Much of what I read, watched and listened to this February was somewhere between slightly surprising and outright shocking. This is why I decided, this time, to list the most remarkable things I came across sorted by level of astonishment experienced rather than chronologically. It goes without saying that the top positions are occupied by news items.

1. Gabi, mellan åren 8 och 13, en dokumentärfilm om könsnormer och uppväxt som visades på Göteborgs filmfestivalen (EN+SV, blandad)

Denna film var faktiskt inte alls upprörande! Är du transfobisk eller omofobisk bör du se den. Den är fylld av helt vardagliga händelser som verkligen hjälper dig att sätta saker och ting i perspektiv.

2. El único intérprete, un muy buen episodio de uno de mis podcasts favoritos, Radio Ambulante (ES)

El tema de este episodio, las lenguas de señas, me interesa mucho por sí mismo, pero la historia de Jhon, intérprete en la Fiscalía colombiana, es muy especial y, por tanto, aún más apasionante. El segmento final del episodio cuenta un caso de explotación realmente increíble.

3. Another episode of the Numberphile podcast, this time with Christopher Havens (EN)

Brady Haran’s guests are usually top mathematicians and/or great science communicators. This is not (yet) this episode’s case, where he interviews someone who’s new to academia and discovered mathematics while serving a 25-year prison sentence that isn’t over yet. An unusual story overall, but it really gets surreal when Christopher tells how exactly he was exposed to maths problems for the first time in jail.

4. The Island, an animated musical by Anca Damian (EN)

A few years back, I watched Anca Damian’s animated documentary (!) Crulic in my hometown, Perugia, as part of Rabbitfest, an amazing animation festival that we seem to no longer have money to organize. When I found out that there was another movie by the same filmmaker at the Gothenburg Film Festival, I didn’t need to read the plot to know that I wanted to watch it. This movie is, however, completely different: better animated, less disturbing (but still quite disturbing), much more repetitive and overall weirder. All in all, I’d say that it’s worth watching and I that it would have been a prefect fit for Rabbitfest.

5. Parable of the Talents, a novel by Octavia Butler (EN)

I had already liked Butler’s Parable of the Sower, the first episode of the unfinished series this book belongs too. Parable of the Sower is a remarkable post-apocalyptic science fiction novel that has the unsettling characteristic of anticipating themes (one above all, climate change) and even specific events that are extremely relevant and/or happening now, almost 30 years after its publication. In my opinion, Parable of the Talents clearly surpassed the first book of the series by being even more shockingly accurate1 and by telling the story from three different points of view, one of them very critical towards the main character’s actions and beliefs.

6. La storia di Charlotte Bellis, la giornalista neozelandese che ha chiesto una mano ai talebani per poter partorire un figlio nato da un rapporto extramatrimoniale (IT+EN)

Non posso che commentare che la realtà supera sempre la fantasia. Ne scrivo in italiano perché sono venuta a conoscenza della questione tramite Breaking Italy, ma ovviamente anche l’articolo di opinione della giornalista stessa merita di essere letto.

7. Putin saying that “whoever would try to stop us and further create threats to our country, to our people, should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and lead you to such consequences that you have never faced in your history” (RU+EN but available in any language, I guess)

…with a “we are ready for any outcome” as a ciliegina sulla torta2.

  1. I just want to point out that a candidate for the presidency of the US that, to everyone’s surprise, ends up winning the elections, literally says “make America great again” during his electoral campaign. ↩

  2. lit. “as a cherry on the cake”, but better translations are probably “as icing on the cake” or “som grädde på moset”. ↩