The world is on fire and the feeling of impending doom lingers but there is a glimmer of hope in the guise of sumptuous queer utopias and chaotic anarchic dystopias. Whether you are seeking eternity in a pink cloud or having a surreal fever-dream in an industrial estate, queertopias will lead you on a journey beyond this realm and into the joy and chaos of possibilities. Uplands Utopia IOU | dir. Louise Ashcroft | UK 2021 | 22' Queer cartoon characters manifested from the trash of a North London industrial estate. A pandemic fever-dream that pokes at all our capitalist neuroses: productivity, overwhelm, loneliness and excess. Tracing Utopia | dirs. Catarina de Sousa, Nick Tyson | Portugal, USA, 2021 | 26 An odyssey into the dreams of a group of queer teens in New York City as they envision a better world. Through a collaborative manifesto that weaves pasts and futures together, they imagine the possibilities in community spaces and online. Fly Away With Me | dirs. Maude Matton, Amina Mohamed, Nikki Shaffeeullah | Canada | 10 A humble servant of surveillance obediently monitors the activity of the prison enclosure. Track the path and life lessons of a young drone fumbling to do right by her lineage. Be Trans do Crime | dir. Julia Konarska | UK 2021 | 5 Sarah Jane Baker is a graffiti artist, a violinist, an author, a sex worker and an icon of the anarchist movement in London. She is also the longest sentence-serving trans prisoner in the UK. Commander 2019 | dir. Aitan Ebrahimoff | UK 2019 | 5 Set in a timespace where historical past meets speculative future, Colonel Pike encounters hybrid beings (animal-human) in a shingle interzone. Paralysed by naivety Pike is alienated and becomes the subject of perverse ritual. Last Romantics of the World | dir. Henrique Arruda | Brazil 2020 | 23' 2050. The world as we know it is about to be ended by a pink cloud. Far away from the urban chaos, Pedro and Miguel seek only eternity.
