This program is a garden to explore with all your senses. The diversity of form, color, and scent found in flowers is mirrored in these films, traversing celebration and mourning, fantasy and archive. In Baradiya, a Talaandig-Manobo indigenous trans woman grapples with discrimination to uphold her community’s culture to become a babaylan (shaman) amid the destruction of her ancestral land in Bukidnon, Philippines. The Flowers Stand Silently presents a film archive of Palestinian wildflowers, questioning the role of imagery as both testimony and instrument of violence. Filament Fortune reflects on radical care and tenderness among HIV-positive people. Speaking Flowers, a Super 8 film, employs an abundance of flowers and fairy tale imagery, creating a jarring contrast between natural beauty and kitsch. Finally, in I am a flower, Sam, a transgressive artist and flower lover, spends their day at a spa with their mother, before his final performance act.

Baradiya
A Talaandig-Manobo indigenous trans woman grapples with discrimination to uphold her community’s culture to become a babaylan (Filipino queer shaman) amid the destruction of her ancestral land in Bukidnon, Philippines. This queer ecological story followers her life as she finds meaning in her ancestry and embraces her true destiny as the spiritual descendant of Baradiya.


Philippines, 2024

Binukid and Bisaya. Subtitles in English
