Trailer
Life Is Not a Competition, But I'm Winning
Sat
23
Sat 23 Nov 9:00 PM
ACMI Cinema 2
Wheelchair
Allocated Seating
Unclassified 15+
79 Mins | Germany November
AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
With prismatic filtered light and stunning widescreen shots, Julia Fuhr Mann’s experimental essay on the “marginalised bodies” of sport, in this case track, compels the viewer to pay attention to these bodies in motion and to look back with them into the fraught history of gender in athletics. As Mann’s queer athlete travellers move from stadiums like the ‘original’ at Athens to the enigmatic and controversial 1936 Berlin Olympic Stadium, the hidden histories of “divergent and ambiguous bodies” is revealed. The time travelling queer athletes are inserted into newsreel and archival footage, reclaiming sporting heroes who’d as good as been erased, their accomplishments wiped from history: people like Lina Radke and Stella Walsh, and contemporary athletes like Annet Negesa, who was forced to have surgery, and trans marathon runner Amanda Reiter, with her experiences of discrimination and manipulations endured from officials and athletics administrators. The message is timely after the incidents of gender-diverse phobia at this year's Summer Olympics in Paris. Gender-positive and affirming, Mann’s cinematic discourse looks to a progressive and inclusive future for competitive athletics.
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November