Un(dis)sing Our Abilities Showcase Examines Size, Disability & Sexuality (Oct 16!)

Lisa Ganser and Nomy Lamm in the short film, Wall of Fire, part of the Un(dis)sing Our Abilities Showcase which will screen at the New Parkway Theater in Oakland on October 16.

As a fat person who has sex all the time, it's always amazing to me that there is such a disconnect between the public imagination around "fat sex" and my actual sexuality.

This sort of disconnect is, in many ways, the subject of the film Wall of Fire by Lisa Ganser.

So when Lisa sent me an email to see if I'd be into watching this film she did with her girlfriend, Nomy Lamm, about the intersections of fatness, queerness, disability and sexuality, I responded with an enthused "Omg totally!"

I'm not sure if I missed the part about them having AMAZINGLY HOT sex in the film (I often skim emails) but I was deeply grateful that they did. I'm one of those people who's totally chill about watching my friends have sex with each other. I don't know if this is a rare quality but I feel like it's a positive one!

Wall of Fire is a short experimental film by Lisa, and the film serves as this gorgeous portrait of intimacy between two people who are majorly and clearly hot for each other. One of Nomy's signature layered tracks plays over the scene, which progresses from undressing to full on sexy times.

What makes the film so powerful is that it offers a critique of the ideas and representations of fat bodies and disabled bodies in not only mainstream but also queer media and discourse.

Beyond its value as an arousing and intimate portrait, this film has clear political significance as a documentation project. Lisa archives this typically hidden or absent-from-public-memory narrative around the disabled body, the fat body and the multiplicity of queer sex.

"Wall of Fire" is part of the Un(dis)sing Our Abilities Showcase, screening on Thursday October 16th at 9:30pm at the New Parkway Theater in Oakland and featuring a Q&A with curators Lisa Ganser and Lorin Murphy and participating filmmakers. Un(dis)sing Our Abilities is an experimental sexplicit short movie showcase presented by Periwinkle Cinema that explores sensuality, intimacy, safety and consent through the lens of the less-represented. The showcase has been accepted into the 2014 New York Mix Queer Experimental Film Festival and this screening is a fundraiser to provide ASL and travel for Bay Area artists to the NY screening.

Buy tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/859124

Fund the indiegogo campaign to get the artists involved in this amazing showcase to NY: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/undissing-our-abilities-more-accessible-more-sexy/x/205923