PH Embassy in Berlin Hosts Film Screening, Conversation on LGBTQ+ Muslims

The Philippine Embassy’s Gender and Development (GAD) focal point Cathy Torres (third from left) explores the issues raised by Lupah Sug with the filmmaker and other LGBTQ+ advocates and scholars. (Berlin PE photo)

BERLIN 29 October 2019 — Queer Muslim experience took center stage at the third session of the AklaTamBayan Living Library series of the Philippine Embassy in Berlin with a screening of “Lupah Sug,” a short documentary about LGBTQ+ Muslims in Mindanao, held on 21 October 2019.

Along with the film screening, the activity, which was part of the Embassy’s Gender and Development (GAD) program, featured Filipino Muslim activist filmmaker Rhadem Morados who was present to talk about his film.

Morados was joined by three Berlin-based queer advocates and scholars Tugay Sarac, the coordinator of the LGBT*IQ Center of the Ibn Rashd-Goethe Mosque in Berlin, which opens its doors to LGBTQ+ Muslims from various strands of Islam; Chris Hiller, a PhD candidate at the Institute of Geography at the University of Potsdam on "Safe Spaces for LGBT - The Power of a Postcolonial Concept" and teaches at the Department of Didactics of Geography for the project seminar Teaching Gender, Sexualities, and Space; and Ferdi Thajib, a Phd Candidate at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin and is part of the team at the Institute for Queer Theory.

Ambassador to Germany Ma. Theresa B. Dizon-De Vega congratulated the filmmaker and noted how “his advocacies, from peace-building to inclusiveness and LGBTQ+ rights, continue to resonate with greater force and focus” in a message delivered on her behalf by the Embassy’s GAD Focal Point Cathy Torres, who moderated the event.

Prior to the Berlin screening, Lupah Sug was shown at the International Queer Film Festival, Die Lesbisch Schwulen Filmtage Hamburg, that took place in Hamburg from 15 to 20 October 2019.

Morados won Best Director at the Monaco Charity Film Festival for an earlier documentary film, “HUGO: A Hidden Past Revealed.” Aside from making films, he was also the Festival Director of various film events like Short+Sweet Film Festival and PINKShorts Film Festival. He is a council member of the Mindanao PRIDE organization, and has been actively organizing human rights and LGBTQ+ events in Mindanao for many years. While in Hamburg, Morados also gave a talk on “Bangsamoro, Human Rights, and the Socio-Political Landscape in Mindanao” at the Asia-Africa Institute of the University of Hamburg.END

After the screening and discussion the audience, filmmaker Rhadem Morados (eighth from right) and panelists enjoy a salu-salo. (Berlin PE photo)

For more information, visit  https://www.berlinpe.dfa.gov.ph, https://www.philippine-embassy.de or https://www.facebook.com/PHinGermany.