The Male Beings category offers a space to men and their efforts at self-discovery and breaking down stereotypes about themselves. The selected films are often critical reflections associated with the relationship with one’s surroundings, or the problematic foundations of one’s personal myth and perhaps even the world that created it. In some cases, they provide insights into dark worlds filled with violence and suppressed obsessions.
In the perceptive film Silent Men, the director deliberately tries to openly express his emotions for the first time in his life. The result is both an amusing and a chilling probe into the expectations society places on men and women and the difficulty of overcoming them. The director of G-21 Scenes from Gottsunda returns to his childhood in a Swedish neighbourhood known for crime and gangs in order to empathetically look back on this typically male environment, full of performative violence but also a level of understanding that the seemingly displaced director cannot find anywhere else. Radicalisation is also the theme of the live action film The Quiet Son, in which the protagonist’s son embarks on a journey of right-wing extremism.
Deconstructing male narratives also means approaching film differently as an ideological tool. This is the aim of Caravan, made by the protagonists themselves – Afghan immigrants seeking asylum in Vienna. They use the camera not only to document the everyday, but also as a tool for emancipation.
An almost transgressive look at the decline of men and of an entire society is provided by the unconventional Tedious Days and Nights, which tracks the return of a Chinese poet to his provincial hometown. He finds the environment there in bleak decay, which he further fuels with his immoral behaviour and provocations that exceed levels of tolerance. It is, however, one of the realities of contemporary China, the exploration of which brings unexpected insights into this totalitarian society.
