Campillo Sí, Quiero (Campillo Yes, I Do, Spain, 2007)

Director: Andrés Rubio.

Editing: Daniel Ramo.






When, in July 2005, the Spanish parliament finally passed the law which granted the right to marry to homosexual couples, the battle for equality was still far from over. With the Catholic church at the helm of the opposition, mayors and civil registrars in several major Spanish cities refused to implement the new law claiming freedom of conscience which, of course, was nothing more than plain old religious bigotry. At the same time, Francisco Maroto, the mayor of Campillo de Ranas, a village of about 50 inhabitants deep in the mountains of Guadalajara north of Madrid, stepped forward and said that everyone was welcome to be wed in his town hall. Since then, Campillo de Ranas has not only become somewhat of a gay wedding Las Vegas but also substantially revived its economy.

„Campillo Yes, I Do” takes us on a journey to a picturesque village set in an area which has experienced decades of stagnation and decay. Unable to find work or create any meaningful existence for themselves, people born and raised here fled to the cities or other, more prosperous regions. It was therefore a radical decision on Francisco Maroto’s part when he decided to leave his native Madrid and settle as a beekeeper in this remote countryside area. It should also be mentioned here that Francisco is himself gay and being gay outside of the big cities in Spain is usually as difficult as in most other countries. Being a lot younger than most of his new neighbours and full of energy, he ran for Mayor in 2003 and got himself elected to manage the local community which in this case was an unpaid job. But soon enough his rural adventure took a dramatic turn and he found himself at the centre of attention of the whole country’s media when he publicly announced that all those same-sex couples turned down in other places could come and be wed in his tiny village. It was a bold step in a rural community whose most precious building was an old stone church in need of repair. When he came back to his office after the announcement had been made, he saw that there were 18 messages on his answering machine. He really had to pull himself together to listen to them, expecting the worst kind of verbal abuse and threats from neo-nazis and their like. To his great relief, every single message expressed support for his brave actions and wished him luck. Also, on the day of the first same-sex wedding, almost the whole community, mostly elderly people, showed up at the town hall to protect their mayor since they also expected protesters. Only no protesters came.

„Campillo Yes, I Do” doesn’t just take us on a journey to a picturesque Spanish village. In a sense, it takes us to a different world. A new world. A world of tolerance and acceptance. Utopia, if you like, where villagers go in their weekly Catholic processions carrying a statue of Virgin Mary on their shoulders and then later greet the newlywed gay and lesbian couples with the same sense of joy and pride in their local community. Yes, it does sound like utopia. Only in this case it’s real – Campillo de Ranas is an actual village in an actual country. So, how can it be?

I once asked a Spanish gay rights activist how come Spain, a country which is still perceived as one of the strongholds of the Catholic church, has introduced the institution of same-sex marriage and how come there hasn’t been a counter-revolution yet, especially seen as 80% of the population consider themselves Catholic? To which he replied that much of the explanation had to be sought in Spain’s turbulent past. During the many decades of Franco’s dictatorship the local Catholic church discredited itself in the eyes of many a Spaniard by actively and willingly co-operating with the oppressing regime. Therefore the words of the church carry a lot less weight here than in, say, Italy. Associating oneself with a particular religion is often just a question of tradition. And it doesn’t automatically entail following the words of that religion’s self-appointed representatives blindly. A nationwide poll conducted around the time the law was passed showed that 66% of the population supported it and roughly 50% of the population also supported the rights of homosexual couples to adopt children. I guess this is as far as a self-proclaimed Catholic country can veer from the official Vatican dogma and it’s nothing short of impressive. When the Spanish people were liberated from the yoke of Franco’s regime, a great majority of them embraced the free world and its diversity with an enthusiasm and passion only rivalled by flamenco. And just as Campillo de Ranas saw a boom in its hospitality business with old taverns and inns re-opened and new ones added, the whole country, too, has blossomed economically in the past decades. And it’s just self-evident that there is a direct connection.

It might be needless to add that Francisco Maroto was re-elected as Mayor in 2007 with an absolute majority of votes. It is also somewhat ironic that the old church has now had the necessary repairs as a result of the village's new niche in the wedding industry.

