Anna Li, Associate Programmer, AFI FEST

THE MYSTERIOUS GAZE OF THE FLAMINGO

October 22, 8:45 p.m.

One of the most spectacular discoveries of the year, Diego Céspedes’ audacious debut transported me back to my formative years, when I’d just discovered the New Queer Cinema movement and was eagerly devouring the vulnerable, transgressive works of Haynes, Araki, Riggs and Friedrich. Despite living across the Pacific, as a young lesbian, I was inexplicably drawn to this history that I was, not physically but spiritually, a part of. Céspedes contends with this inexplicable pull of a communal past and recontextualizes it at the dawn of the AIDS crisis in Latin America, as 11-year-old Lidia is lovingly raised by a vibrant group of crossdressers and transgender queens in a dusty Chilean mining town. In our shared language of queer cinema, with history reframed and reimagined, the indelible bond of chosen family flourishes in the face of cyclical ire and prejudice. We always persist. 

 

Screening to be followed by a conversation with director and screenwriter Diego CĂ©spedes.Â