 by writer/director Roberto Doveris is an example of modern queer cinema){kind=link}
Phantom Project (or Ghost Project depending on the translation) by writer/director Roberto Doveris is an example of modern queer cinema. Early on, you get the sense this is queer cinema made by a queer filmmaker. From the first scene, where Pablo (played by Juan Cano), a struggling actor employed to role-play as a patient so doctors-in-training can practice screening patients to see if they qualify for the government’s free condom program, a program we can assume based on the questioning you’re only eligible for if you are heterosexual. However, the healthcare inequity doesn’t stop Pablo from flirting with one of the male doctors as he questions him.
The titular phantom/ghost is introduced shortly after and is one of the driving forces in his roommate leaving suddenly (though it’s also that he owes two months’ rent), and I loved how the phantom/ghost was presented. It was a loose sketch drawn on the frame, one whose form was ever-changing. Completely non-binary. An idea driven home when Pablo has a group of friends over and they discuss the phantom and debate ghostly gender politics. The sketch nature itself may result from a lack of funds in Chilean cinema, as one of the characters notes when Pablo expresses his desire to work in film, but it works here. A more defined graphic would have been to the detriment of the concept.
Another sign this film was made by a queer filmmaker are all the queer people in Pablo’s life. Pablo’s friend group is populated with LGBTQ+ characters, outside of his ex or future love interest.
In addition to debating if ghosts maintained binary genders (and most of them concluding with the film that they do not), that same conversation introduced the concept of ghost sex. It was one of those things I knew was going to come back. I figured when it did, I’d be positive the sex would be consensual between the phantom and Pablo, a conscious act by him to get over his ex-boyfriend, Francisco (played by Fernando Castillo), who he keeps orbiting. However, because the initial shot framing reminded me of a horror movie (with the POV being that of an observer from the doorway), it felt less consensual than I think was possibly intended.
Especially since our initial impression of the phantom/ghost is as a trickster or slightly malicious (breaking items and getting it blamed on the dog Susan who Pablo, in turn, sends to live with his parents or turning on the shower in the apartment of the woman downstairs). Only once they break from unhealthy patterns (end relationships, stop being drawn to exes) and make moves to pursue paths in the careers they want (change the kind of music they make, enter the world of film acting) that you see the phantom in a different light.
As more queer filmmakers get their hands on telling their own stories, we are getting more varied narratives and fewer trauma tales. The most traumatic about Phantom Project is being in your thirties and still needing a roommate to afford rent. A struggle many of our generation face.
Phantom Project premiered at the 51st International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Tiger selection.