SAAL Biennaal 2023 | Samira Elagoz “Seek Bromance”

Samira Elagoz dedicated years to filming and researching cis men when still a female artist. While his previous works explored cis-men and masculinity in its different forms from an outside position when still identifying as a woman, his latest work, Seek Bromance (2021), changes the vantage point as Elagoz captured his own transition. Seek Bromance is a trans romance at the end of the world somewhere between insta-reality and sci-fi dystopia. It shows a relationship between two transmasculines who met during the beginning of the pandemic, who both have a history of performing highly feminine characters but who have very different attitudes as to what masculinity can be. The images that Samira Elagoz captures with his collaborator, Brazilian artist Cade Moga, document their relationship, from when they first met to their final breakup. But they also document Elagoz’s long farewell to his femme identity. A painfully beautiful, deserted world, as if a virus had wiped everything out, and they could only be infected by each other. With just a car, some cash, and a supply of testosterone, they expose the integral dynamics of masculinity and femininity.

I set out to edit a work I needed to see while struggling with my gender. A trans work where it’s not about educating cis people, justifying our existence or being shiny positive examples, but a real story, where the trans protagonists are complex and troubled, progressive and admirable, problematic and relatable. Where they are rebels, lovers and creators. – Samira Elagoz

Mind-expanding gender odyssey – The conversations about gender, performance, identity, sex and nature versus nurture shake all your ideas about masculinity and femininity. (Theaterkrant)

…focusing his implacable gaze on solitude, on the human relationship between genders in the digital era and in a society that eschews regularisation and control, exploring the porous boundaries between the real and the virtual, investigating the effects of love, gender, femininity, desire, its consequent annihilation and the brutal covert power plays, Samira Elagoz embarks on a journey that is intimate and poetic, yet ironic and perturbing at the same time. (Statement of Venice Biennale)

Samira Elagoz (b. 1989, Helsinki / Berlin) is a filmmaker and performance artist, currently living between Amsterdam and Berlin. For several years, he dedicated his artistic practice to researching and filming cis-men and first encounters with male strangers while still a female artist. Today, Elagoz identifies as a transmasculine with a high femme past. His works are very personal and deal with significant social and political issues of our time (sexual violence, male gaze, loneliness in the digital age, etc.). He has toured his works worldwide in various international performance art, film, and visual art contexts.

Direction and concept: Samira Elagoz
In collaboration with: Cade Moga
Featuring: Samira Elagoz, Cade Moga
Film footage created by: Samira Elagoz, Cade Moga
Edited by: Samira Elagoz
Dramaturgy: Samira Elagoz
Advice: Bruno Listopad, Antonia Steffens
Extra advice: Otto Rissanen, Tiana Hemlock-Yensen, Richard Sand, Valerie Cole, Jessica Dunn Rovinelli, Michael Scerbo, Daniel Donato
Script advice: Tiana Hemlock-Yensen, Richard Sand, Valerie Cole
Advice during filming: Jeanette Groenendaal
Production: SPRING Performing Arts Festival
Co-production: Arsenic - Centre d’Art Scénique Contemporain,. Black Box Teater, BIT Teatergarasjen, Frascati, Finnish Cultural Institute Benelux, Kunstenwerkplaats Pianofabriek
Distribution: Something Great
Administration: Arts Management Helsinki
Supported by: Fonds Podiumkunsten , Koneen Säätiö, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, Ammodo
Premiere: International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam - IDFA 2022

Duration: 240' (with a 15-minute break)
In English

Piece contains nudity, sexual acts