photo by Adrian Yu Mitomi/Schwules Museum

Short Documentary Film
20 Minutes
English, Spanish
2022-24 Berlin

Glowing in the Darkness: on Resilience, Remembrance, and the Transformative Power of Unity

Fellow members of the Berlin queer community mourn together the loss of their dead friends due to substance abuse and the mental health crisis as well as the loss of urban safe spaces in general. By sharing personal materials, stories, and honest criticism about the club scene, working on this film becomes a means of healing for this group of friends. Resembling glow-in-the-dark fungi, they radiate light together as a network of support and care, they transform dead bodies and memories into a collective structure that sustains future living.

- Berlin Art Link, March 2024 : Interview with Sarnt Utamachote
- Siegessäule, März 2024 : Unsichtbare Epidemie / über den Film



Featuring: RTALIN (1989-2023), marum, Andre Fau, René Bertune, Katharina "Tinka“ Frommann, RTALIN, Orion Dahling, Andrei Mihu, Diana Kleimenova and more

Production: Klaus Salminen, Sarnt Utamachote
Direction: Sarnt Utamachote
Camera: Julian Curico
Camera Assistance: Nicky Miller, Jessica Sattabongkot
Sound Recording: Dr Rey
Sound Recording Assistance: Adrienne Teicher, Katrina Singleton
Line Production: Klaus Salminen,Céline Rodrigues Monteiro
Set Photography: Ceren Saner
Set-Awareness and Ethical Guideline:  Céline Rodrigues Monteiro. Christine Paulus
Documentary Treatment: Sarnt Utamachote, Kareem Baholzer
Mycologist Consultant: Alessandro Volpato

Editing: Sarnt Utamachote
Editing Assistance: Ygor Gama
Sound Design: Pussy Ranz, Dr Rey
Sound and Music Mastering: Dr Rey (U70 Studios)
Colorgrading/DCP: Sally Shamas
Title, Credits and Poster Design: Alexander Rolfsen,
Featured Music: Deepneue, Kei Watanabe, RTALIN

FESTIVALS

• Dokfest Munich 2022 / Dok.Composition Award

• NEBULAE Project Selection Award 2022
• 74th Berlinale, Forum Expanded 2024 / World Premiere
• 37th European Media Arts Festival 2024, Osnabrück
• 2nd Sunny Bunny Queer Film Festival, Kyiv Ukraine / International Premiere
• 18th XPOSED Queer Film Festival Berlin
• 24th Berliner Kurzfilmrolle 2024 in Radioeins Freiluftkino, Berlin
• 2nd Anafi International Film Festival 2024, Anafi Greece / Best Audience Award
• 6th Whole United Queer Summer Festival 2024
• 1st Thailand LGBT+ Film and TV Festival, Bangkok / National Competition - Special Mention Award
• 28th Queer Lisboa 2024 International Queer Film Festival, Portugal / International Competition
• Kinofest (German Film Week) 2024 at Goethe Institut Philippines and Thailand
• 35th Hamburg International Queer Film Festival
• 68th BFI London Film Festival 2024 / Short Film Competition
• Balance Club Culture Festival Leipzig 2024
• 40th Interfilm Short Film Festival Berlin 2024 / Documentary Competition
• 41st Kasseler Dokfest 2024 / Short Film Competition
• KuirFest Pink Life Film Festival Turkey 2025
• Pinx Queer Film Festival Ghent 2025
• 25th Glasgow Short Film Festival 2025

What does it mean to listen while being vulnerable? Taking the concept "music as a gift", four Berlin-based migrant queer musicians surprised their close friends or relatives with a special song, which then triggered a moment of deep appreciation between them. This film documents that process of them opening up, becoming vulnerable and letting go - with conversations about their marginalized kinship, trust, fluidity and fragility of life. Together they find comfort and "reverberations" (physical phenomenon) of their sounds in each other.



In this film I found peace and solace in these people's act of listening. Coming from my background in music video and media content, this film is dedicated to the mostly fragile queer beings in Berlin - with whom I'm close friend with. It regards few aspects of collective healing and belonging, which I believe are potentials of queer friendship. Working with languages which are not my mother tongues, this is a challenging project which forced me to think about how to represent such polyvocal or diverse perspectives, beyond those of my "birth country" and beyond any specific identities.

