SEX WORK Shorts Program (66 min)
These shorts point both a documentary lens and create fictional narratives on the lives of sex workers. This program include works made by sex workers about the work they do.
Saturday, September 8 – 3 pm – Grand Illusion Cinema
Films in this shorts program include:
TOM X ** US Premiere**
Directed by Arthur Barrow
France, 2018 (15 min)
Tom, an asocial camera operator on a porn set, has a hallucination while filming the female star – she’s alone sitting on a deserted beach. Obsessed by his vision, Tom will do everything he can to understand why the hallucination keeps happening.
Director Bio:
Arthur’s love for cinema started with little plastic bricks when he was ten, with LEGO stop-motion shorts films. As he grew up, he played saxophone for ten years and opened up to other forms of arts, like theater. Since then, he tries to convey through his films the complexity of human relations, always with a little tinge of fantasy. He loves talking about people.
THAT’S WHY I LIKE IT 
Directed by Sydney Southam
Canada, 2018 (19 min)
A culmination of the filmmaker’s work as an artist, filmmaker, professional pole dancer and stripper, THAT’S WHY I LIKE IT, stems from the director’s own experience working in a strip club. Juxtaposing interviews with exotic dancers together with images of their twerking bodies, you’ll be hypnotized by this thought piece about consensual objectification.
Director Bio:
Sydney Southam is a visual artist, filmmaker, performance artist, and professional pole dancer. Her current work explores the backstage and domestic lives of exotic dancers and how their private and professional lives are defined through ideas of Feminism, objectification, power, and love. Sydney is one of the founding members of Vancouver-based Iris Film Collective, and the curator of the potluck dinner and artist talk series Special Sunday Supper. She graduated from Central Saint Martins with a BA Fine Art First Class Honours in 2011 and from the University of Toronto with a BA in English, Philosophy and Cinema Studies in 2007.
DANNY WYLDE 
Directed by Matthew Kaundart
USA, 2015 (3 min)
Inspired by an essay of former porn star, Danny Wylde, this film explores the darker, less talked about side of the porn industry.
Director Bio:
Born and raised in Fort Smith, Arkansas, Matthew Kaundart is an LA-based filmmaker working in both narrative and documentary, as well as a graduate of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His films often feature an experimental spirit and have screened worldwide, including at the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival, the American Documentary Film Festival, Outfest, and the Museum of Photographic Arts. His work has also been featured in publications such as VICE, PAPER, Somesuch, LA Weekly, and more.
FUNKY LOLA 
Directed by Julio Mas Alcaraz
Spain, no completion year in submission (15 min)
70 year-old Isabel lives alone in her small apartment. Her son, who is serving time in jail, has a pile of debt. Frustrated by the obstacles she comes across, Isabel makes a bold and surprising decision.
Director Bio:
Julio Mas Alcaraz is a poet, filmmaker, producer and economist. He has directed several short films (participating in more than 100 film festivals and holding several awards), has published five books of poetry, being a finalist for the National Poetry Award. He holds a MA in Filmmaking from the London Film School as well as an International MBA from IE. He has participated in master classes with Victor Erice, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, Abbas Kiarostami, David Lynch, Albert Maysles, García Márquez, Charlie Kaufman and Arriaga.
PIETY ** US Premiere** 
Directed by Naya Pascual (aka “The Outdoor Cat”)
Spain/Germany, 2017 (14 min)
Rodolfa and Maria Antonieta, two Latin sexworkers with a passion for spliffs and trap music, hang around an abandoned airport in Berlin. Things get interesting when their colleague Asuncion suddenly appears with the corpse of a dead client.
Director Bio:
Naya Pascual is part of the underground queer scene of Barcelona and Berlin. His artworks are usually poetry, photography or films. He started to do some pos-porn movies with some friends in 2015. Together, they created a artist collective called MinusIsValido. They all are sexworkers, performers and filmakers who express their ideas and passions through art.