Andrés Rubio’s first documentary is a powerful testimony to the virtues of love and tolerance, mutual respect and acceptance. A world devoid of bigotry and imagined divisions is also a prosperous one. The only thing that remains to be said is - ¡Viva Campillo! And I’m absolutely certain that if Jesus ever existed, he would have thrived here unconditionally!

Here you can watch a short fragment from the film

Born Again (USA, 2006)

Director: Markie Hancock.

Producer: Kathryn Gregorio.










There is a great divide in the American society – one that is based upon religion. Ever since the (in)famous „Mayflower” docked in Plymouth, Massachusets back in 1620, the US has been home to a significant share of the world’s Christian fundamentalist population. The alarming news is that it still is and it’s fighting like never before not to lose its deadly grip on the policy-makers in the world’s most influential nation. Markie Hancock’s documentary „Born Again” is a personal account of how she has saved herself from the clutches of fundamentalist religion (into which she has had the misfortune to be born) and how through the process of personal liberation she has indeed been born again.

For Markie Hancock religious indoctrination began as soon as she was able to comprehend anything. Most of her childhood memories have to do with religion. There were Sunday morning services and Sunday evening services, Wednesday night prayer meetings and Friday night Bible school, vacation Bible camps, baptisms, youth meetings, missionary weeks and missionary conferences, morning devotions and evening devotions, Bible memory and bedtime stories - a seemingly never-ending process of worshipping God and confirming one's faith. In her own words, it was difficult to tell where the religion ended and the family began. Most of all, she was afraid not to go to Heaven and she would do anything her parents asked her to. When she was at school, she couldn’t go to any parties because of all the „lewd things” happening there. And instead of the highlight of most American teenagers’ school life - the prom, she would have to go to the alternative organised by the church – in every way as drab and devoid of any of the usual suspense as it sounds. And while a wave of youth rebellion swept across the Western world in the late 60s and 70s, there was definitely not a hint of it in Markie’s life.

Things started to change when Markie enrolled at the evangelical Wheaton College in West Chicago. Despite the fact that all the students were forced to sign the pledge of not drinking, smoking or even dancing, facing immediate expulsion if violating these rules, life at the Academy was the beginning of the end of her Christian years. It was here that she began to develop feelings for other girls and realised that there was a world to be explored beyond the thick walls of her parental home. After studying theology at Princeton for a year, she moved to Berlin under the pretext of studying theology and German there. In reality, she needed to get as far away from home as possible. Berlin for Markie became synonymous with falling in love and exploring her lesbian sexuality in an atmosphere of personal freedom which she had never experienced before. But these were exciting and troubled years at the same time – a divided soul in a divided city. She knew that by leaving religion she would lose her family but she also realised that by not leaving it, she would lose herself. The time had come for Markie to make a decision and face the music – it was her life as an individual that was at stake and leading a double life suddenly was no longer an option.

Markie Hancock uses footage from her family’s personal archives and conducts interviews with the members of her family on camera, allowing everyone to have a word. There is her mom taking time to explain why it would be wrong for her to allow Markie to sleep in their guest room together with her partner. There is her father who is adamant to explain the beauty of being an evangelical Christian. And there are also Markie’s siblings – Nathan and Mike. But while Mike dreamingly imagines a childhood minus all the religion and how that would have made him a more confident and stable person without losing half of his life trying to get de-programmed after years of religious brainwashing, Nathan is still praying for his older sister to return to God and His Kingdom. It’s obvious that there is a divide in her family as big as it is unsurmountable. Markie compares this divide to that in the American society - a divide between the religious fundamentalism and the worldview shaped by it on one hand and the people who wish to think for themselves and bring America forward, socially and politically, on the other hand, a divide between the exclusive and inclusive America.

The film was made shortly after George W. Bush secured his second term in office. At the same time, 11 states had voted to ban same-sex marriages. It looked at the time as if the fundamentalist America, the one that her parents represented, was taking over in this battle and Markie's tolerant and inclusive America was losing. Things have changed slightly since then but it’s definitely far too early to claim that the fundamentalist and intolerant America has been flushed down the drain. Despite Obama’s victory in the recent presidential elections, a majority of Californians voted to ban same-sex marriages. And that is definitely a bad omen when something like that happens in what is considered to be one of the most liberal states in the country. Markie’s journey of personal liberation may have been completed but it will be some time before the whole American nation liberates itself from its fundamentalist chains.

