Jack and Leila are part of a group of activists in Berlin who are strongly committed to the pro-Palestinian movement. As the space for protest narrows, they face surveillance, censorship, police violence and are threatened with deportation. In this climate, they are working on a stage performance based on Larry Mitchell’s The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions, a queer utopian manifesto in the form of a fable. As rehearsals progress, the text from the seventies increasingly blurs with their own reality.
“The strong women told the faggots that there are two important things to remember about the coming revolutions. The first is that we will get our asses kicked. The second is that we will win.
The faggots knew the first. Faggot ass-kicking is a time-honored sport of the men. But the faggots did not know the second. They had never thought about winning before. They did not even know what winning meant. So they asked the strong women and the strong women said winning was like surviving, only better. As the strong women explained winning, the faggots where surprised and then excited. The faggots knew about surviving for they always had and this was going to be plain better. That made asskicking different. Getting your ass kicked and then winning elevated the entire enterprise of making revolution.”
Larry Mitchell / The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions
“I loved the book The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions long before becoming involved in this project, so making the brief soundtrack for this work felt like a very special opportunity.
I feel deeply connected to the spirit of the film: its narrative, its radical tenderness, its refusal to accept the world as it is. I'm genuinely happy to offer my moral and artistic support to this beautiful, crazy political constellation, unfolding at a time when the world seems to be in such profound chaos.”
Valentina Magaletti
