BOY

Farahnaz is 13 years old and was raised as a Bacha Posh in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. According to this cultural practice, kids considered as girls are dressed as boys from their birth or a young age, and raised in this social “function”. Farahnaz consciously lives with the freedoms and duties of a boy in a society dominated by patriarchal traditions –from playing football to doing the groceries for the sister who is a single parent. The documentary film BOY tells Farahnaz’ story and parallelly follows a 24-year-old Afghan in London who looks back on her childhood, similarly determined by this tradition.

German-Iranian filmmaker Yalda Afsah explores how space can be cinematically constructed as her films profoundly explore the interface between reality and staging. This formal characteristic of Afsah’s work is conceptually mirrored in her recent portraits of human-animal relationships that reveal an ambivalence between care and control, physical strength and broken will, instinct and manipulation. Despite their documentary focus, her films and video installations seem to capture symbiotic choreographies on screen —equally portraying and fictionalising their human and non-human protagonists. Afsah has presented her work at various exhibitions and festivals including Manifesta 13, Locarno Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Berlinische Galerie, Institute of Contemporary Arts London, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein and recent solo exhibitions at JOAN Los Angeles, Between Bridges Berlin, Kunstverein München and Halle für Kunst Steiermark. Since 2019 she has been a mentor for the Berlin Program for Artists (BPA) and recently started a position as a professor for time-based media at HFBK Hamburg.

Ginan Seidl has been working as a freelance visual artist, filmmaker and director of photography since 2012. In addition to creating feature-length artistic films, her medium is video installation. Currently, she is pursuing her doctorate in artistic research at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. She is a member of the FILZ e.V. collective (Film Initiative Leipzig) and collaborates extensively with the rampe:aktion collective. She co-curates the expanded media festival paradoks in Leipzig, with members of FILZ e.V. and Gegenkino.

Boy (2015), digital video, 30 minutes. Courtesy of the artists.

Part of a screening program of works by LGBTI+ artists and of queer creations.

Next film: Suspended (2019), İz Öztat & Ann Antidote.

KIRIK’s 2023/24 programs are supported by the SAHA Sustainability Fund.