Queer resistance, bombs and a mournful parade
Dirección JOSE LUIS GARCIA GARCIA;
Spain · 2026 · 4 min · Cinema Verite; Historical; Homosexuality;
Película presentada al RTV International Film Festival 2026Sinopsis
Barcelona, 1933. The air in the Barrio Chino is thick with smoke and pre-revolutionary unrest. Through the gray mist of the streets and the surrounding misery, an anarchist bomb erupts. Its target isn’t a bank or a garrison—it is a public urinal.
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Barcelona, 1933. The atmosphere is stifling. As the Republic teeters on the brink, the streets of the Barrio Chino (El Raval) have become a powder keg of revolutionary fervor, squalor, and violence. While FAI bombs shake the foundations of the bourgeoisie and armed militias cry out for liberty, a starkly different group claims its place in history. They are the "Carolinas": a troupe of transvestites clad in rigorous mourning dress, adorned with traditional peineta combs and trails of black mascara. Indifferent to the political upheaval, they begin a theatrical, somber procession through shadowed alleys and past gazes of contempt. Narrated by the spectral, poetic voice of Jean Genet—who finds sanctity in the depths of degradation—the film submerges us in memories of clandestine desire, crime, and the fleeting passions that flickered in the city’s underbelly. The funeral cortege reaches its destination to reveal the source of their grief. They do not weep for a martyr or a kinsman. Instead, they lay flowers and mourn inconsolably before the twisted, smoking iron of a vespasiènne (a public urinal). There, amidst the stench of gunpowder and urine, unfolds the first act of involuntary queer resistance: a lament for the destruction of the only sanctuary where they could truly be themselves.
Material promocional proporcionado o expresamente autorizado por el titular de los derechos. La publicación es independiente de la selección del festival.
RTV International Film Festival — Inaugural Online Edition · 2026