„Born Again” is an important testimony of one person who has had the inner courage and strength to find her true self and live with the consequences. It is also a well-made and heartfelt documentary about her lost family and the sacrifices she has been forced to endure. Stalin once said that the death of one person is a tragedy while the death of millions is statistics. In this case, the personal liberation of one person is a triumph which should inspire, if not millions, then certainly thousands.

Here you can watch the entire film if you happen to live in the US

Mein Freund aus Faro (To Faro, Germany, 2008)

Director: Nana Neul.

Principal cast: Anjorka Strechel, Lucie Hollmann, Manuel Cortez, Florian Panzner.




Gender perception can play tricks not only on those perceiving but also those perceived. And in a world with deeply rooted gender roles and appearances, can you achieve your ultimate goal by pretending to the bitter end that you are something that you are not, too infatuated with the process and too confused to foresee the consequences? The new German coming-of-age drama „To Faro” does not attempt to be moralistic, nor does it victimise any of its characters – it simply shows a possible turn of events and offers a plausible (if not the only) way out.

Mel is a tomboyish girl in her early twenties who works in a catering factory wrapping up endless meals to be had by passengers on the airplanes she longingly observes taking off and landing in the nearby airport in her spare time. Her drab routines at work only liven up somewhat when she meets her new colleague – a Portuguese guy called Nuno with his non-German mannerisms and attitudes. Also at home, Mel’s life is dull and hardly bearable. Her brother Knut, whose pregnant girlfriend is about to move in with them into their father’s house, constantly teases her about not having a boyfriend and that by the looks of her she could be his brother. And the truth is – her appearance and manners suggest a lot more a young heterosexual male than a young heterosexual female. In fact, so much more that when the 14-year-old Jenny, whom she one night almost runs over on a badly lit road assumes that the driver is a young guy, it seems comic but still quite believable. Persuaded by Jenny and her equally underaged friend, Mel helps them get into a local night club where she quickly falls for the young girl and decides to play along by inventing a new identity for herself – Miguel from Faro in Portugal. Soon enough the love interest appears to be mutual but in the morning they part and there seems to be no need for any further deception.

Intent on gaining more respect and less scorn at home, Mel pays Nuno to play along as her boyfriend. The initially sceptical family quickly embrace her „love interest” and are more than willing to include him into their circle. At the same time Mel is unable to forget Jenny. She is in love with her but obviously clueless about how to proceed and what to do about it. And when they accidentally run into each other again, Mel simply can’t help throwing herself into the flames of her agonising love. Romance between the two girls becomes reality but how much reality is there really about it? Inevitably, her lies and deceptions lead to entanglements which hang over her like the sword of Damocles. It’s time for the ultimate revelation which will lead to the ultimate judgement.

„To Faro” is not the first German film to deal with mixed identities and the price there is to pay for leading a double life. Although the film’s promoters emphasise its kinship with „Boys Don’t Cry”, my immediate association is with Angelina Maccarone’s „Unveiled” (Fremde Haut). Both films are set in the German province, they both use airports as a metaphor for longing to escape one’s miserable existence and not the least, in both films women are forced to pretend to be men to achieve their goals. But while the Iranian refugee in „Unveiled” uses crossdressing to avoid being expelled to her home country where she is persecuted for her homosexuality, Mel’s deception is her own choice – it’s the only way that she deems possible to be intimate with her beloved. In both cases the truth cannot remain concealed forever but while the main character in „Unveiled” is put on a plane back to Iran, Mel can decide her own fate and move on with her life. Growing up surrounded by heteronormativity (which has befallen most of us), Mel never had a real chance to explore her sexuality. The ordeal of her first love has served as a bucket of cold water which prompted her to act. The acclaimed Danish writer Per Hultberg has once said that one must break up with one’s home in order to find one’s true self. In many cases this is a forced action. Nonetheless, a necessary one. A lot can be said about the ethics or rather the lack thereof when it comes to deception, especially in love matters. However, the sad reality is that especially in love matters critical faculties tend to fail even the sharpest minds, let alone confused youngsters with a sexuality diverging from what is broadly perceived as the norm. Only personal experience and courage to be what you really are will help you find your own path, not a blind adherence to someone else’s perception of normality.

