Our resolution for 2020 is to show you even more of the world's treasures.
We’re not going to explain why: we assume that if you like Supamodu, you also don’t like the white supremacy.
How do we celebrate the New Year’s Eve at Supamodu? We eat Russian salad Olivier and Korean spicy tofu skins, Australian macadamia cookies with Argentinian dulce de leche, drink French champagne and listen to Burundian hip-hop. And then we wake up in 2020 to tell all about it to our readers.
But before we can start 2020, we’d like to recap the last articles of 2019, because they taught us many important things that we’ll be using in 2020 to make ourselves and the world better.
Here are the places whose cultures we visited in the past two weeks:
We started in the 90s Philippines, and boy did it feel good to watch a rom-com in our big boots and barrettes and not have to cringe at the patriarchy every 5 seconds. Kudos to queer Filipina auteur Sam Lee for reclaiming the genre: from her we learned to always find room for improvement.
FROM PHILIPPINES:
A Lighthearted Lesbian Romcom With Serious Politics: ‘Billie and Emma’, dir. Samantha Lee, 2018
A queer romance is blooming at an all-girls catholic school in rural Philippines in the 90s—but pregnancy puts the relationship, as well as the girls’ agencies, to the test
Then we traveled to Costa Rica for another delight from a female filmmaker: a quiet, but haunting and psychologically complex story of a woman who struggles for air in the bosom of her beautiful and beloved family. From the heroine, Isa, we learned to respectfully hold our own.
FROM COSTA RICA and SPAIN:
Feminism’s Quiet Battle in ‘The Awakening of the Ants’, dir. Antonella Sudasassi Furniss, 2019
A woman from a traditional Costa Rican family doesn’t want to have another baby. A simple decision turns into an act of defiance in a smart, lyrical portrayal of Latina womanhood
Meanwhile, in Namibia, we saw a woman make beautiful art deeply rooted in her country’s traditions, in response to the othering that she and other kids born into war displacement feel in many countries across the African continent—and elsewhere, too. From Tuli Mekondjo we learned to make space for ourselves, no matter what.
FROM NAMIBIA:
Namibian Artist Tuli Mekondjo Creates a Space Where Her Fractured Identity Can Be Whole Again
Born in exile during the country’s war for independence, the interdisciplinary artist seeks to find ways to belong and to explore trauma through works of striking beauty and proximity to the earth
We saw men struggle, too: for instance, the Icelandic police chief Ingimundur had to battle disintegration in the aftermath of his wife’s sudden death. Devastating stuff—we’d have winter in our hearts if not for the warming performance by the littlest supporting actor, Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir. From her we learned that deliverance is in innocence.
Nothing could save us from crying when we learned how Bolivian filmmaker Rodrigo Bellott lost his partner to suicide, and how he changed the LGBTQIA landscape in his home country with the fruit of his grief. From him we learned that our pain can be healing for others.
FROM BOLIVIA and UNITED STATES:
Pain Is Stronger Than Homophobia—‘Tu Me Manques’, dir. Rodrigo Bellott, 2019
A father seeks to get to know his dead gay son, as the son’s ex creates a play that will change the country in a nesting doll of autobiographical narrative and fiction from Bolivia’s leading director
After taking in so much international suffering, we needed a drink. And we got it in Monaco while listening to some duck-quacking breakcore. Who would have thought that the country known for its bougie lifestyle is also a hot spot for avant-garde music? From the Menegasque band we learned that intelligence is of no use without a little fun.
An avant-garde space adventure into the music of the 20th century from Monégasque metalheads who made a music video using Artificial Intelligence
In Macedonia, we met the Yöruk people: Turkic nomads. One of them, Hatidze, a resilient, charismatic beekeeper has been charming people all over the world: 2020 will show if she will get the filmmakers an Oscar for the best documentary, too. From Hatidze we learned that there are still ways to be one with nature.
FROM MACEDONIA & YÖRUK PEOPLE:
A luminous documentary about a female beekeeper, who seems to have found harmony with nature, becomes an allegory for humanity when extraneous forces threaten the fragile ecosystem
The year ended in Mexico, where a Singaporean film-director invited us into the fragile world of an HIV-positive male rape survivor, Erick. As we followed him on the thorny path of dealing with PTSD, we learned from Erick that no trauma and no stigma can define us, but bravery and honesty will.
Erick was raped by a group of men when he was 17. A decade later he decided to get stigma and trauma out of his life. A refreshing, heart-wrenching documentary on an immensely important subject
— The Supamodu team
