{"id":14693,"date":"2026-04-19T15:57:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T15:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xposed-demo.hasans.de\/?p=14693"},"modified":"2026-04-22T12:35:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:35:45","slug":"shorts-5-borders-bodies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xposedfilmfestival.com\/2026\/shorts-5-borders-bodies\/","title":{"rendered":"Shorts 5: BORDERS, BODIES"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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SHORTS<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Shorts 5: BORDERS, BODIES<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Borders do not only divide territories, they divide and deny bodies, identities, and histories. This programme brings together six films that explore movement across both geopolitical and intimate thresholds, where questions of migration, gender, and belonging become deeply entangled. In The Martial Forest, a group of trans and queer fighters creates a space of care and resistance against rising violence. Crossing the River links the policing of national borders to the imposition of gender binaries, tracing both back to colonial legacies. With It\u2019s Just a Burning Thought, a solitary figure moves through a dreamlike landscape, staging a quiet ritual of release. Unbelong reflects on exile as rupture and necessity, while HOMUNCULUS examines how racialized desire shapes the perception of bodies in motion. Closing the programme, What You Will Do When the War Continues? brings personal history into collision with the realities of war, where queer lives unfold under conditions of upheaval. Across these works, borders emerge as unstable, contested processes, inscribed onto bodies that resist, adapt, and transform.<\/p>

Content notes:\u00a0<\/span>violence, war imagery, themes of displacement, homophobia and transphobia, racist language<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Babylon<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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30.05.2026 – 16:00<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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31.05.2026 – 18:00<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Martial Forest<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In a dystopian present, exiled Kung Fu master Big Sister 13 leads a crew of trans and queer fighters who reclaim a forgotten zone and transform it into the Martial Forest, a secret training ground where care is as powerful as combat. Together, they fight to survive rising violence and build a future rooted in chosen family and trans resistance.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Director: J Triangular
Writer: J Triangular
Country: Taiwan\/Colombia, 2025
Language: Mandarin and Cantonese
Subtitle: English
Duration:\u00a0 8 min<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Crossing the River<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Columbus did not discover America in 1492, but it was the beginning of colonialism that also brought the colonial thinking of the two-gender system & othering. Crossing the river is not only about people from Mexico, Central- and South America trying to cross the border to the United States looking for a better life, but also about Transpeople crossing the gender border.<\/p>\n

The recent developments in the USA in dealing with indigenous people, whom they call migrants and\/or trans people, are just the consequences that have been apparent for a long time.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Director: Manuel Ricardo Garcia
Writer: Manuel Ricardo Garcia
Country: Mexico \/ Germany, 2024
Language: english and spanish
Subtitle: English
Duration:\u00a0 18 min<\/p>\n

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ITS JUST A BURNING THOUGHT (\u0647\u0630\u0627 \u0627\u0644\u0628\u064a\u062a \u064a\u062d\u062a\u0631\u0642)<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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A faceless figure on a quiet journey of release. Cradling a sheeted pillow, they moves through desert rain and across a river, carrying an unseen weight. shot in negative, they ghostly figure becomes a symbol of transition. In the final act, they buries the pillow, while fire flickers beside them suggesting both surrender and persistence. The film reflects on the quiet rituals of letting go, inviting viewers to project their own meanings onto this universal experience of transformation.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Director: Firas Ben Ali
Country: Tunisia, 2024
Language: No Dialogue
Duration:\u00a0 8 min<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Unbelong<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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At its heart, \u201eunbelong\u201c is a philosophical inquiry posed through visceral experience. The narrated poem questions whether we move through time or time moves through us, capturing the profound stillness of a moment when everything changes. It\u2019s about the act of abandoning a home that abandoned you first, and the sharp blade hidden in the question, \u201eWhere are you from?\u201c<\/p>

\u201eunbelong\u201c is for anyone who understands that migration is not a simple journey but a rupture, and that for some, movement is not freedom but a painful necessity for survival. It is a work of grief, hope, and transformation.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Director: Pars Loren
Country: Germany, 2025
Language: English, Turkish
Subtitle: English
Duration:\u00a0 8:27 min<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Homunculus<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Homunculus displays the wandering of a man in quest for other men.
He will realize along his travels that people see him as an \u00abArab\u00bb, some ambiguous, virile, and powerful entity both celebrated by white gay males and hated by French police forces.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Director: Bonheur Supr\u00eame
Country: France, Italy, 2025
Language: French, (English – Italian – Russian)
Subtitle: English
Duration:\u00a0 17 min<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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WHAT YOU WILL DO WHEN THE WAR CONTINUES?<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\u2018What You Will Do When the War Starts?\u2019 is the question that Vladislav Plisetskiy asked himself a month before the full-scale invasion, when Russia was rattling its weapons at the Ukrainian border. The artist found his answer and decided to make a movie \u2014 this is how the idea of a trilogy was born, in which he wonders about potential actions in case of the start, continuation, and the end of the war. What You Will Do When the War Continues? is the second part of the trilogy. The new work reflects how the chaos of the full-scale invasion is mounting, and affecting, among other things, the Ukrainian queer community, LGBTQ+ rights, and their involvement in the war.<\/p>

The movie starts with a visual narrative of the artist\u2019s own life. Growing up in Murmansk (Russia), he ended up in an orphanage when his father committed a crime. Later, he went to stay with relatives in Donetsk, and eventually arrived in Kyiv, where he joined the art and queer communities. For Plisetskiy, a phone conversation with his father becomes an introduction to the wartime events of the future, also highlighting the contrast between Ukrainian and Russian societies and their political sentiments.<\/p>

What Will You Do If the War Continues? depicts the close ties between the personal and the political. The eccentric and transgressive performances, art, and parties in which Plisetskiy freely expresses himself and blurs the boundaries of gender identity are replaced by wartime turmoil and mobilization processes in society and artists\u2019 close community. Here, different destinies and aspects of today\u2019s reality intersect: the tragic and the comical, the everyday and the carnival. The movie ultimately captures the absurdity, the certain madness of this moment in history where hostile ideologies and life contexts coexist and confront each other against the backdrop of the war.<\/p>

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Director: Vladyslav Plisetskiy
Writer: Vladislav Plisetskiy
Country: Ukraine, 2025
Language: Ukrainian , Russian
Subtitle: English
Duration:\u00a0 38.45 min<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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