„To Faro” is a rather slowly-paced drama with an unmistakable German flavour. Although the acting is a bit uneven at times and certain scenes can seem implausible, the film has a solid plot and can be recommended to all those concerned with the issues of coming to terms with one’s own sexuality. Despite the fact that the main protagonist of the film is in her early twenties, the issues that „To Faro” touches upon certainly aren’t restricted to that age category.

You can watch the film's trailer here (in German)

Rak haeng Siam (The Love Of Siam, Thailand, 2007)

Director: Chukiat Sakveerakul.

Principal cast: Witwisit Hiranyawongkul, Mario Maurer, Sinjai Plengpanit, Kanya Rattapetch.





When Thailand is mentioned, first things that come to my mind are long, paradise-like beaches overcrowded with Western charter tourists and gay life pulsing around the clock in Bangkok with its world famous ladyboys and prostitution. Somehow, the word ’conservative’ doesn’t fit into the overall image of the place. But I guess the Thai society outside of the beaches and gay bars is a rather different story. In fact so different that when „The Love of Siam” was released in cinemas across the country the promotors did everything they could to conceal the fact that the focal point of this almost 3 hour long film was a gay teen romance. Basicly advertised as a straight teen romance flick (a very popular genre in Thailand, it seems), the film’s posters feature two girls and two boys, there are hardly any promotional photos on the film’s website showing the two main characters together and the film’s trailer clearly misleads viewers making them assume that this will be another one of those sugarsweet „boy meets girl” Asian productions. I can just imagine the unsuspecting „traditional family” movie-goers coughing their popcorn back up when realising what they have been „tricked” into watching, especially if they have brought their „innocent” prodigy with them. I’m a little surprised the director hasn’t gone into hiding as a result.

The plot of „The Love of Siam” centers around two boys and their families who live as neighbours in one of the suburbs of Bangkok. We meet them first time when they’re aged about 11 or 12. Mew lives with his ailing grandmother. He is a bit of a loner, picked on by others at school and not really having other friends than his late grandpa’s piano. One day, when Mew is attacked in the school’s toilets, his neighbour Tong comes to his rescue. Eventually, the two boys bond and become inseparable. In the meantime, Tong’s older sister Tang (yes, the choice of names isn’t very helpful for non-Thai audiences) goes missing on a trekking tour in the jungles around Chiangmai in the north of the country. Her disappearance without a trace leaves her bereaved family stunned. Especially her father seems to be overwhelmed with grief and tries to drown his sorrows in whiskey. Not being able to cope with the situation, Tong’s family moves away leaving Mew without his best friend.

We meet the two families again after what seems to have been five years. After Mew’s grandmother’s death he now lives with his aunt and is a lead singer in a boyband called August. He is also the composer of all the songs that the band performs. One day, when Tong (not knowing the identity of the lead singer) wants to buy their latest album from a records stall, the stall-keeper informs him that the album has been sold out but quickly points in the direction of the band itself since he has talked to them a moment earlier. Tong follows after the band and recognises to his big surprise his long-lost friend Mew in their midst. They exchange phone numbers, and soon Tong finds himself drawn to Mew in a way he has never felt with Donut, the girl he’s officially dating. At the same time, a Chinese girl named Ying whose family moved into Tong’s house after his had left, spends her free time practising „white magic” which she is learning from a book, hoping to make Mew fall in love with her, just like she is with him. Her somewhat unconventional tricks – flipping Mew’s shoes on his porch and stuffing his hair into her teddy bear – don’t really bring about the desired results. Instead, Mew finds himself emotionally involved with Tong and can now (surprise, surprise!) finally write the love song so needed for their band to reach new heights of popularity with the teen girl crowd. He performs the song at a garden party arranged by Tong’s delusional father who is celebrating the return of his lost daughter (in fact just a decoy planted by his desperate wife) and the two end up kissing in the garden after the guests are gone. This is witnessed by Tong’s mother who is all but happy (’a hard drinking husband, a missing daughter and now a gay son’). She tells Mew to end their relationship behind Tong’s back. Mew and Tong are thrown apart but Mew’s love song performed at Siam Square (hence the name of the film) brings them back together. Or does it? The ending is in fact surprisingly ambigious and begs for a sequel. Well, maybe that was the intention.

