PEARLS

JOSHUA

SERAFIN

Short, 9' 16''
Venice, Italia, 2025

In his artistic practice, Joshua Serafin addresses the wounds left by colonization on the body and on the community. In Pearls (60’), the artist draws inspiration from the non-normative genders honored in the precolonial Philippines, when priestesses embodied this diversity across generations. Alongside Filipino performers Lukresia Quismundo and Bunny Cadag, Serafin reclaims this heritage and envisions a future in which bodies return to being divine and free from conventional gender norms. Pearls becomes a healing exorcism, transforming dark and traumatic stories into beauty, like pearls that form around irritating elements in the oyster’s mantle.

Director Joshua Serafin + Kinonauts
DOP Kinonauts
Post-production Kinonauts                                                                                                                      
Production Joshua Serafin
Location Venezia (Italia)