Caught (Caer)
Screening + Q&A: 9/15 (Thu) 8:30PM at Firehouse: DCTV's Cinema for Documentary Film
Virtual streaming available in the U.S. from 9/16 12:00 AM EDT - 9/29 11:59 PM EDT.
Not sure what tickets/passes to get? Check our Festival Pass page.
Description
Dir. by Nicola Mai
USA/UK | 2021 | Experimental Documentary | 61 min
Caught (Caer) is a documentary using fictional and observational methods to express the struggles for justice of trans Latina women working in the NYC sex industry. The film was made through the collaboration with the TRANSgrediendo Intercultural Collective, a grass-root association defending the rights of trans Latina migrant women in Queens, New York City. It is also a tribute to Lorena Borjas, the mother of Latin trans women living in Queens, who was one of the first victims of COVID-19 in New York in March 2020. The story and the roles in the film were written and played by members of the TRANSgrediendo Intercultural Collective who were also involved in the editing of the film.
Director's Bio
Nicola Mai (he/him) is a filmmaker, ethnographer and sociologist. His films focus on the experiences and representations of migrants working in the sex industry. They aim to bring their complex decisions, priorities, and trajectories at the centre of public debates increasingly framing them as either victims or perpetrators of trafficking thereby ignoring their complex realities and needs.
Inspired by Jean Rouch's ethnofictions, Nicola Mai developed a participatory, creative and collaborative filmmaking methodology transcending the distinction between fiction and non-fiction, participation and observation, knowledge and emotions.
By combining collaborative fictional methodologies and mainstream observational filmmaking his films involve marginalized migrant groups and individuals in the co-creation of self-representations of their complex experiences of self-realization and exploitation in the sex industry.