„The Love of Siam” could have been set as a TV soap opera as it certainly has all the ingredients for it – several parallell drama subplots with rather weird twists on a par with anything „Santa Barbara” has had to offer. At the same time, the acting on the part of most actors, especially our pair in love, is surprisingly realistic, balanced and „non-soapy”. Another thing that separates this film from the mainstream Thai cinematography is the diversity of the society it portrays, even if it doesn’t seem so seen with Western eyes. Tong’s family are Catholics, and apparently the controversy of having a Catholic family as main characters in a Thai film meant for the masses has been almost as big as portraying a gay teen romance. But as for the gay aspect, the main shock is said to have been that the two boys at the heart of the story aren’t shown particularly effeminate. The Thai society can evidently live with those „poor creatures born with the wrong genitalia” (there are even special toilets for transsexuals across the country) but still finds it rather difficult to accept that a man can be gay without constantly having to wiggle his behind and squeak instead of speaking. Nor are the two boys in question forced into prostitution and dying of AIDS. Actually, they seem to be just like any other kid on the block and I guess that is the main point of controversy of this film. With this in mind, I believe that we can safely call this film groundbreaking in contemporary Thai cinematography. Here I have to add that when the film was recently shown on Thai TV the pivotal scene with the two boys kissing was omitted. It seems that the ground in question hasn't been broken with the Thai TV broadcasters yet.

As for concealing the true nature of the film in its marketing, the director himself has admitted that his objective was to reach a wider audience. It reminds me of my own experience at this year’s Kratkofil, a short film festival in Bosnia, when the festival’s organisers completely omitted any reference to gay and lesbian when they included my selection of gay and lesbian short films in their programme. Most of the people who had come to watch my selection had no idea that it was a queer one but only a few left. Had they announced it so that everybody would know beforehand, maybe no one would have come at all. Seen from that perspective the director of „The Love of Siam” might have been right in his tactics: by „tricking” the audiences he made them watch a different reality which in the end wasn’t that different from their own.

„The Love of Siam” is a sincere and rather convincingly made film about family ties and different kinds of love – Tong’s father’s self-destructive love for his lost daughter, his mother’s love for both him and her estranged husband and, of course, Mew’s and Tong’s first aspirations to find love for another human being outside of their families. While one kind of love is desired and even encouraged, another kind of love can be seen as dangerous and a threat to the other love. In a way, this films aspires to show that no love can be a threat to any other love and for that it deserves an immense credit. I can definitely recommend this film, especially if you don't find it all too tiresome to read subtitles for 3 hours. This aspect is certainly compensated by the charm and beauty of the two main leads.

Here is a video compilation of some of the romantic scenes from the film with Mew's love song presented as a karaoke sing-along both in Thai and English

Na sončni strani Alp (On The Sunny Side Of The Alps, Slovenia, 2007)

Director: Janez Burger.

Principal cast: Ibrahim Nouhoum, Kany Michel Obenga, Samuel Camara.





"On The Sunny Side Of The Alps" is not directly an LGBT-related film. However, I believe it deserves to be mentioned here since it's about racism and xenophobia which are soulmates of homophobia. This short film is set in Slovenia and depicts what seems to be everyday lives of ordinary Slovenes. Nothing extraordinary except the entire cast is African.

Here is the director's statement:

""On The Sunny Side Of The Alps" used to be the slogan of a promotion campaign of the Slovene Tourist Board which wanted to present Slovenia in the best possible light - as a beautiful subalpine country, full of hospitable and friendly people. However, recent racist and xenophobic events present Slovenia in a far darker light. It is most concerning that racist and xenophobic rhetoric is being used also by political elites, but even more concerning is the fact that their populist tendencies find fertile ground which helps their political credit to grow. This film is a reaction to the increasingly bizzare situation in my country. A film about a typical Slovene family which would never find shape if finance officials knew that this is the first Slovene black-African film."

