Synopsis
Game Girls follows Teri and her girlfriend Tiahna as they navigate their relationship through the chaotic world of Los Angeles‘ Skid Row, aka the ‘homeless capital of the U.S.’ A dilemma sometimes fuels the tensions between the two women: if Tiahna has resigned herself to a life of fending for yourself and petty smuggling in the streets of Skid Row, Teri is driven by a powerful desire to move on. Together with other homeless women, they attend a weekly Expressive Arts workshop where they are looking to reflect, dream, and heal. Can their love survive the violence of their past and their current environment? Captured in a deeply intimate way, this story sheds light on the hopes and dreams of women living on the extreme fringes of contemporary US society.Berlinale catalogue:
Skid Row in Los Angeles is the infamous ‘homeless capital’ of the USA. Anyone who is trying to learn the rules of the game and survive here has a really tough time, as the stories of the two protagonists of this film, Teri and Tiahna, reveal. Life for this lesbian couple is a constant round of prison, alcoholism and drug peddling, but there is hope, too. Their biographies are typical for the lives of Afro-American women living on the edge of American society. During a workshop initiated by the filmmaker for women in this community, they address their memories and their traumas and embark on a process of transformation during which they come into view as self-determining subjects rather than as victims. Social protests against homelessness in the neighbourhood, or the ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign are just as much a part of their lives as is the matter-of-fact way in which they choose to live as lesbians, or their bitter struggle with the authorities for their own four walls.
The film’s intimate, observational camerawork helps tell the story of two women who manage to escape Skid Row but who are nonetheless bound by the constraints of their environment.