program 2: Music/animation

In a dystopian present, exiled Kung Fu master Big Sister 13 leads a crew of Trans and Queer fighters who reclaim a forgotten zone and transform it into the Martial Forest—a secret training ground where care is as powerful as combat. Together, they fight to survive rising violence and build a future rooted in chosen family and trans resistance.

https://www.thefirstkissofthenight.com

From a colorful house party, to an amazing pool party, to a moving underwater scene, this music video takes viewers through the multitudes of emotions and experiences that come with being transexual/ nonbinary/ gender nonconforming in the world today.
Performing to a Sesame Street song from my childhood, I am reimagining what a “Monster in the Mirror” could mean for me in this moment. Part emboldening of a theatrical younger self and part joyful resistance, this performance art piece celebrates the existence of trans and nonbinary people through recruiting my fellow monsters.

Directed by queer singer-songwriter Tom Goss, “I Feel Like Throwing Up” by Ryan Cassata is a visceral, defiant, and ultimately hopeful visual journey through illness, identity, and empowerment. Written during Cassata’s ongoing battle with Lyme disease and co-infections, the song and video channel the raw intensity of that experience into something transformative — linking personal pain with the broader struggle of trans resilience in today’s hostile political climate.

Starring the legendary Shea Diamond as a radiant, take-no-prisoners superhero, the video features a cast of BIPOC youth actors and unapologetically centers trans joy, resistance, and chosen family. In a striking showdown, our hero faces off against a MAGA mob, radiating power, pride, and the kind of love that builds unshakable community.

At a time when young trans people across the country are being targeted and made to feel isolated, “I Feel Like Throwing Up” stands as a beacon — a reminder that they’re not alone, and that fierce, vibrant community is not just a dream, but a reality we’re building together.

Sam’s search for identity gets interrupted by a mysterious neighbourhood fox. Together they embark on a magical journey to the attic to discover the surprising things they might have in common, and how to celebrate the ways in which they differ.

Since the ancient world, Creation Stories have been told to help us not simply imagine the way the world was formed, but our divine place within it. Blending animation, poetry, music, stories rooted in various cultures and live elements, A New Creation Story celebrates Black Trans community and retells the making of the Universe — taking us on a journey from before the first molecule was crafted until the precise moment where everything has truly come to be.

An alien student enrolled in an exchange program comes to Earth to experience a real life human school. However, upon arrival they are quick to be othered by the terrible, horrifying beasts known as middle schoolers. An unsuccessful attempt at fitting in later, they are approached by a lone boy that knows exactly how it feels to fall outside of the norm.

MAXA, The Maddest Woman in the World’ is an epic rock horror musical capturing the life story of Paula Maxa, the famed French tragedienne who died thousands of deaths for the patrons who haunted the infamously bloody theater known as the Grand Guignol. In 1940’s France, it becomes Paula’s strange destiny to carry the very same horrors of the Grand Guignol into her private life. Only then does she confront the very night that changed her existence forever. The story is a heartfelt, shrewd examination of the timeless struggle between trauma and healing, exemplified by bookwriter and lyricist Mika Kauffman’s wordplay of levity and macabre, as well as composer Thomas Jacobsen’s complex, sweeping orchestrations with a contemporary electronic score.

“Strange Power” features Paula Maxa as she romanticizes and reflects on her morbid curiosities born from traumatic events that escalated her rise to fame, paying homage to the “poor witches of the middle ages” who burned at the stake before her.

“This song is about taking the things that have brought you down and dancing on their graves.” – Daniella Caggiano
www.maxamusical.com

Sher is a transgender superheroine, guardian of the trans* and queer community. Not all of Sher’s missions consist in defeating supervillains; some are more mundane, at times ridiculous, but still with the support and help of her sisters in the times of need in mind.

We witness an unlikely encounter between a sledgehammer-wielding queer dancer and two tea-drinking elderly guests at a kitsch resort. The guests feel moved to participate in the dancer’s porcelain and norm-shattering performance. The music video encourages us all to join in.

Dance: Brødskive (Jens Martin Hartvedt Arvesen)