Babylon Kreuzberg 31.05.2025 – 20:30

This program deals with confrontations with biological parents, a topic usually heavy and difficult to process. Ponay (or You’re Not F***ing Welcome) opens with double struggles as a nonbinary person in Southern Thailand (where “ponay” means social dissent or “queer”), against the binary military conscription and the conservative father figure. Hi ading (meaning “little one” in Ilocano language) reminds us that younger queer people often forget what their parents have been through, especially as racialized migrants in Canada. My Therapist Said, I Am Full of Sadness is not a film full of sadness, but a transformative reflection that lays bare the director’s intimate moments in childhood in Indonesia and now adulthood in Germany. Tragedy comically ends the program with a mockumentary note, a re-narration of footage the director made during their childhood as if (or if ever) they and their mother committed murder on their father. While the program confronts some parental guilt, it acknowledges the same love trajectory we can learn from and carry onwards.

Ponay (or You Are Not F***ing Welcome)

Cherry is one bureaucratic checkmark away from obtaining a gender identity exemption for the military draft: they ‘just’ have to travel from Bangkok to their family home in Thailand’s deep south to get a residency document. On this final stretch, not only do they have to deal with their conservative family’s outright rejection and abuse, but even those who do recognise their queerness harbour misplaced expectations towards how Cherry performs their gender.

Content Notes:
homophobia, transphobia, domestic violence
Hesome Chamamah

Thailand, 2024

Thai. Subtitles in English

26 min

hi ading

"hi ading" is a poetic short that provides a glimpse into a love story. Speaking to their parents past selves, Dinaly asks and hopes that these past versions might help present them realize that the decisions they may not understand, are still made out of love.

Content Notes:
none
Dinaly Tran

Canada, 2023

English, Vietnamese, Ilocano. Subtitles in English

2 min

My Therapist Said, I Am Full of Sadness

During the three-year process of undergoing therapy, a filmmaker ponders the question of being fully accepted and loved by combing through archival material from their two families: their biological, devout Christian, Indonesian family, and their chosen queer kin in Berlin.

Content Notes:
family conflict
Monica Vanesa Tedja

Indonesia, 2024

Indonesian, English. Subtitles in English

22 min

Tragedy

When teenage Bernardo is gifted a video camera by his father, he embarks on a journey where the lines between reality and fiction blur. Upon discovering his father's betrayal of his stepmother, Bernardo and her, inspired by Greek tragedies, hatch a plan for revenge, documenting every step.

Content Notes:
none
Bernardo Zanotta

Brazil, The Netherlands, France, 2025

English, Portuguese. Subtitles in English

15 min