Indeed. Apparently, he made the Slovene film funders believe that he was about to make a film which could basicly be used for promotion of tourism to Slovenia, intending to cast a number of popular Slovene actors, but when he got the funding he simply hired black actors for all the roles in the script and the result is simply hilarious. I guess he won't be getting more money from the Slovene film funders, but something tells me he doesn't really care about that. To my knowledge, he's already got funding for his new full-length film in Ireland. Now it remains to be seen if the Irish Tourist Board will be equally upset with the outcome!

"On The Sunny Side Of The Alps" is a witty comedy with subtle humour and an unmistakable Alpine (or, should I say, subalpine?) touch. Still, you don't have to have visited the country to fully enjoy it. And since cinematography is a visual art form, the message won't be lost on most viewers either.

Here you can watch a fragment from the film

Queer Sarajevo Festival, a highly personal account

Photo by Rašid Krupalija.

If you had come to Sarajevo last week you would have seen large billboards across the city in connection with the forthcoming municipal elections. Quite a few of them state in massive letters – Sarajevo na evropskom putu or Sarajevo on Road to Europe. Yeah, sure – what about a fast track? Municipal elections have rarely got anything to do with pan-European issues but in this case the billboards’ authors might just have struck the chord with what’s at stake in their city and country, unknowingly.

Queer Sarajevo Festival was opened on Wednesday, 24 September in the premises of the Academy of Fine Arts. The occasion was also used for the opening of several exhibitions – a photo exhibition by Irfan Redžović, a sculpture exhibition by Alma Selimović (both from Bosnia) and a number of queer art works from different parts of former Yugoslavia. The hall with the art exhibitions where the opening took place was bursting with people – the organisers clearly weren´t counting on so many people showing up. In fact, it was almost impossible to see the art works for all the people. At one point, a representative of the Dutch embassy, being one of the main funders of the festival, gave a speech in English concluding it with „Long live the Queers!” followed by a speech in Bosnian made by Boba, one of the local organisers from Organisation Q. The crowds cheered and the whole atmosphere was lively but rather relaxed – the weeks of hate speech from parts of the Bosnian media and most political parties seemed rather distant.

In the meantime, the opposing crowd outside was growing bigger – the daily Ramadan meal at 7 pm was over. As the opening was coming to a close, I and three Bosnian friends of mine decided to move further and went outside. The crowd didn’t look particularly friendly but on the other side, at least at that moment they weren’t shouting or chanting anything and looked relatively calm, no doubt largely due to the presence of the police in front of the building. When we decided to start walking, a guy standing next to me silently tried to block my passage and pushed me. I asked him what his problem was but he didn’t reply. We started walking and I noticed that a group of those people also started walking in the same direction. One of the two girls in our group decided that we´d better get into her car which was parked on the other side of the Academy, not far away, so we turned right and walked through a line of policemen who were standing outside. The other side was badly lit and deserted – no civilians, no police. I kept watching our backs but nobody seemed to follow us at that point. But that was only a moment of calm before the storm. As we had reached the parking lot, I suddenly saw with the back of my eye that a group of people were running at us and a second later we were attacked from behind. I tried to turn around to defend myself and get away from them but fell and found myself surrounded by what seemed to be four young guys who started kicking the living daylights out of me from all sides. Somehow, I managed to get back on my feet and get out of the circle, so I started running all I could without looking back. As I was running, I noticed I was basically blind on my left eye and my hands were covered in blood. I also couldn’t help noticing how badly lit and deserted the streets were at that point. Absolutely no police presence 50 meters from the Academy. I eventually reached a place where I felt I was safe and my friends collected me from there. Most of that night was spent in a local hospital where they kept sending me from one clinic to another and eventually stitched me up. At the emergency room we also saw some other victims of the attacks that night. Two guys who had left the venue in a taxi were followed for four kilometers, then brutally dragged out of the car, threatened with guns and then beaten with them.

