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Naked Tongues

A guerrilla documentary short about spoken word and the queer body. It documents the work and the views of contemporary LGBTQI+ poets and artists, some of whom use their body as part of their spoken word performances. The film explores the role and the impact of the naked body in performance poetry.

Naked Tongues won an Audience Choice Award at Leeds Queer Film Festival in 2019 and has also been officially selected by the QueerBee Film Festival 2019 (UK) and the LGBTQ Shorts Film Festival 2019 (USA).

A shorter version of this short ("Poetry Tease") was selected for MicroActs, November 2019.

  • Ernesto Sarezale
    Director
    Spoken Gender, Queer Tongues
  • A selection of queer spoken word artists
    Key Cast
    "As themselves"
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Genres:
    LGBT, Literature, Poetry, Performance, Sexuality, Spoken Word
  • Runtime:
    17 minutes 20 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    May 18, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    2,500 GBP
  • Country of Origin:
    United Kingdom
  • Country of Filming:
    United Kingdom
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Leeds Queer Film Festival
    Leeds
    United Kingdom
    May 11, 2019
    Audience Choice Award
  • Queerbee LGBT Film Festival

    United Kingdom
  • LGBTQ Shorts Film Festival

    United States
  • Exploding Cinema
    London
    United Kingdom
    October 6, 2018
    UK Premiere
Director Biography - Ernesto Sarezale

Since the early 00s, Ernesto Sarezale has been creating video poems, which have been variously shown at events like Shortwave, Franko B's Mix-up, Your Voice (Kilburn Festival), Deep Space, Exploding Cinema, ACTART6 and Short Sundays.

More recently he has been focusing on documentary filmmaking.
His short, Naked Tongues, won an Audience Choice Award at Leeds Queer Film Festival in 2019 and has also been selected for QueerBee and the LGBTQ Shorts Film Festival 2019. It has also been screened at Exploding Cinema (London) and Queers in Shorts (Cambridge).

Other recent shorts of his have been selected for MicroActs, Les Mains Gauches (queer online film platform) and LIVE ART CLUB [London].

Active in London’s performance poetry scene for several years, Ernesto has hosted and promoted queer spoken events such as Homophone, Glam Slam UK and Velvet Tongue.
Winner of the Erotic Award for Best Poet in 2010, Ernesto has performed at a variety of poetry, cabaret, stand-up and arts events in London and internationally - winning also the odd slam and comedy gong competition along the way.

He produced for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival a one-man multimedia spoken word show called "In the name of the flesh”, which is also the title of his most recent poetry pamphlet.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Ernesto's work usually deals with the 'queer body', exploring the paradoxes and complexities of sexual intimacy and the roles language and technology play in our every day life and in the way we perceive ourselves and our bodies. Lately he is also dealing with the theme of 'loss'.