Our Body Is an Expanding Star

Our Body Is an Expanding Star is at the same time an abstract nature film, a creative journey of self-discovery and a moving family portrait. Mexican siblings Semillites and Tania filmed the journey their bodies have taken in their still young lives. It is a voyage through time, landscapes and emotions in which we gradually come to know them more intimately.

Two siblings, their queer bodies and the deep bond they share. They read the brown skin they once wished they didn’t have as a landscape. Associatively, with extreme close-ups, animations, projections or razor-sharp nature photography, pores become desert landscapes, skin cells become salt flats.

Semillites takes us through his transition using a series of illustrations. He draws himself as a little seed that wants to grow: nature, too, is always in transition. This seed metaphor is also an ode to their peasant family history. Semillites and Tania meet various relatives and ancestors—including flowers, fossils and grasshoppers—who guide them in their search. This exploration of collective memory culminates in a new perspective on identity, leaving colonial narratives behind.