The Theatre Offensive

Chela and Chiquita, both descended from wealthy families in Asunción, Paraguay, have been together for over 30 years. But recently their financial situation has worsened and they begin selling off their inherited possessions. But when their debts lead to Chiquita being imprisoned on fraud charges, Chela is forced to face a new reality. Driving for the first time in years, she begins to provide a local taxi service to a group of elderly wealthy ladies. As Chela settles into her new life, she encounters the much younger Angy, forging a fresh and invigorating new connection. Chela finally begins to break out of her shell and engage with the world, embarking on her own personal, intimate revolution.

Ariel is a young religious dressmaker who, after a failed sexual encounter, discovers a secret her family has tried to hide all of her like: she was born intersex but, after corrective surgery, raised as a girl. A decision is now in her horizon: she can either keep living as a socially accepted but oppressed woman or live her life as an intersexual person and face the judgement of society.

Emilia is a 30-something bisexual woman who refuses to grow up as her female friends already did. Angélica, one of Emilia’s friends, is getting married. Her other friends, Clara and Renata, seem to have all their lives figured out: amazing jobs, family, kids… While Emilia is still living with her mother and trying to define her relationship with Mariana. She is also trying to survive as an actress and she teaches acting classes in a cheap school. She feels more comfortable with her students than with people of her same age. Her life will be even messier when she is fired from her job and she is forced to live a ‘standard’ life. Angélica’s bachelorette party would reveal that not only Emilia is unhappy with her life. We are all hiding what we really are.

At the very end of the world, three women meet by change and start a life changing polyamorous journey. A journey along routes and through time that turns into pure joy and rivers of pleasure and fun. They slowly unwind as they explore irreversible passion and the utopia of monogamous love, far from possession and pain, as the inevitable end to a love that fits no canon. Through her notes, Violeta tells us about the adventures of the Daughters of Fire: a group of women in the search of their own erotica. Warning! This film contains explicit images of nudity and/or strong language. Viewer discretion is advised. (Seriously though, it’s art - relax.)

The Garden Left Behind traces the relationship between Tina, a young Mexican trans woman, and Eliana, her grandmother, as they navigate Tina's transition and struggle to build a life for themselves as undocumented immigrants in New York City.

Happiness, revenge, love, and intimacy, in my opinion, are defining characteristics in the Latinx culture and they are some of the themes that reflect the short films chosen for this year's program. Expect to go through a wild ride with turns that'll take you to the edge of your seat. Você está pronto?

José (19 years old) lives with his mother (50s) in Guatemala: a tough life in one of the world's most dangerous, religious, and impoverished countries. José is her youngest and favorite child, and her life is going to church and selling sandwiches. Jose spends his days on crowded buses and in the streets delivering food. Resigned and aloof, in free moments he plays with his phone and looks for random sex. When he meets Luis, Jose is thrust into a dimension of passion and pain and self-reflection that was previously unimaginable. Jose (2018) won "Queer Lion" award at 75th Venice Film Festival and was first ever film from Central America in Venice Film Festival.

EVA AND CANDELA is a portrait of two strong, independent women drawn together by a powerful attraction and their shared desire to take on the movie world. As the years pass, their relationship changes from one of passion to logistics. EVA AND CANDELA, director Ruth Caudeli’s first feature film, is adept at balancing the hope and bitterness that pulls at the edges of a struggling relationship. The film jumps back and forth between Eva and Candela falling in love to their future relationship, all within the timeline of the making and release of the film that they have made together.

YOU CANNOT LIVE SOMEONE ELSE'S LIFE. Public Intimacy is a movie about how we deal with sexuality and love on public and private levels. The four stories of "Public Intimacy" deal with urgent and profound themes, like homofobia, prostitution, transsexuality and madness. "Public Intimacy" proposes a cinema that is focused on its characters. They struggle to become who they really are.

Pedro earns a living in chat rooms. The image resolution may not be perfect but when Pedro transforms himself into NeonBoy in front of the webcam he still manages to create the desired impression. Slowly, this young man dips his fingers into pots of coloured paint and glides them across his naked body. Glowing in the dark, NeonBoy follows his users’ commands until he agrees to meet one of them in a private chat room for money. But things change when Pedro’s sister Luiza moves out of their shared apartment and he notices that somebody is imitating his performances. He agrees to go on a date with his mysterious rival. This rendezvous will have far-reaching consequences. As with all of the previous films by directing duo Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon, we find ourselves again in Porto Alegre in southern Brazil, where we encounter young queers in search of intimacy, community and security. The elegantly interwoven virtual images and protagonists’ stories may take us away from the real world, yet in actuality we remain in an increasingly homophobic Brazilian society to whose misfits this sensitive, affectionate portrait in three acts is dedicated. Description courtesy Berlinale.

Through its lyrical structure, Chavela will take viewers on an evocative, thought-provoking journey through the iconoclastic life of game-changing artist Chavela Vargas. Centered around never before-seen interview footage of Chavela shot 20 years before her death in 2012, and guided by the stories in Chavela's songs, and the myths and tales others have told about her - as well as those she spread about herself - the film weaves an arresting portrait of a woman who dared to dress, speak, sing, and dream her unique life into being.

A transgender girl kidnaps the daughter of a trans-phobic Minister in order to pay for her sex change operation.

Astrophysicist Teresa is going to get married, so she goes back to her family in Puerto Rico who run a successful chicken farm. Only, the fact she is marrying another woman is not the easiest thing to tell, and her secret starts unraveling all the other family secrets. It will take some galactic perspective to bring them all together again in this gorgeously filmed drama. Official Selection, 2017 Chicago Latino Film Festival Official Selection, Inside Out: Toronto LGBT Film Festival