Documentary
EMPOWER is a series of three portraits of sex workers with heterogeneous trajectories crossing paths of migration, Trans identities, feminism, the fight against HIV, the fight against precariousness and discrimination. Interweaving personal journeys, political analysis, and…
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Made in the "Boca do Lixo" district in São Paulo, this work explores the world of women prostitutes in downtown São Paulo. The author allows the narrative to be led by the interviewees themselves, removing the reporter's voice and intervening as little as possible in the editing of the testimonies. At a time when AIDS was primarily associated with gay men, most of the prostitutes say they don't believe they can be infected and refuse to use condoms. One of them shares that she used to be a madam and a drug dealer, but now lives like an ordinary worker, working from 10 to 7 and raising her children. Another recalls her time as a domestic worker, earning in one month what she now makes in a single day as a prostitute. The soundtrack features songs by Milton Nascimento and Mutantes.

The most famous woman in the world was a sex worker. Marilyn Monroe knowingly used sex as a source of income. The first escort of pop culture lived by the economy of sex work. Hollywood slid its hand between her thighs and turned it into a myth — for profit. Her body was stolen, copied, consumed. But what if that body were trans?

A feature length documentary about the intense connections made between strangers over the telephone, and explores these anonymous conversations people are often too hesitant to have with the people closest to them. From crisis centers to psychics and sex workers, this documentary eavesdrops on the inner-workings of hotlines and puts faces to the voice on the other end of the line.

A young girl who lives with her poor father has to get her driver's license for a new part-time job. Because she doesn't have enough money, she has to pay for the lessons in a different, irregular way. And she does that with no other than the intriguing driving instructor Roy, but how is this going to end?

"No Refunds" is a visceral, tangled descent into the transactional dynamics of intimate encounters, told through the language of bodies, sheets, and reflections, where the purchase of queer sex work is laid bare. As the filmmaker simultaneously takes on the roles of client and audience, the boundaries between documentary and performance fade, unraveling the artifice at the heart of sex work and the act of filmmaking.