Towards dawn we were all taken to a police station where we gave our statements. This process took an incredible amount of time and the police officers in charge found it important to ask questions like what the maiden name of my mother was. Eventually, I and a friend of mine were driven to my hotel room with some police escort and we could finally get some sleep.

On the following day I was taken back to the hospital for some further checks but otherwise stayed in my hotel room all day watching TV including an episode of JAG with one of the main characters hospitalised after he stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan. It seemed somehow appropriate. In the evening I was visited by some of the organisers who told me that the Festival as a public event wouldn´t continue since the police claimed that they couldn´t provide any protection for the participants or the organisers but that they would try to stage some of the planned events in secret locations for specifically invited guests. I was supposed to take part in a panel debate after the screening of John Greyson’s Lilies together with the director himself on Friday and although in a poor physical condition I still wanted to go through with it.

The day after, on Friday, I had to go back to the clinic of „facial reconstruction”. The organisers suggested that I go to their office after that as they were planning to take me and the other guests of the festival to „the only safe restaurant” in town for a dinner later that day. What I couldn´t quite foresee was that I was to stay inside that office for about 24 hours. Plans kept changing as the phones never went silent around me. The organisers even used my phone at times (I had my own Bosnian pay as you go SIM card) as they weren´t sure if their phones weren’t bugged. „Bugged by the police?” – „Yes, you never know who they are really working for”. At one point some of the organisers left for the airport to collect an artist who was coming to the festival to stage a performance. A car had followed them. Boba, the girl who remained in the office with me, switched off the lights, I sat down on the floor – just in case. After a number of calls back and forth we learned that they were now safe – they drove back from the airport with a police escort which they finally managed to get. Although offered, I decided not to leave. If they followed after me, they would learn where I´m staying and that place was definitely not safe. Not knowing who was lurking outside and what those people could come up with during the night, I decided to seek protection from a different source. Being a Danish national, I phoned the emergency number of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. About twenty minutes later I got a phone call from the Danish embassy. It turned out to be the ambassador himself. After some negotiations the embassy managed to persuade the Bosnian police to dispatch a police car to the area which was to keep an eye on us all night long. I guess it did, I never saw the actual car but that night will probably go down in my personal history as the longest night I had ever experienced, full of sounds of stopping cars and slammed car doors. At some point toward the morning I finally fell asleep.

When I woke up the next morning, I knew I didn’t want to spend another night in that city. The organisers put me on a plane to Zagreb on Saturday afternoon after a rather remarkable drive through the city, first to my hotel room and then to the airport, which seemed rather surreal and, if anything, a bad reprise of some crap Hollywood film with Svetlana in the front seat trying to hide her face under a hood and me at the back seat constantly looking back. The day had come that I felt I had to be airlifted out of Sarajevo, just like those people in the early spring of 1992 as the Bosnian war was becoming a reality. The only difference being that there now wasn’t a war or any shelling or shooting and the other people at the airport didn’t seem to be in distress. This was pure terrorism and not many ordinary people in Sarajevo seemed to care. I left but the local organisers stayed and so did thousands of Bosnian queers, many of them too afraid to leave their houses after what had happened.

One of the parties contesting at the municipal elections in Sarajevo on 5 October, Stranka za BiH or Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina which is led by Haris Silajdžić, one of the three rotating presidents in that country, has the whole city plastered with another set of billboards – these ones read 100% Europe. It is also the same party that has been the most ferocious opponent of Queer Sarajevo Festival publicly. What can I say to this? They probably mean 100% Europe as of 1933 when Hitler was democratically elected as Germany´s chancellor. There is, of course, no connection between people governing Sarajevo and Bosnia, people like Haris Silajdžić, and Europe as of 2008. Whichever road to Europe these people believe they are travelling, it hasn´t existed for decades and at the moment it certainly resembles the Old Bridge in Mostar after it was blown up in 1993. I sincerely hope the events from last week will serve as an eye-opener to the larger public.

