Review by Beatrice On 27-Jun-2023
Tbilisi, GEORGIA
Archive images, a protest against LGBT, considered the image of shame and bearers of contamination.
The intent is to take them all to an island and exterminate them.
Opponents of gay marriage are on the wrong side of History. The interests of civilization are not served by pushing a love between adults into secrecy.
Already presented at the 71st Berlin International Film Festival, now at the Biografilm Festival in Bologna, it is a documentary that tells the story of Alexander, formerly Sasha, now transgender, still classified as "female" on his passport. Finding a job, when everyone asks for documents, is almost impossible in a reality where this experience must remain secret and hidden because survival is highly risky.
The identity document is about to expire but cannot be renewed, it is better to be a drug addict or a murderer and better to be dead than transgender.
For Mari, Sasha filled every empty space in her life, "he has everything needed to make a woman happy"; one day he told her that his soul was trapped in a body that wasn't his.
Alexander's mother offers them both unconditional love, attention, and care, totally fulfilling despite the social pressures imposed by the local community.
Everyone wonders how it is possible that Mari chose a woman; everyone in the neighborhood knew because their grandmothers were friends, and Mari cannot live in her country because her relatives are looking to kill her.
Sasha/Alexander hasn't seen a doctor in years and proceeds with testosterone injections independently without medical checks.
A small illegal transgender community provides brief indications.
They want to leave their country to achieve a normal life, but they need money, and Mari has decided to become a surrogate mother with all the difficulties it entails, including the difficulty of feeling a life inside her and the challenging awareness of having to part with it.
They manage to leave for Belgium and receive adequate healthcare for a hormone treatment finally under medical supervision.
They want to leave the world of illegality even if obtaining asylum seems very difficult.
Their love, full of sweetness, care, and understanding, has a single goal: to escape to survive and out of fear of being killed.
In Belgium, there is no such danger, but Alexander and Mari soon realize they are still disapproved of, seen as a burden to a foreign country that has to bear these difficulties.
Extremely effective photography, with shots that poetically portray the miserable and disadvantaged reality of their Georgian country of origin, where members of the LGBT community do not deserve to live.
Therefore, the survival mentioned in the title is the primary necessity imposed in the lives of the two young people, which the director records, pursues, photographs, and listens to with great attention, commitment, and sensitivity.
A woman may dedicate herself to women because a man has disappointed her, but sometimes the man disappoints her because she was looking for a woman in him.
27-Jun-2023 by Beatrice