MQFF Midsumma Movies: I'm Not Everything I Want to Be

MQFF brings you a sizzling weekend of the newest and most fabulous queer cinema

This testament to a remarkable queer life lived, and for too long unsung, premiered as a Teddy Award contender at the 2024 Berlinale. Klára Tasovská’s documentary celebrates “the Nan Goldin of Czechoslovakia”, Libuše Jarcovjáková, whose artistic career is newly flourishing. For many years, her autobiographical photography was more an existential pursuit for the artist, rather than one acknowledged by the art world.

Her story is extraordinary, from her coming of age amongst the margins of turbulent, 1960s Prague, before taking in periods in West Berlin, Tokyo, Berlin – as the Wall was falling – and Prague again. Jarcovjáková’s diary readings, often accompanied by pseudo-stop-motion flurries of her evocative photography, offer precious insights into queer life during and after the Cold War, from both sides of what was once a great, seemingly insurmountable, divide.

• Director: Klára Tasovská
• Country: Czechia, Slovakia, Austria (2024)
• Rating: Unclassified 18+
• Runtime: 90 minutes