Queer Sarajevo Festival was opened on 24 September but it was never closed. All the performances, film screenings and other events never took place and are still waiting for their audience. An audience which is there and which will not disappear, no matter how much certain parts of the Bosnian society may wish them away. It is therefore up to the Bosnian public, but also the international community, to make sure that these events DO take place and a significant part of this EU candidate member state's population can feel free from both the state and private terrorism which characterises the country at the moment.

Here is some footage made by Croatian TV on the opening night

Behikvot Hahatiha Hahasera (The Quest for the Missing Piece, Israel, 2007)

Director: Oded Lotan.

Producer: Claudia Levin.




Male circumcision as a concept was virtually unknown to me until my early twenties when I crossed some American guys' path in Europe and learned to my big surprise that a great deal of the planet’s male population had their willies snipped after they were born. The whole idea of having your most private organ mutilated for (as I was told then) hygienic reasons only incensed my imagination and produced horrific images of sharp scissors swaying at my manhood like a set of ruthless shark jaws. I’ve never been particularly squeamish but this concept just seemed too disconcerting. The premise of Oded Lotan’s documentary „The Quest for the Missing Piece” is exactly the opposite – when he moves to Germany he soon realises that most guys there have something he hardly knew existed, namely foreskins. He then decides to set out on a quest to find his missing piece – the foreskin which was taken away from him shortly after birth.

Oded Lotan is a Jewish gay man who lives in Israel with his German husband. The main reason why it is possible for a gay couple to live openly in Israel, especially in Tel-Aviv is that despite all, this is a secular, modern society and no beard-shaking ultra-Orthodox rabbies have the power to prevent secular Jews from living accoding to their sexuality or their beliefs. It is explained early on in the film that circumcision is an ancient ritual which is a commandment from God in Judaism, thus establishing a link between God and the circumcised (no hygienic reasons are given in any holy Jewish scripts, I must add). So why does an overwhelming majority of people in Israel who are not particularly religious still practice this old tradition? The answer is simple: everybody else does it, it’s a Jewish tradition – brit milah or the Convent of Judaism. If it isn’t done, your friends and relatives will be all over you accusing you of all possible sins, so it’s easier just to fit in, not to stand out. The film even shows a couple of immigrants from Russia in their mid-twenties serving in the Israeli army who’ve had enough of being ridiculed by their comrades in arms and decide to go through with the procedure just to fit in and be accepted as real Jews. That’s what one can call integration by circumcision!

There is, however, resistance to this ancient practice also among Jews in Israel. The documentary takes us to an almost secret meeting of a group of people who call themselves Parents for Intact Children which consists of parents who have refused to circumcise their children as well as pregnant women seeking advice on how to avoid the procedure for their soon-to-be- born ones. The arguments voiced here echo the statement made by the American Medical Association in 1999 – the procedure is medically unnecessary, it inflicts pain and is done without the child’s consent and therefore not recommended as long as it isn’t intended as therapeutic. But there is obviously such peer pressure in the Israeli society that these people still find that they have to hide away from the public eye in order to discuss these matters.

It is evident that circumcision in Jewish culture isn’t just a question of removing a piece of skin from your penis. Brit milah is a tribal ritual which puts you into the fold of the chosen people. It brandishes you, if I may say so, as a Jew. The psychologist who is interviewed by Oded Lotan only confirms it – you may remove all the external signs of Jewdom but you will never be able to restore your foreskin, you become a Jew for life. Since circumcision here is a question of identity, another question begs to be asked – when so much of your Jewish heritage and identity-bearing culture is so rigid and defies modern, secular logic, is it possible to be a gay Jew, i.e. to have both your Jewish and gay identities at the same time? Would Oded and his beloved circumcise their children if they ever were to have any? But our inquisitor only asks the questions and makes no attempt to answer them, thus leaving all doors open.

"The Quest for the Missing Piece" is a rather humorous, semi-animated documentary which touches upon subjects which aren’t in themselves perceived as particularly light-hearted. It deserves credit for attempting to create a debate both in Israel and among the Jewish diaspora worldwide about modernity versus tradition in the Jewish culture and putting question marks to the notion of only one proper Jewish identity. As the film isn’t very graphic in its depiction of the circumcision rituals, only the most squeamish of you should skip it – for the most part it's kosher!