Director: Clarisa Navas, Executive Producer: Maria Laura Buslemen, Production: Yaguá Pirú Cine, Jaque Content, Argentina, Music: Fran Villalba, 26′, 2017, Rights: Europe, South Asia, Asia.
Love between borders is a documentary film which examines the lives of two women who are loving across borders and barriers that exists in society around them both physical and imaginary. In Formosa in Argentina we meet 29 year-old mother Elis Angela Graciela Martinez Vazquez who is openly lesbian, we also meet 18-year old Paraguayan Jasmine Sotella who met her first girlfriend in a square and connected via Facebook although her very religious mum was not happy with her relationship. Elis is originally from Asunción the Captial of Paraguay, she had a difficult childhood and got married and had her son young before she knew who she was, she is now happily divorced and has a partner she is very much in love with but she lives across the river in Alberdi. Paraguay she says is very sexist and traditional and she suffered hate crimes against herself and her partner, she feels more safe living in Formosa, but her partner lives across the river a journey that takes 6 hours, and the distance is very hard for them both. She thinks there are many couples like theirs living in secrecy even if it is totally legal to be homosexual they feel they need to hide, as women are very repressed in Paraguay. Elis says “The more partners the men have the more macho they are deemed but if women have more than one partner they are straight away condemned by society”. Both Jasmine’s and Elis’s story are about how to stay true to yourself even if it is not always easy when your surrounding is hostile, but as one of the interviewee says “I think that when there is love there are no borders”.
‘Love between borders’ is a stand-alone episode part of a longer series called ‘Women between borders’ (Mujeres entres Fronteras).