Sirens Call

In a combination of documentary, road movie and science fiction, Sirens Call portrays its equally hybrid protagonist: Gina Rønning, a psychologist who gives the impression of being not from this planet. Between sci-fi-like scenes—in which Rønning appears as the mermaid Una, who returns after a long absence to a greatly changed Earth—she talks in interviews about her identity as a siren and about the American merfolk subculture in which she found a home.

As news reports tell stories of extreme drought and anti-LGBTQI+ policies, Una befriends the mer-goth Moth, with whom she takes a road trip across the US. The film navigates between fiction (or rather, imagination) and non-fiction, without ever taking sides.

In Portland, they encounter a merfolk community that isn’t just about self-acceptance and beautiful costumes, but also about activism, including for the rights of queer and trans people, and Black Lives Matter. Captured on 16mm film, the predominantly languid, fluid atmosphere suits the multicolored underwater world in which we see the merfolk swimming.