From 1 to 14 March we will have the opportunity to follow the 18th edition of Zinegoak. This year the projections will be offered both in person and through the Filmin platform, as like other festivals have adapted to the situation of COVID-19. The director of the festival, Pau Guillen, explained the poster of Helena Goñi under the motto "Without a gender perspective". In the words of Guillén, “it is increasingly frequent to hear concepts such as ‘non-binary person’, ‘neutral gender’ or ‘gender without borders’. It is not necessary to know each and every one of the concepts, but at least to know that the limits of gender identity have been extended and that all possibilities are valid”. But the key is who does that broad portrait. And under what conditions.

Zinegoak is the Gaylesbitrans International Film and Performing Arts Festival in Bilbao, which is held from 2004, with the aim of raising awareness through culture, cinema and the playing weeks. Today, Zinegoak has become a benchmark at international LGTB festivals and every year puts around 100 jobs on the screen, most of them awarded at international festivals. Zinegoak’s cultural programming is based on quality cinema and performing arts. Likewise, all its activities are related to the prevention of sexual exclusion and to the promotion of the visibility of violations of all human rights and of the new family models that occur at the international level. This year, the French filmmaker Sébastien Lifshitz will be in charge of bringing the Award of Honor that is awarded each year, with the objective of making visible an extensive filmography according to the festival. Lifshitz has directed countless films from the reality of the LGTBIQ+ movement and has received numerous international awards, such as the Jean Vigo or two Teddy Award from Berlinale. One of the last awards received him with Wild Side (The Wild Side, 2004), the protagonist of a transsexual woman, whose membership of the Lifshitz community gives her a kind of closeness to her work.

Following this year’s edition, the festival has focused on the utopia of a gender-free society. It is not a naive bet to bring the issue to the front line of the agenda taking into account the draft of the Trans Law prepared by the Spanish Ministry of Equality, or the presence that lately is taking on the subject of transsexuality. Denouncing the aggressions suffered by this community is a clear example of the persecution faced by the cases of a 15-year-old bilbaíno boy, who was sent to the school psychologist for taking 19 years of nonsensical transsexual faldon, who was beaten last November at the door of the house of Barcelona. In addition, some groups have recently called for a legal ban on therapies to "cure" homosexuality, and voted against the extension of assisted reproduction to all women, in the second place by the French Senate, which pronounced itself in favour of social security payments for heterosexual couples only. A festival is needed that gathers these types of themes, not only to make visible those that are hidden, but above all to reflect society, a reflection that questions itself.

The Zinegoak Festival distinguishes three official sections: FIK (Fiction), DOK (Documentary) and KRAK (New narratives). The valuation of each of the departments consists of professionals from the LGTBIQ+ community and the film industry, obtaining the mixed jury. On the one hand, the proximity to themes, based on experience and experiences, ensures an ethics to address the theme and, on the other hand, ensures that film staff have a quality history and vice versa. The films that will be seen at the festival are agreed upon from the consensus between the two, and the prizes are given by the decision of both parties. Maren González, a Zinegoak programmer, says they have had many discussions in the group: whether it be a thematic festival or a film festival. It's clear that it's not an easy debate, because they're questioning the goal of the festival. Zinegoak is a meeting point in which the agents that are part of a community join the outside, it is a demonstration for afina and also a manifesto of the principles of a collective. Can everyone be the spokesman for these demands? Is it lawful for a person who is not a member of the community to engage in the lives of the ravens, marbles or trans?

This debate leads us to the search for the ethics of the fundamentals of documentary film and anthropology. And I don't mean the need to show the authors' "LGTBIQ+ card," nor the need to demonstrate a written list of personal oppression. We would end up just doing autobiographical films. On the contrary, when working on these topics in fashion is a lack of reflection of the privileges themselves, I am suspicious. I believe that when proposals or life attempts are drawn that leave the heterosexual regime, it is necessary to have lived an experience beyond the screen to pick up its specificity. And that experience we all have, but not in the same way. I am not referring to an endogamy of ethics, but to the need to tell each one his own story. Or, at the bottom, to situate oneself in the world of multiple oppressions and to tell it from that position. As important as there are leading figures from the LGTBIQ+ community, it seems to me that the views of the authors of the films are revealed to reflect on where and how it is expressed. Legitimacy will then be assigned by the community, or not.