Sergio e Simone #2/Love Man, Love Woman (M+2017)

Sérgio e Simone #2 (2007-2014)
Director: Virginia de Medeiros
Category: IIA
21 min, Portuguese with English subtitles, Digital, Brazil

Sérgio e Simone #2 begins by documenting the daily life of Simone, a transvestite living in the notorious Ladeira da Montanha ghetto of Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. After experiencing a mystic revelation following a drug overdose, Simone finds God, abandons her identity as a transvestite, readopts her original name of Sérgio, and becomes an evangelical preacher determined to save civilisation. Seven years later, Sérgio reinvents himself again as a Candomblé priest, establishing his own worshipping ground. But although the Candomblé faith permits Sérgio to adopt both masculine and feminine identities, it cannot protect him from his violent homophobic community.

Virginia de Medeiros (Brazilian, b.1973) makes moving-image art that exposes violent acts bred by intolerance. Since 2016, she has been taking synthetic hormones to stimulate a female-to-male sex change. For Medeiros, this bodily transition is not an artwork but a psychological filter to help her empathise with her mostly transgendered subjects.

Love Man, Love Woman (2007)
Director: Nguyễn Trinh Thi
Category: IIA
50 min, Vietnamese with English subtitles, Digital, Vietnam

Love Man, Love Woman profiles master Luu Ngoc Duc, a famous and flamboyant spirit medium of the indigenous Vietnamese Dao Mau (Mother Goddess) religion. In the vibrant Dao Mau communities, many men like Duc, whose gender or sexual identities defy mainstream society’s rigid standards, are relieved of their inner-suffering by serving as mediums between the Dao Mau deities and their followers.

Nguyen Trinh Thi (Vietnamese, b.1973) is an artist and filmmaker based in Hanoi. Her diverse practice investigates the role of memory in unveiling hidden, displaced, or misinterpreted histories, often making use of original documentary footage or extensive investigative field work.