A QUEER PLAY
A TUNISIAN QUEER PLAY
While Arab countries -where totalitarian regimes collapsed during the “Arab Spring"- failed to fulfill a democratic transition, Tunisia succeeded in writing a more secular and human rights-centric constitution thereby laying foundation for democratic institutions to emerge.
Despite being misaligned with the new libertarian constitution, the regressive and discriminatory laws were not revoked. Therefore, LGBTQIA+ people are still persecuted and subjected to harassment and mistreatment by police forces and fellow citizens. Unfortunately, even gender expression through outfits can sentence people to jail.
Additionally, transgenderism is still a major taboo in Tunisia, and mass media treatment keeps on nurturing conflations around it and perpetuating prejudices and stereotypes about trans individuals and queers in general. Therefore, we thought of devising TranStyX, the first Tunisian unapologetically straightforward queer play, as an artistic riposte to put the topic back on the discussion table, raise awareness, and address misconceptions by promoting inclusive, hedonistic, and libertarian ethics.
TranStyX Poster- Tunisian Queer Play
TranStyX is a Tunisian Queer play that premiered in December 2019
PRESENTATION
Trans-:
(1) Prefix. Across; beyond; on or to the other side of.
(2) Referring or relating to people whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex.
Styx:
Greek Mythology. One of the nine rivers in the underworld, over which Charon ferried the souls of the dead.
Where does the Styx drain? Is it possible to row against its current to reach The Elysian Fields ? Should the life of a trans be a tragic egodyssey predestined to be swept away by the Styx tide?
TranStyX is considered as the first Tunisian Queer Play to straightforwardly and unapologetically address transgenderism and some of the major challenges faced by the local LGBTQIA+ community such as:
Queerphobia
Stigmatization
Family rejection
Discrimination in the marketplace
Absence/limitation of medical and psychological support
Inappropriate legislation
A QUEER FILM
Distribution
Film/queer art festivals, international distributors and NGOs, local art clubs/centers are welcome to work with us to give the movie a wide visibility and thus keep the debate going.
You can reach us via email: contact@transtyx.com
or on our whatsapp number: 0021699689664.
Original Title
TranStyX
Tunisian Title
عبور
Genre
Experimental
Cinematic Movement
Dogme95
Written and Directed by
Moncef Zahrouni
Release Date
NA
Prodction
Zanoobya
Film Location
Tunisia
Country of Origin
Tunisia
Budget
55 000 USD
Production
Association Zanoobya
Stills
Format
16:19_4K
Sound Mixing
Stereo - Surround 5.1
Languages
Arabic (Tunisian), English, French
Subtiles
French - English
Duration
66 minutes
Watch Link
Contact us: contact@transtyx.com
SYNOPSIS
TranStyX tells the story of the life of Tina, a trans woman, from her birth on January 14, 2011, in Tunis to her coma in London at the age of 27 on the operating table during gender reassignment surgery. Tina falls into a near-death experience and meets her guardian angel Stella who teaches her to detach herself from her previous life, reveals to her the secrets of human existence, rewinds the film of her tumultuous life as a transgender, and eventually submits her to the last judgment.
DIRECTOR STATEMENT
TranStyX is openly, straightforwardly, and unapologetically Queer in a country that criminalizes gender identities and sexual orientations that trespass the binary norm. TranStyX is an inclusive work of art emerging from the local community and its allies, a tribute to all those who left us too early while trying to elbow their way toward the light at the high end of the dark tunnel, a personal, yet universal story of a struggle with a bittersweet local taste…
OUR STORY
Trans-:
(1) Prefix. Across; beyond; on or to the other side of.
(2) Referring or relating to people whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex.
Styx:
Greek Mythology. One of the nine rivers in the underworld, over which Charon ferried the souls of the dead.
Where does the Styx drain? Is it possible to row against its current to reach The Elysian Fields? Should the life of a trans be a tragic egodyssey predestined to be swept away by the Styx tide?
THE STORY: TINA & TUNISIA
TranStyX is the story of Tina, a transgender woman born in Tunisia on the day of the revolution on January 14, 2011. Tina grew up in a country struggling to succeed in its democratic transition following the long years of dictatorship.
Tina becomes aware of her non-normative gender identity at an early age and is quick to express it out loud within a conservative milieu. Thus begins a long journey of self-construction using philosophy, art, and science. Her life's tumultuous hardships, public commitment to the defense of human rights, and encounters with other trans people made her evolve and enabled her to reverse the paradigm of geographical determinism.
As Tina navigates her way to emancipation and self-acceptance, decadence sets in as her country falls prey to voracious oligarchs, despotic politicians, and suicidal religious maniacs. While Tina's story is a modern-day odyssey that goes from her birth until her coma at the age of 27 during her gender reassignment surgery, that of Tunisia is dystopian political fiction.
TranStyX is also the story of an encounter between Tina and her guardian angel, Stella. The two meet in an afterlife ruled by hedonistic laws and a circular temporal pattern, an afterlife that is far from being Dantesque and that synthetizes the essence of joy in the most widespread religions and belief systems on earth, an afterlife where the poetry of Lucretius is sacred and the words of Gibran are prophetic, an afterlife where all morality boils down to enjoying and making others enjoy without harming oneself or anyone. Thus, TranStyX is intended as a philosophical fiction that encourages doubt, questioning, and reflection beyond binary configurations: good and evil, masculine and feminine, free will and determinism, life and death, Earth and Heaven...