Festivals/screening:
- Doc ‘n Roll London 2022
- Soundwatch Music Film Festival Berlin 2022
- Kasseler Dokfest 2022 (German Premiere)
- Outfest Fusion 2023 (North American Premiere)
- Lichter Filmfest Frankfurt 2023
- Rice and Roots Asian Festival Cologne 2023
- Xposed Queer Film Festival Berlin 2023


Credits:
Protagonists: Folly Ghost, Sanni Est, Nansea (Marek Pólgesek), Radoslaw Pólgesek, Naari, Kei Watanabe

Camera: Sarnt Utamachote
Sound recordig: Katrina Singleton, Rocket Loam, Kareem Baholzer
Bee farm: Nadja Wrona, Silke Meyer
Film equipment: Klaus Salminen (Nordic Media House), 25P Cine Support Berlin, Seeyourent Berlin
Location assistance: Aleksandr Lange, Ragil Huda
Transportation: Kareem Sarfoh, Adrian Bang

Editing: Sarnt Utamachote
Editing assistance: Ygor Gama, Cécile Tollu-Polonowski
Sound design: Takuro Sakamoto
Sound mix: Dr Rey (Uferlos Studio)
Colorgrading: Agustin Melfi
Graphic design: Alexander Rolfsen
Studio recording/sound engineering: Dr Rey

original soundtracks:
Folly Ghost "Music is a gift", 2021
Nansea "Give your gift to the world", 2021
Naari "Desert Moon", 2021
Kei Watanabe "Postcard", 2021

under mentorship of Cécile Tollu-Polonowski 2021

supported by Xposed Short Film fund 2020 (winner), Nautilus Houseboat GmbH

Courtesy of Sarnt Utamachote Productions, Berlin 2021/22

Short Film (English/Italian/Vietnamese), 2019-2020, Berlin

Interview with The New Current (Papaya Rocks Film Festival) Conversation with Thuy Trang Nguyen (Elsewhere Cinema Club)


Marriage, especially between LGBT+ persons, becomes the most common means to secure one's place i.e. one's "possible future" in another country. However, this leads to the clash of differences - between two person; the inequalities and the conflicts of powers, found in their private sphere.

This simple story within one household - about spatial territories, gastronomic practices, personal memories, camouflaged identities and the coercive need to "integrate" into the dominant host culture - offers a quirky means of political resistance.


Festivals/screening
- OutFest Fusion LA 2021
- Seoul Queer Week 2021
- Xposed Queer Film Festival Berlin 2021 / Xposed x Lecken Berlin 2022
- Reelout Kingston Queer Film Festival 2021
- Papaya Rocks Film Festival London 2021
- Queer East Film Festival London 2021
- Queer Asia Film Festival London 2021
- CinemAsia at Amsterdam Pride 2022
- Gorki Queer Week Berlin 2022 “In Exile”
- Xposed x Lecken film screening (Tag der Klubkultur) Berlin 2022






Producer/Writer/Director/Editor: Sarnt Utamachote
Cast: Anh Kiet Le, Jacopo Garfagnoli
Camera: Tim Strecker
Director's Assistant: Pavel Pavlov
Lighting: Peter Bromme
Sound Recorder: Takuro Sakamoto
Driver: Adrian Despeyroux
Sound Designer: Takuro Sakamoto
Music: XRCOMA (Tommaso Lapiana / Michelangelo De Cia)
(Props) Graphic Design: Alex Rolfsen
(Props) Management: Sarnt Utamachote
(Props) Consultant: Emanuele Crotti
(Props) Featured Photograph: Jiet Wong

Editing Studio: Klaus Salminen
Shooting Location: Salber Lee Williams, Pierre Depaz, Max Fowler

Thanks: Dieu Hao Do, Tanya Luechapatanaporn

I Am Not Your Mother

       

where the colonizer undresses her, the native’s nakedness stares back at him both as the defiled image of his creation and as the indifferent gaze that says, “there was nothing - no secret - to be unveiled underneath my clothes. That secret is your phantasm”
(Rey Chow, Writing Diaspora: Tactics of Intervention in Contemporary Cultural Studies, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1993, pp. 52)


Sacred Beings” Panel Discussion (EN), Review by Mark Williams (Circuit) at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020


Queer Against The Norm (Dutch), Review by Dana Linssen (NRC)
at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020


The touristic voyage gaze does not only create an object but also implies the desires and longings of the subject who stares and grasps. The westerners journey to know about oneself becomes a search for a counter-narrative where the new ‘orient’ is believed to provide the answer to lost origins and a shelter from problems.

In doing so they have appropriated the notion of ‘collective’ and ‘native’ and obscure the damages caused by imperialist attempts at colonization and power exploitation. Many do not recognize the lifestyles of non-westerns who do not submit to western standards with regard to fashion, self-narratives and occupied space. Many expect non-westerns to be passive and modest victims, available to offer them care and a sense of belonging.

With these videos, I want to convey to audiences the uncanniness of these relationships; as if they were orphaned and were to be adopted by the indigenous ‘mother entities’.



     
photos by IFFR