Please join us for the first ever Tiny Intersex Film Fest featuring two new documentary shorts titled, Mami y Yo y Mi Gallito/Mom and Me and My Little Rooster directed by Arisleyda Dilone (NYC), and The Son I Never Had directed by Pidgeon Pagonis (Chicago). Join both filmmakers afterwards for a discussion.
 
Mami y Yo y Mi Gallito/Mom and Me and My Little Rooster
Documentary Short
17 minutes/2015
 
Synopsis:
 
For the past five years, I have been pestering my mom to talk to me about my childhood, my body and past and future surgical decisions: all in front of a camera.

My mother is a hardworking immigrant, interested mainly in providing. I am the lazy offspring that asks too many questions. Parts of my identity have been shaped by a rebellion of the traditions she embraces, interlaced with a deep respect for her perseverance.

In Mami y Yo y Mi Gallito we finally sit down to talk about my body as a hermaphrodite.

The Son I Never Had
Documentary Short
27 minutes/2016
 
Synopsis:
 
My entire life I was lied to, and made to lie. I always felt different, but couldn’t quite figure out why. At 19, I discovered that I was born intersex, and whatever light was present in my life, vanished.

That discovery propelled me to uncover my past, in order to have a chance at having a future. Coincidentally, during that time I was in the habit of recording those around me.

10 years later, I collected those recordings and retrieved some of the most painful conversations I’ve ever had with my parents. The Son I Never Had is a love letter to my parents, my intersex self, and my community, as we try to survive in a world obsessed with binaries.

Suggested donation of $5. No one turned away for lack of funds.

Trigger Warning: One of the film includes memories of non-consensual genital surgery.

Arisleyda Dilone makes film work about her life and her family. Born in Santiago de Los de Caballeros, Dominican Republic, she spent her formative years in a hillside village outside of the city of Santiago. At the age of seven she was brought to New York and raised in a suburb of Long Island. Arisleyda pursued a life that would bring her immigrant parents pride while also being true to herself. She is the first in her family to attend and graduate college. Before films she worked in local NYC politics and international affairs.

As filmmaker, she was awarded a NALIP mentorship and she was a 2012 Jerome Foundation-Travel and Study Grant Fellow. Arisleyda was a 2014 UnionDocs Collaborative Fellow and a 2015 Queer Art/Mentorship/Program Fellow, in which she completed her short film, Mami y Yo y Mi Gallito /Mom and Me and My Little Rooster.