CLOSING FILM: Zerophilia
+ Q&A with Martin Curland and Cast

TIME: 18:00, Sunday 1st December
VENUE: Genesis Cinema

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Zerophilia

DirectorMartin Curland
ProducerJay Whitney Brown
Running Time1:30:00
GenreComedy, Romance, LGBT
CountryUSA
LanguageEnglish
Main CastsTaylor Handley
Dustin Seavey
Alison Folland
ScreenplayMartin Curland
SYNOPSISIn this sexually ambiguous romantic comedy, Luke, a naive college student, struggles with issues of masculinity while he comes to terms with a rare genetic disorder that causes the afflicted to switch gender at will.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENTChoosing to make an ultra low budget indie film means you’re already a few fries short of a Happy Meal. Making Zerophilia? You’d have to be nuts. At a time when society’s definitions of gender and orientation were rigidly binary, I hoped to give audiences a disarming window into the journey of growing up non-binary. Sometimes it takes a little madness to open minds. In the end, Zerophilia isn’t just about discovering who you are it’s about embracing whoever you might become.
Programme Note:Sex changes you. Join us as LIFFF closes out its first edition with a euphoric opus of innate queerness and sharp humour.

The story’s conceptual imagination and flourishes boggle the mind—so much so the film should come with a surgeon general’s warning: may cause gender confusion – Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine

In the end Zerophilia isn’t just about discovering who you are, it’s about embracing whoever you might become – Martin Curland

When writer-director Martin Curland released his gender-swapping debut feature Zerophilia in 2005, it was marketed as an independent sex comedy, no mention was made of the film’s intrinsic queerness. The film was resultantly a box-office flop and left critics baffled.

Small-town student and hockey player Luke (Taylor Handley) falls for quick-witted Michelle (Rebecca Mozo). Sparks fly, but there’s growing pains. Unusual hormonal shifts, to be precise. Luke soon discovers that he’s a ‘Zerophiliac’, a genetic variant of human that will change sex when aroused. As crazy questions and looming decisions arise, only one question matters: “Who do you love?”

Shot through with unexpectedly resonant dialogue and euphoric montage, Zerophilia is the greatest genderqueer comedy you’ve never seen.

What now reads as prescient transgender cinema was written with a different, deeply personal meaning in mind, a context undiscussed and repressed on initial release. Through our dialogues, Curland’s understanding of his own film has shifted, and the LIFFF team’s understanding of it has shifted in turn. Cinema, much like gender, can be fluid.
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