 is a tale of working class childhood in Catholic Ireland. The protagonist speaks through two bodies, the before and after. Here the camera roams the landscape in search of portals connected to lost time; a whistle in the dark recalls a former body; a witness shows up and attempts to disrupt narratives they have once lived through.

Exalted

Girlz to Men is a documentary about three transgender men who share their dynamic experiences via interviews.

Girlz to Men: A Documentary About Trans-Men

Mother Wit follows three Black trans women pursuing higher education as a means to break the cycle of poverty and discrimination in Brooklyn, New York. Our main purpose is to move away from stereotypical portrayals of Black trans women that usually only mention them in death. Our participants are changing that narrative through their hopes, dreams and ambitions.

Mother Wit

A working-class, residential area in south London, Brixton is characterized by its multicultural population. In the 1980s, there was racist police violence against its Black residents, which led to a riot. In her performance, Mona Hatoum refers to these political events: the Dr. Martens, which she dragged through the neighborhood’s streets, were traditionally worn by the British police. Like a dark shadow, the boots seem to follow the barefoot artist, who seems naked and vulnerable. The black, lace-up Dr. Martens boots were not only part of police officers’ uniforms but were also worn by punks and skinheads. In the context of this performance, the shoes embody a system of control, violence, and oppression against which the individual is defenseless. In her video film Roadworks, Hatoum has condensed the 30-minute plus eponymous performance into a 6’45” cinematic collage that primarily focuses on the audience’s reaction.

Roadworks

, each video's running time is approximately 6 minutes, all videos are animated in a fashion that is very much "do-it-yourself" aesthetic, as told from the point of view of a transgender youth in rural Cape Breton. 

Alec’s animated video trilogy about growing up 2Spirit called Misadventures of Pussy Boy has been screened at numerous film festivals, including TranScreen: International Transgender Film Festival in Amsterdam, where it won the Audience Favorite award. Rough Paradise, a novella about growing up trans/intersex/2spirit in a rough working-class neighborhood, was published in 2014.

Each video was animated by hand, the backgrounds were created like theatre backdrops, with the characters hand-painted and cut out, performing each scene in front of the matching background for the scene. Camera work involved shooting each shot for 3-5 seconds and then manipulating the characters for the next shot over and over again, for hours, then editing the shots together and recording the voice over and music track. These videos are the epitome of "handmade", they were literally a labor of love.

Categories

Working Class