Event

Landscapes / Game - 12th Annual Harlem International Film Festival

Landscapes
NEW YORK PREMIERE
52m Documentary Completed Jan 2017
France, Thailand
DIRECTED BY: Vincent Fournier

Filmmaker Talkback follows the screening

Four humble ladyboys working in the rubber tree forests at night, in the rice fields during the day, looking for a way to survive and be accepted in their rural community.

If you think all transgender stories are the same - sex, transformation, mutilation, mental illness - you can't be more wrong! This film tells four different stories of a small group of friends living in rural areas, North East of Thailand (Isan). Their daily life is made of basic repetitive things: eating, sleeping, working, partying, dreaming. In a word "surviving" like we all do.

All this while coping with that peculiar feeling, that sensation that you will never be able to live your life fully, that you will never reach any level of happiness. A hard fate, for sure, but accepting that fate and agreeing to tell us what it means - even in a country, Thailand, where everybody says it's easier to be accepted when you are transgender - reveals extraordinary characters whose personal balance is always at risk.

Sad but true, these stories are nevertheless also very positive as the message brought by these universal cameos is so powerful and sincere that you can only be touched.

Preceded by
GAME
Director: Jeannie Donohoe
USA, 15min

A.J Green, a new kid in town, shows up at the high school boys basketball tryouts and instantly makes an impression. Coach takes notice, and so do the other players, some of whom feel threatened by the new blood. The school's team is excellent, second best in the state and this is the year Coach plans to win it all. A.J. proves himself on the court and clearly has talent, heart, and drive as well as a big secret, but will he be able to make the team once the players and Coach discover the truth?

Filmmaker Talkback follows the screening