Playback

In Córdoba, far from the Argentine capital, the end of a military regime promises a spring that is all too brief. “La Delpi” is the only survivor of a group of friends who are transgender women and drag-queens, who began to die of aids in the late 80s. In a Catholic and conservative city, the Grupo Kalas made their weapons and trenches out of improvised dresses and lip-syncing. Today the images of unique and unknown footage are not only a farewell letter, but a manifesto to friendship.

"La Delpi" introduces us to some of her fellow drag artists in the Argentinian city of Córdoba just as the last of the juntas bite the dust. Shot on what's clearly a VHS video, we are now shown some brief, seemingly random, clips of her community and of a broader gay one at work and at play. Their lives a fantasy of complexities - they even have their very own" Ivana" - when compared with the ignorance and hostility that still prevailed outside in what was still a very politically conservative city struggling to deal with AIDS. They have fund raisers when the drugs arrive, finally, in the mid 1990s, but by then many are sick, terminally ill - and the conclusion offers us a truly touching and quite emotional on-stage performance - Italian style. There's no structured narrative as such to this short documentary, it's a bit like a video diary that we can appreciate for what it is - a truth, and quite a toxic one at that.