Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Told through the tales of Bobbie Nugent, ’A Big Life’ is a story of lesbians, gangsters, sex workers, travelling sideshows and one of the earlier chapters in Australia’s transgender history. After a brief career as a child actress Nugent was part of the butch and femme scene in the ’50s and ’60s, travelling through Asia performing as the World’s Strongest Woman, and returning to Australia in the 1970s to begin his transition.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
In a train station’s waiting room in the Czech countryside, Czech student Danny and his Spanish boyfriend encounter a pair of locals who do not realise that Danny can understand every word they say, including their sarcastic comments.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
This short but sweet documentary follows transgender teen Gerry-Ottawa, as she talks to family and friends in the Atikamekw First Nation reserve of Manawan. Captured by her film buff brother Jos, the unquestioning acceptance of Gerry for who she is by family and the community is a refreshing glimpse of what is possible.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Three young black friends from the Heliópolis favela go out, seeking refuge and fun in the Queer nightlife of downtown São Paulo. This vibrant, joyous film, made by a cast and crew of black Queer filmmakers, captures all the excitement of a night on the town.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Greenwich Village on a hot summer night in 1985. A young man, new to the city, leaves a gay bar with a flamboyant performance artist, but his animated story of Antigone is soon rudely interrupted, and what starts as a hot date soon uncovers deeper layers of race, class, history, and disease. The Hunter is adapted from the 2001 novel In the City of Shy Hunters by Tom Spanbauer.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Francesca Curtis and Phyllis Papps are many things. Researchers. Writers. Ultra-Feminists. Partners. Fifty years ago they became the first lesbian couple to come out on Australian television, appearing on ABC’s This Day Tonight. Now in the final years of their lives the couple open up about love, loss and political change, solidified inside a fifty year relationship.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Noor and Layla are breaking up, but is it the end of the road for these two Muslim women… or just the beginning? Structured around the five prayers of Islam, this tale of Queer Muslim love turns the conventional “girl meets girl” story on its head.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Struggling with writer’s block after the death of a loved one, author Zeke experiences a mid-life sexual awakening with the arrival of a handsome delivery guy who brings him his regular order of sushi.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
The guest finally arrives, and gay couple Rafa and Matheus must deal with the excitement and strangeness the presence of a third man brings to their flat. What each shows or hides from the other reveals a wealth of different emotions.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
For 23-year-old Mít life between two worlds is nothing new, their gender and cultural identities constantly in flux. Though their mother wants them to get a degree and find a husband, Mit is in a relationship with Lara. And as Mit’s grandmother succumbs to dementia, so the sacred altar in her apartment becomes a vital connection to the family’s roots in Vietnam.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
After appearing on TV talent show The Next Star (הַכּוֹכָב הַבָּא) Johnita, a young transgender singer, falls back into her reality. Living with her Orthodox father – while also attending the Pride Parade – she dreams of finding love while the realities of discrimination and hatred are a constant presence in her life.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
In a secluded house in the outskirts of Dar es Salaam, ten young Tanzanians meet to share stories of suppression, violence and harassment, but also of dreams, hopes and their illegal love for one another.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Jessica is eager to make breakfast for her new girlfriend but little does she know her daughter Robyn has invited someone unexpected...
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Today is an ordinary day for Kalthoum and her friends. They are sipping cocktails, looking for flings on Internet, waiting desperately for love and enduring, once again, transphobic insults from strangers. But today, they will not let things happen that way. Today, between a cosmo and a chardo, the four transgender friends will imagine their revenge. At least, if they get to agree with one another.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Drug dealer Dewy becomes guardian angel to a lonely sex worker, Rika, when she interrupts a disturbing situation between her and their mutual client. Dewy soon becomes her driver, taking Rika safely to and from her clients, their partnership evolving into something more intimate, until a traumatic incident puts their relationship to the test.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Aiden returns to his family home to visit his father, who is suffering from the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Though he came out years earlier, and is accompanied by his husband, the process of coming out and earning his father’s respect must begin again and again.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
This highly personal documentary captures moments in the life of Chinese-American filmmaker Will Zang, at the height of the pandemic. With jobs thin on the ground and the (former) president calling Covid-19 the “China Virus”, he contemplates leaving his life in the US and returning to his family.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
An unspoken romance resurfaces when a high school music teacher meets a former colleague. After years of absence they perform together once more, the music expressing what can’t be said.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
In March 2020, as Belgium went into lockdown, photographer Serena Vittorini found herself sharing a house with Ophelie Masson, shortly after their relationship had begun. The disruption of the pandemic and the difficulties they face in communicating with one another make this an intimate self-portrait of two women thrown together by circumstance.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
In the midst of Melbourne's COVID-19 lockdown, Jamie finds reprieve from the monotony of isolation through their imagination, sensuality and some help from iconic onscreen queer characters. To borrow a description from the film’s own Instagram account, this riotous animation is “Very queer, very Covid & very horny.”
