Gender Trouble

Three silent films from the 1910s about people resisting the gender roles assigned to them - by eating seeds, putting on trousers, or simply refusing to behave as expected. Curated by filmmaker and cultural organizer Antony Voronov, a Russian non-binary refugee from a country where these films now fall under extremism laws.

Algie the Miner - Alice Guy-Blaché, Harry Schenck & Edward Warren, 1912, USA, 10 minutes, silent with English intertitles
Algie is deemed too soft by his sweetheart's father, who sends him west to become a real man. He arrives at a mining camp with a tiny pistol and much affection, and grows attached to a rough miner - a bond the film treats with more tenderness than mockery.

The Florida Enchantment - Sidney Drew, 1914, USA, 63 minutes, silent with English intertitles
Lillian finds a box of seeds from an African tree that change the gender of whoever swallows them. She takes one, grows a moustache, begins courting women and gives a seed to her maid. A comedy from a decade before hormones, exploring what a body could do if it could be chosen.

Ich möchte kein Mann sein (I Don't Want to Be a Man) - Ernst Lubitsch, 1918, Germany, 45 minutes, silent with German intertitles and English subtitles
Ossi is tired of hearing how a young woman should behave, has a suit made and ventures into Berlin as a man. She ends up drunk in a nightclub next to her own guardian, who doesn't recognize her and kisses her anyway.