This film was initially produced on the occasion of Manufacturing of Rights a pluridisciplinary colloquium in Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, 2015. It is the first commission for  the inquiry The Against Nature Journal. 

Deseos / رغبات (Desires) exposes the ways in which medicine, law, religion, and cultural tradition shaped dominant discourses of the gendered and sexual body through the narration of two parallel stories. The first is that of Martina, who lived in Colombia during the late colonial period of the early 19th century. The second is the life of Nour, who lived in Beirut during the late Ottoman Empire. Part documentary and part fiction, the film presents an imaginary correspondence between these women. Separated by geography, culture, and religion they both faced the consequences of engaging in same sex relations and defying gender norms.

The colonial Court prosecuted Martina in 1803 for being a “hermaphrodite” after being accused by her female lover of having an “unnatural” body. Martina was tried in a court of law and ultimately set free after medical doctors appointed by the court were unable to find evidence of her lover’s accusation. This story is documented in the 1803 legal case found in the Archivo General de la Nación in Bogotá, Colombia. Meanwhile in Beirut, Nour married her female lover’s brother after her mother found them making love. Despite the fact that Nour’s story does not occur in a courtroom nor is it found in a legal case, notions of Islamic and late Ottoman laws, cultures, and histories condition her narrative.

FESTIVALS AND SCREENINGS

Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance – ACT 3, Arnolfini, Bristol, 2019
Galeria Varmelho, São Paulo, 2018
Hordaland Art Center, Bergen Norway, 2016
The 11th XPOSED International Queer Film Festival, Berlin, 2016
PPOW Gallery, New York, 2016
Mercer Union, Toronto, 2016
Rotterdam Film Festival, 2016
A Decolonial Atlas: Videos from the Americas 2010-2015,
Something Else – Off Cairo Biennale, 2015
They Will Remember Us in the Future, Academy Gallery, NAA, Sofia, 2015
Molodist, 45th Kiev International Film Festival, 2015
23 Festival Mix Brasil de Cultura da Diversidade, Sao Paulo, 2015
Queer Lisboa 19. Festival Internacional de Queer Cinema, Lisbon, 2015
Mor Charpentier Galerie, Paris, 2015
Göteborg International Biennial of Contemporary Art, 2015
Ashkal Alwan, Beirut, 2015