Caught

Normal

Normal is a biographical film that follows the turbulent lives of people who work in the sex industry. Nicola Mai's groundbreaking and unique form of story telling offers an intricate glance into 6 characters' diverse experiences of self-realization, exploitation, autonomy and dependency. Director and anthropologist Mai continually challenges the viewer by exposing these unheard voices, their dreams and the lives that they lead. Normal uncovers layered, human stories of migration and sex work, challenging popular expectations that most migrant sex workers are exploited and forced to sell sex against their will.

Samira

An ethnographic account of the life history of Karim, an Algerian migrant man selling sex as a travesti at night in Marseille.

Travel

Travel (Mai 2016; 63 min) is a two-screen film-installation and ethnofiction presenting the life history of Joy, a Nigerian migrant woman selling sex in the Bois de Vincennes in Paris. Joy left Nigeria in order to help her family after the death of her father. She knew that she was going to sell sex before leaving, but was unaware of the hard working and life condition she would have had to face in France. Travel explores Joy’s experiences of self-realisation and exploitation in the sex industry by representing the way she gradually reinterprets her experience of migration and freedom as also characterised by exploitation and trafficking.

Sans Soleil

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

Next Goal Wins

Dutch coach Thomas Rongen attempts the nearly impossible task of turning the American Samoa soccer team from perennial losers into winners.

Transamerica

A transgender woman takes an unexpected journey when she learns that she had a son, now a teenage runaway hustling on the streets of New York.

Re-Births

A documentary film depicting five intimate portraits of migrants who fled their country of origin to seek refuge in France and find a space of freedom where they can fully experience their sexuality and their sexual identity: Giovanna, woman transgender of Colombian origin, Roman, Russian transgender man, Cate, Ugandan lesbian mother, Yi Chen, young Chinese gay man…

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

Two drag performers and a transgender woman travel across the desert to perform their unique style of cabaret.