Thanasis McMorait

A haunting experimental stop-motion animation that reveals the violence of heteronormativity, gender and patriarchy on trans bodies. Erma, neutral: Principles or motives that guide one's behavior or actions. A film about gender, the body and all their intertwining moments in between. Through an abstract stop-motion / body horror narrative point of view it attempts to highlight the continuous process and struggle of the construction of gender subjectivity against the oppressive power of heteronormativity. From birth to death the error in the code of patriarchy is subjugated and resisted, emerging but also trapped by the erinyes of the social. With an ironic and critical mood and intense religious symbolism, Erma highlights the contradictions of gender composition both in the field of solitary subjectivity and in the dominant heteronormative narrative. Gender identity is a war waged in the trenches of the body.

Avant-Drag! paints portraits of ten drag artists of varying gender expressions and sexualities who take to the streets of Athens to query, problematise and (yes, please!) undermine social strictures. Employing wildly imagined personas – like riot housewives and Albanian turbo-folk girls – who perform acts as revolutionary as praising abortion and as charming as drawing childish pictures, these artists call for social justice by taking aim at conservatism, patriarchy, patriotism, racism and sexism.