TOKOS
SYNOPSIS
It’s Christmas Eve. Tomi and Larissa, a trans couple, are trying to decide whether or not to tell their family that they are expecting a baby. Tomi, two months pregnant, is completely against it, while Larissa is firmly in favor. With just 15 minutes before the family arrives, amidst the rush of preparing Christmas dinner, the couple finds themselves immersed in a contemporary portrait where shadowy projections of the future coexist in a space filled with hope, longing, and love.
Illustrative image of Roberto Bete
Why
I thought about dreams, and the end of my world, when I faced the possibility of being pregnant. I thought about what it would be like for a person like myself, to bring a child into a world like ours. A lot of branches grew from this trunk as I became a tree of questions. I waited a few days for my blood results, and then I knew that I wasn't pregnant, but from that day onwards, I never stopped being a tree.
The world seems to be ending in the most apocalyptic ways; bombs kill as I write, rivers drain, forests become mines, the wealthiest guy in the world is the right arm of one of the crudest ones. Minorities are always at stake, I’m a transgender man. A transgender man, the end of the world and this idea stuck in my head of having a baby. An idea that grew inside me and became a fantasy, I think.
In this film I will be exploring parenthood in a sensitive time like ours, at the same time I debunk previous narratives about transgender people: as individuals without family, happiness, love, Christmas and a future.
TOKOS means “to give birth,” and with this provocation, labor begins. To give birth to new stories and hopefully postpone the end.
