As an internationally acclaimed film director, screenwriter, and visual artist, Karim Aïnouz has built an extensive oeuvre ranging from award-winning cinematographic works to short films and installations. His work encompasses multitudes: contributions to queer experimental cinema, intriguingly complex leads, explorations of his biography as a Brazilian-Algerian-French filmmaker based in Europe.Ainouz’s eclectic and expansive work deliberately eschews the prescriptive approach to social and political themes that abound to this day in contemporary art and film. In a time where societal norms and political discourse are constantly evolving, he is not afraid of inhabiting contradictions. His work relates to Ernst Bloch’s concept of utopia as a critical and collective longing that is relational to historically situated struggles. Much of Ainouz's oeuvre could be read as an analysis of how queer belonging is performed in dire contexts and the political potentiality of authorial filmmaking.