V –0 08 - Rehoboth Beach Film Society

Early apartheid South Africa is an unlikely place to be free.
Yet here’s Amina, scandalizing her conservative Indian
community by living as she pleases. They gossip about her
wearing men’s clothes and taking women lovers; they wonder
if she’ll ever marry. Furthermore, Amina owns a successful
café with her “colored” business partner, Jacob. To skirt the
law, they pretend he is just an employee. Into this haven of
rebels comes young wife and mother, Miriam, who stuns
Amina with her shy beauty. Their immediate mutual attraction
surprises them both. Seeing such a self-possessed Indian
woman makes Miriam think and feel things she hasn’t
before. She discovers just how imprisoned she is in her
traditional marriage and starts to look for ways to have her
own voice and enter the larger world. As the two women
XXY, Lucía Puenzo’s accomplished debut, explores the
painful search for gender identity of Alex, a hermaphrodite,
as she enters adolescence and is pressured by her parents
to “choose.” Alex’s ambiguity is painfully apparent. She is
forced to think about having her penis removed when her
parents invite a surgeon to their home in an isolated area of
the uruguayan coast. He comes to visit with his wife and son,
Álvaro. Alex and Álvaro strike up a friendship and it soon
emerges that they are equally confused and curious about
sex, sexuality and gender. At the same time, they are obviously
much less confused and fearful than their parents, whose
prejudices often unknowingly hurt their children. Alex’s father,
Kraken, is the only adult who tries to understand the difficult
choice facing his child, and the only one who grasps the true
the world unseen
Miami GLBT Film Festival Audience Award Best Film
FRI NOV 7 8:15 PM-9:55 PM
SPONSORED BY: JENNIFER HARPEL, MORGAN STANLEY
SAT NOV 8 10:10 AM-11:55 AM
SPONSORED BY: CAMP REHOBOTH
xxy
get to know each other through a series of driving lessons,
passion ensues, and events soon force them to stand up to
the ever-vigilant and volatile apartheid police. Bringing her
award-winning novel to the screen, director Shamim Sarif
gives us fully-realized characters resisting dehumanization
in a touching story of the daily fight for liberation and its
immediate rewards, where the beauty of the surrounding
land belies the turmoil in a system built on fear, hatred and
separation.
[Dir. Shamim Sarif, 2008, South Africa/Uk, video, 96 mins.]
Website: www.theworldunseenfilm.com
Bangkok Film Festival Best Picture
Cannes Critics Week Grand Prix
Argentina’s Official Entry to the 80th Academy
Awards as Best Foreign Film
THuRS NOV 6 4:30 PM-6:10 PM
FRI NOV 7 2:25 PM-4:05 PM
SAT NOV 8 5:15 PM-6:55 PM
nature of Alex’s relationship with Álvaro. Gracefully shot,
including many scenes on deserted beaches, XXY tastefully
explores its subject matter with as little adornment as possible
– silences and atmosphere communicate much. The film’s
most astonishing trait is its openness and lack of judgment as
it tackles this difficult, emotional topic. Moving and forceful,
XXY virtually demands that people be given freedom of choice
in a tolerant and understanding atmosphere.
[Dir. Lucia Puenzo, 2007, Argentina, 35mm, 91 mins.
in Spanish with English subtitles]
Website: http://xxylapelicula.puenzo.com/main.html
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feaTure films