Fridae

A family dinner and a crowd of Taylor Swift fans offer two very different places to look for belonging. Both feature in the Hawaiʻi International Film Festival’s Queer Shorts programme, which brings eight films together in a 91-minute screening.

Edwin Lai’s As It Should Be begins with a homecoming. Megan returns from overseas for a Lunar New Year reunion dinner in Hong Kong, carrying something she hasn’t found the words to say. HIFF’s synopsis places her among familiar traditions and people who love her. It leaves the unspoken matter unresolved in its description.

Megan has come home, but there is still something she cannot say at the table. That may be a familiar predicament for anyone who has rehearsed a conversation with relatives and then put it off. Lai’s Hong Kong film runs for 12 minutes, in Mandarin and Cantonese.

Ramona Diaz’s Sheesh, a Taylor Love Story moves into public performance. The 16-minute documentary centres on Filipino Taylor Swift impersonator Taylor Sheesh. The festival describes fandom becoming a space for joy, self-expression and belonging through queer performance.

There’s a useful contrast between these two catalogue descriptions: a person finding words within a family, and a performer making room for expression in front of a crowd. Queer connection can involve the people who have known us longest, or people brought together by a shared enthusiasm. A programme that holds both invites a wider conversation about where people feel recognised.

This is a programme preview, based on the festival’s published synopses.

Queer Shorts is scheduled at Consolidated Theatres Kahala in Honolulu on 22 October at 8pm and 25 October at 8.15pm, local time. Check the festival’s current listing before booking.