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
A young boy braves the streets of nighttime Manila to meet an anonymous hookup. Thinking one of them is the guy he’s meeting he trails a pack of young hustlers who then draw him into their strange world of death and desire.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
19-year-old rugby player Anthony is on a night out with friends when, in a game of dares, they challenge him to kiss the bar’s new waiter. Determined to win, he does just that, but it’s a kiss that changes everything.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Uninvited to her partner’s Easter family gathering, Nevena dyes two boiled eggs for the traditional egg fight, and sets off on a journey to see her estranged father.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Kei, a transgender man, longs for a quiet, “normal” life in rural Japan, but his partner prefers the freedom and openness of life in Tokyo. Their opposing wishes and identities are revealed in the heat of the local hot springs, a place Kei loved as a child.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
A group of young friends make their way to the beach, among them Emilio – or Em – a Transgender girl at the beginning of her journey. Set in the volcanic landscapes of Lanzarote, Before the Eruption is a lyrical meditation on friendship and acceptance.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Oskar is on the night train, heading home after an interview in Stockholm. With a long night ahead of him, he makes eye contact across the aisle with Ahmad, an exchange of looks expressing mutual desire.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Tina is a food photographer living in the Cypriot city of Limassol, on its way to becoming the oligarch paradise of the Mediterranean. Overwhelmed by her role as both beneficiary and victim of the city’s transformation, she takes to a boat and drinks herself into a stupor, leading to a chance encounter that may just change her life.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
On a hilltop overlooking the city a man lives alone with his beloved mannequin. When he hears reports that there is a census about to take place, he strives to have him added to the roll.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
A transgender female dancer, Shin-mi, gets a call from the Military Manpower Administration, to attend for the Military Service Examination. Shin-mi, with everything in readiness, takes her steps to the Military Manpower Administration.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Itzik is a middle-aged Hasidic bookbinder, unmarried and living with his brother’s family. In his online search for bookbinding materials he stumbles across a Craigslist ad offering ‘binding lessons for submissive women’, and he responds to it…
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Written by British-Syrian writer Lisa Luxx, Lesbian is a poem about the word itself and the decades of toxic connotations it’s acquired. Adapted into a film by Rosemary Baker and featuring a cast of real queer women this is a fierce call to arms to reclaim it.
Lesbian is shortlisted for both the International and Best British prizes.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Living in the tunnels beneath Tripoli a queer Libyan teenager, Britannia, dreams of escape to a better life, but an unexpected discovery forces him to question whether to stay or flee from his homeland and his friends.
Baba is shortlisted for both the International and Best British prizes.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Krishna and Alia meet during a dance at the festival of Navratri, and the two women spend the night and early hours walking side by side, sharing stories and moments of intimacy. Krishna feels bound to her hometown Ahmedabad, but Alia is a free spirit who goes from place to place. The Song We Sang was described by the Indian news and media website FirstPost as “a pathbreaking love story”.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
On a dark and rainy night Diego rides across the city to deliver a letter to a lost love. As he passes by a corner a glamorous woman, caught in the dazzle of a disco ball, warns him to be wary of the slippery roads. Paying little heed, Diego tears off, but soon finds himself being cared for by the statuesque Diana.
Iris Prize Shorts 2021
Russian indie band Sansara made this music video as a tribute to Russia’s LGBT+ community, 12 months after the country passed legislation defining marriage solely as the union of man and woman. It’s a wonderful fusion of music and movement and a stirring tale of thwarted love, and though we can take no credit for this, it’s garnered over 1million views on YouTube since being submitted for the Iris Prize!
