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FILMFEST DRESDEN: Here to stay: Queer Gazes from Germany

I vividly remember the day in autumn 2014, when I saw a group of maybe 10 people huddled together in the rain on a public square in Dresden demonstrating against the so-called ‘Islamization of the Occident.’ It was one of the first outings of Pegida, a xenophobic organisation that would go on so-called ‘walks’ through the city every Monday. I also remember thinking that considering Germany’s past, they would soon disappear. Barely two months later, 25,000 people ‘went on a walk’ through Dresden shouting xenophobic paroles. Around the same time, the newly founded right-wing party AfD also started to gain momentum, and the sentiment in Germany slowly started to change. Just 10 years later, in 2024, the AfD—a party considered by court judgement a suspected right-wing extremist in the federal state of Saxony, of which Dresden is the capital—is on the cusp of winning the regional elections here on September 1. This would mean that an outwardly right-wing party could govern a German state parliament for the first time since the end of WWII.

Pirate Boys

Pol Merchan, Germany, experimental, documentary, 2018, 13'

DogFriend

Maissa Lihedheb, Germany, fiction, 2022, 19'