Becoming Male in the Middle Ages is a story about fertility and the possibility of crossing the biological barrier related to reproduction, with the help of transhuman augmentation. The body becomes but a receptacle for the ovary or egg, which erases its biological limitations.
Becoming Male in the Middle Ages is the affective account of the emotional impact that fertility (or the lack thereof) can have. To the same extent, the film discusses the dynamic between the naturalness of fertility (bundled here with social pressures) and its possible artificiality. In Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, science has advanced enough to provide artificial fertility, regardless of what reproductive apparatus one biologically possesses, to fulfil reproductive desires: implanting an ovary into a man’s body, fertilizing it, and then implantation of the egg into a host body for its growth. Queer sexuality, the nonbinary and transhuman body, bodily autonomy and normative pressures are the themes that the movie puts under the spotlight. (Emilian Lungu)
Pedro Neves Marques is a director, visual artist, and writer (b. 1984, Lisbon). His filmography includes the short fiction films The Bite, which premiered at TIFF – Wavelengths and NYFF – Projections in 2019 and was awarded at Go Short Nijmegen, Short Waves, Sicilia Queer Film Festival, MixBrasil, and MIEFF, and Exterminator Seed which premiered at IndieLisboa in 2017. He also directed the short political documentary Art and Hurt (2018). He has had solo exhibitions in contemporary art institutions such as Castello di Rivoli, High Line, e-flux, CA2M, CaixaForum, Gasworks, Pérez Art Museum Miami. Together with Catarina de Sousa, he founded the production company Foi Bonita a Festa in 2021.