Ini­tial­ly, this baf­fle­ment is shared by the view­er. As the cam­era swings around the gar­den, pur­su­ing a cat, or briefly fas­ci­nat­ed by a neighbour’s wash­ing, the point is unclear. Even­tu­al­ly Jarman’s sooth­ing racon­teur skills wash over you, com­ple­ment­ed by search­ing visu­als, and it becomes clear that this is how the great direc­tor worked: via social hypnotism.

Young Amer­i­can film­mak­er Alden Peters takes a sub­ject that has been explored to death and makes a fresh, rel­e­vant and inclu­sive doc­u­men­tary which con­nects to the strug­gle to express per­son­al iden­ti­ty with­in wider soci­ety. Nar­ra­tion over inter­net search­es and vérité footage of friends, fam­i­ly and experts on sex­u­al­i­ty are inter­spersed with YouTube ​‘com­ing out’ videos. The inter­net as a provider of com­mu­ni­ty, and as a por­tal to infor­ma­tion and sto­ries, gives this doc­u­men­tary a time­ly edge. Peters uses his sto­ry as a con­duit to the broad­er issues that affect young clos­et­ed gays. He looks inwards with as much rigour as out­wards, admit­ting that he relat­ed to Tyler Clemen­ti, an 18-year-old who com­mit­ted sui­cide in 2010 after being outed.

Com­ing Out’s arc is Alden com­ing out to more and more peo­ple, start­ing with his broth­er and end­ing with chang­ing his ​‘inter­est­ed in’ Face­book sta­tus. He is an intel­li­gent, ques­tion­ing screen pres­ence able to bring out the char­ac­ters of those around him. Janet Mock is a stand-out inter­vie­wee. She finds the place where homo­pho­bia segues into judge­ment accord­ing to gen­der norms. Peters’ film con­cerns itself not only with com­ing out, but with what hap­pens next. Inte­grat­ing a com­plex self into soci­ety is shown as a long road, and this doc is fuel for that journey.

For more info on Queer Lis­boa vis­it queerlis​boa​.pt