THE TITLE
NARRATIVE DEVICE
Tina's body and Stella's voice are affected by the changing temporality and both display a constant metamorphosis throughout the different chapters. Despite the multi-dimensionality of the narrative, the story endlessly circles around itself like a Möbius loop.I wrote TranStyX in a Tunisian socio-political context characterized by an unprecedented dynamism within civil society that seeks to assert the rights of Queer people and to abolish the liberticidal laws which condemn the very existence of non-normative gender identities and sexual orientations. I also intended to deconstruct the stereotypes perpetuated by the media and local audio-visual productions around LGBTQIA+ people by offering an outlook that emerges from the Queer community itself. Although rooted in a local context, the work aims to be universal and seeks through its main character to paint a positive impressionist portrait of a trans person who struggles, learns, enjoys, suffers, loves, hates, evolves, and most importantly breaks the silence and LIVE!
The film is made up of 14 chapters. Each chapter has its own visual and sound universe. The neutral and tarnished theatrical lighting alternates with the more colorful and vivid cinematographic lighting, reality intertwines with fiction, and the voice-overs and flashbacks become a narrative device that gives shape to the multiversal temporality of the work: Afterlife time, earthly time, the time of Tina and Stella's past lives, the cybernetic space time in which Tina's artificial alter-ego evolves, time of the Styx crossing, time of the near-death experience, time of a theatrical performance by Lady T. (Tina's stage name)...
Rest in Peace Grandma!
My grandmother's bedtime fantasy tales rocked my childhood and it is thanks to her talent as a storyteller that I saw this passion for storytelling uncontrollably grow in me. As a teenager, I was an introverted queer, frugal in speech and prolific in imagination. My inner world with its Homeric narratives and inclusive ideospheres was my escape. Books, music, and films nurtured that world, and now part of that world of fantasy found its way to TranStyX.
TranStyX is the first Tunisian feature film aimed at the general public that unapologetically claims to be queer with not only its story that addresses the theme of trans-identity far from the beaten path of clichés but also through the participation of LGBTQIA+ artists and technicians in its creative process. TranStyX finds its meaning in post-revolution Tunisia: the land of 3000 years of civilization and one thousand and one paradoxes, the land where queer art seeks to impose itself on the local art scene in order to open a real societal debate around the violated rights and liberties of a community that lives in the shadows.
A QUEER BOOK
TRANSTYX, the book
It is now possible to order your TranStyX book online. The book is a dual language (Arabic and English) and it includes the queer play script in addition to two interviews with Tunisian trans individuals, original songs lyrics, 11 illustrations by Boshra Jallali, and eventually an article by Rami Khouili & Daniel-Levine Spound shedding light on the laws that incriminate non-normative gender identities and sexual orientations in Tunisia.
A QUEER FASHION SHOW
“More than gender, fashion must express freedom by wrecking boundaries and challenging human categorical thinking..."
- S A I F B E N S L I M A N E, F A S H I O N D E S I G N E R
T R A N S T Y X, A Q U E E R F A S H I O N S H O W
Seif Eddine Ben Slimane is a multi-talented artist: fashion designer, costume and accessory designer and makeup artist. Seif collaboated with Moncef Zahrouni to design the play and the film's costumes.
Seif turned the theater stage to a fashion runway and invited 12 queer models to present his couture collection "TranStyX, Expériences d'Outre-Tombe". The collection uses a binary color scheme: black and white and mixes different sources of inspiration from the Tunisian traditional costumes through the classical smoking. Seif tore down the walls that separate the genders and exalted through his collection one identity: ART!
The Fashion show took place right after the play's last show during the artistic season 2021-2022. In order to guarantee the safety of the models we will not going to publish the photos of the show.
A QUEER SOUNDTRACK
Tomorrow (Final Theme)
Tomorrow (Final Theme)
Tomorrow, I will go
To a place where dreams don't thaw
Under the scorching sun of desert
For I know my verses are meant to snow
On solitary scarecrows
And in the dark of night will beam a rainbow
So don't ask me to stay
Don't ever betray the dream I hold under my swollen bruises
Tomorrow I will be beautiful
Tomorrow I will be sane
And I will be the girl who lived inside my head
But today I need to hide
in my gloomy frosty closet
Watch the mold growing as my life gets nullified
So don't ask me to stay, don't
Don't ever betray the dream I hold under my glaring eyebrows
Ils partent et ils vous laissent votre chose publique et vos mythes bibliques
Ils partent dans un avion, dans un bain de sang ou dans un coma éthylique
Ils partent car même leurs nietzschéens ne peuvent aimer ce destin tragique
Ils partent pour une dernière danse et un baisé rêvé au bord d’un titanique
Gloomy Sunday (Cover)
Sunday is gloomy
My hours are slumberless
Dearest the shadows
I live with are numberless
Little white flowers
Will never awaken you
Not where the black coach
Of sorrow has taken you
Angels have no thoughts
Of ever returning you
Would they be angry
If I thought of joining you
Gloomy Sunday
Gloomy is Sunday
With shadows I spend it all
My heart and I
Have decided to end it all
Soon there'll be candles
And prayers that are said I know
Let them not weep
Let them know that I'm glad to go
Death is no dream
For in death I'm caressin' you
With the last breath of my soul
I'll be blessin' you
Sad of all Sundays
Lady T (Main Theme)
They call me lady thrills
Hot blood inks my quill
I sow lust in your body drills
Then put it on the grill
They call me lady fire
I fuel insolent desires
I blaze, I burn, I am hot, I scald
Watch out my barbed wires
Pour vivre heureux, couchons cachés
Pour vivre heureux, soyons des caméléons
Pour vivre heureux, soyons dans les transes
They call me lady transe
At night I perform my dance
I slough off my skin on stage
Then I renew my stance
They call me lady strix
Would you dare to sail up my styx
I got no carrots under my latex dress
but some tasty hard stick
P R O J E C T P A R T N E R S
