Polari has selected three more exceptional films from this year’s Fringe! festival that you do not want to miss…

One Zero One: The Story of Cybersissy & BayBjayne [World Premiere]
Dir: Tim Leinhard
Sat April 13, 8.45pm • Arcola Tent, 24 Ashwin Street
Germany: 90 min • Tim Leinhard  • 2012
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This 90-minutes long documen-tale tells a true story about a most unique friendship, about survival at the edge of society and about the final triumph over mishaps and obstacles that seemed to have one marked for a life in the shadows.

It follows a portion of the lives of 33-year-old Maroccaine-German Mourad and 48-year-old Dutch Antoine, two drag-performers, better known as CYBERSISSY and BAYBJANE, two otherworldly spirits, who light up the stages of the international party-circuit with their boundless creativity and their well calculated freakish-ness. Trippy and totally unmissable!

Followed by a Q&A with director Tim Lienhard and the film’s protagonists Mourad and Antoine!

Chuppan Chupai (Hide & Seek) [UK Premiere]
Dir: Saad Khan & Saadat Munir
Sun April 14, 6.00pm • School of Fringe! Cardinal Pole Catholic School
Denmark: 68 min • Khan Munir  • 2013
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The film shows the secret, yet open lives of a group of Pakistani sexual minorities, raising questions about transgender activism, religion, underground gay life, social acceptance and collective familial customs of transgenders in urban Pakistan.

We follow Neeli Rana: a transgender activist, whose courage and persistence made the apex court of Pakistan to grant basic civil rights in favor of “the third gender,”. Kami: a fearless and flamboyant boy, who dares to speak about his out gay life criticizing those who live with a secret. Waseem: a veteran dancing boy, who struggles with his sexuality and chooses to denounce it due to familial pressure and Jenny: a transgendered and a recently castrated college student who bitterly regrets her transition.

Venus In The Garden [UK Premiere]
Dir: Telémachos Alexiou
Sun April 14, 8.30pm • Aubin Cinema 64 Redchurch Street
Greece/Germany: 63 min • Chocolate Grinder Films  • 2011
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It’s a mid-summer heatwave and two male prostitutes, Nikos and Alain, and a female pimp, Monica, get tangled in a peculiar relationship after meeting in a dark street called Poutana. They fall in love, play with guns and talk about card games, money and theatre castings. Is this a game of role play that they’ve invented to pass time in a remote, empty summer house? Have they been reading Jean Genet? Whether a mirror image of the characters’ reality or an elliptic depiction of their distorted, dream-like perception of it, Venus in the Garden (I Afroditi Stin Avli), juxtaposes disparate literary and art references to lead its isolated characters towards dissolution. And yet, in its strange language, it presents this dissolution as a triumph.

The screening will be followed by a talk between film scholar Sulgi Lie and director Telémachos Alexiou.

Tickets for the festival are now on sale. Free events and workshops are ticketed so book in advance to avoid disappointment. Go to the Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest website and reserve your tickets now.