- 8min 45sec, Lebanon & Canada, 2023
- 16mm D2F & Super 8mm, Found Footage, Stereo
Description
The project explores the cinematic gaze towards queer bodies as well as their constant absence from the recurrent narrative or collective memory. It started with the discovery of 80s pornographic found footage and so we asked ourselves the question, what if this was found in a dilapidated house? What if instead of the process of the image disintegrating, we bring it to life as if the disintegrated lives of queer women that were meant to stay unseen or disfigured or left to rot slowly come to life and assert their presence within the context of the 80s in Lebanon, a period so overtly represented by war and violence and from which all narrative about personal lives and intimacy is removed.
Screenings
2026
- Images Festival, SAVAC (Monitor 16: Shadows Swept Far Away) | Toronto, Canada
- Barlinale | Berlin, Germany
- LaboCine | Online Platform
2025
- SCREEN BURN (Cinéma au Cinoche) | Montreal, Canada
- TENK Canada | Online Platform
- Doc Alliance Films | Online Platform
- Reassamblage Collective: DIFFUSION 8: Light of Thousand Stars (Reprogrammed by Bucket Collective, Vancouver) | Toronto, Canada
- GuideDoc | Online Platform
- Magic Nights Queer Film Festival | Lesbos, Greece
- Exploding Cinema | London, UK
- Cinétoile Fonsorbes | Fonsorbes, France
- Dazibao: Recollections | Montreal, Canada
- Ribalta Experimental Film Festival (Honorable Mention) | Vignola, Italy
- Traverse Video Festival | Toulouse, France
- Ultradogme Movie Club |
2024
- Reel Pride International Film Festival | Winnipeg, Canada
- RIDM | Montreal, Canada
- Cineffable | Paris, France
- Rotations L.A. Now Instant Image Hall | Los Angeles, USA
- Experimenta | Bangalore, India
- Ko(o)rts Film Festival | Enschede, Netherlands
- Some Prefer Cake | Bologna, Italy
- Crossroads 2024, Program 8: Move Forward and Breathe | San Francisco, USA
- Alchemy Film & Arts | Harwick, Scottish Borders
- FIG Festival: Girls in Film | Sofia, Bulgaria
- British Film Institute: Flare | London, UK
2023
- Kinoskop Fest (Grand Prix) | Belgrade, Serbia
- 12G Twelve Gates Arts | Philadelphia, USA
- Experimental Film Guanajuato | Guanajuato, Mexico
- Queer Voices | Chichinau, Moldova
- WNDX Festival of Moving Image | Winnipeg, Canada
- Cinema Queer | Stockholm, Sweden
- Queer City Cinema | Regina, Canada
- Toronto Arab Film Festival | Toronto, Canada
Online Distributor
- Acquired for distribution by DA Films (Oct 2025 > Oct 2027)
- Licensed for distribution on LaboCine (January 2026)
- Acquired for distribution by TENK Canada (Aug > Nov 2025)
- Licensed for distribution on GuideDoc (2025)
Press
Dans un premier temps, la pellicule vinaigrée présente le corps de deux femmes s’adonnant au jeu de la séduction et de l’érotisme. Si l’on peut présumer que cette bobine de film à caractère pornographique a d’abord été conçue pour un public masculin, l’on constate rapidement que Partamian se réapproprie ces images pour subvertir le male gaze et célébrer l’amour queer. Frédéric Savard, Archiviste et programmateur
If you are looking for a haunting, experimental, and politically charged Sapphic (WLW) short film, Traces (Arabic title: آثار) is a critical work that emerged on the international circuit in 2024. saphicfx
Traces de Chantal Partamian en est une démonstration exemplaire puisque dans la réappropriation, elle tient l’écart entre des plans voués à la commercialisation du cinéma pornographique et d’autres du monde dévasté par les guerres et les bandes terroristes qui font régner leur terreur. Didier Samson Samson | Traverse Vidéo