PETER L. STEIN
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11 Days Hath September ... (of Frameline44)

9/13/2020

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And we're off! (Or off our rockers.) In the midst of pandemic and fires, and 3 months postponed from our traditional Pride month, the team of Frameline44 has assembled an 11-day virtual festival of some really wonderful films -- 77 of them, from 24 countries - to keep you sane, engaged, titillated and inspired. Practically every screening has a unique Q&A or panel attached to it, too. Some of my personal festival highlights are below, but I encourage you to browse the whole program. Most films are available for the whole festival Sept. 17 - 27 – though you need to be a ticketholder with a billing ZIP code in California for all but the free programs.

World cinema standouts

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No Hard Feelings
Winner of this year's Teddy Award in Berlin, this drama takes us inside the lives of several generations of Iranian immigrants in Germany as they navigate feelings of outsiderness, solidarity and surprising love.
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Forgotten Roads
This lovely feature from Chile is about a 70-year-old widow who "comes of age" late in life and finds independence and romance despite the objections of her small town and her family. A quiet gem and debut feature from a talented newcomer.
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Dry Wind
Bold, sexy (XXX), wildly inventive, and even touching: another first feature from South America (Brazil) explores the rich fantasy life of a sad sack factory worker. I call it "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" meets "Tom of Finland."
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Two of Us
Mado and Nina have been a couple for more than 20 years....but Mado's family has no clue. This marvelously acted suspenseful film set in France stars the incomparable Barbara Sukowa (check out the post-film interview I did with her and the director...marred only by her wonky Internet connection!). Note: this film is only available on the last weekend of the festival and tickets are limited.
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The Teacher
Set and shot in the midst of Taiwan's landmark movement to become the first Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage, this is a refreshing, dynamically shot and performed romantic drama. It centers on the challenges of an out gay teacher as he juggles the pressures of his workplace, an affair with a married man, and a still prejudiced society.

Timely docs about other times

Killing Patient Zero
If you want to be reminded how the nation both ignored a deadly virus during the AIDS epidemic, and also panicked in its need to find a scapegoat...see this important film that corrects a longheld injustice. It's a well-researched portrait of Gaetan Dugas (vilified as the "Man Who Brought AIDS to North America") and SF journalist Randy Shilts, who shone a spotlight on AIDS when it was being ignored but also opened the door to Dugas becoming stereotyped as the disease's "Typhoid Mary." Personal note: Brian Freeman is a featured interviewee, along with Fran Lebowitz, B. Ruby Rich, and many people who knew and worked with Dugas and Shilts. Riveting viewing.

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Cured
A fascinating look at a crucial and relatively unknown turning point in LGBTQ history: the effort in the 1960's-70s to remove homosexuality from being considered a mental illness by the psychiatric establishment. A great story of uncelebrated heroes.
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More discoveries

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The Obituary of Tunde Johnson
A powerful and timely drama that movingly addresses police violence and the vulnerability of Black queer lives.
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Encounters: International Short Dramas
I was delighted to curate these six films from four continents: each, in its own way, is a story about the surprises that can happen when people meet.

And there are some fun free programs too, such as Pixar's Out, a panel discussion I'm moderating with some of the cast and crew of the Broadway revival (and upcoming Netflix film) The Boys in the Band, and a festive auction.  Hope to "see" you online, and I hope you find something unique to enjoy in this surprisingly rich September festival.
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A virtual festival for Pride

6/15/2020

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In the midst of the pandemic, the team at Frameline – despite postponing the majority of the 2020 festival to sometime in the Fall – decided we couldn’t let Pride month go by without some form of film celebration.  But the initial idea -- a couple of days of online film offerings -- has ballooned into a 4-day pop-up festival of nearly 40 brand new films including new feature narratives, powerful documentaries, 3 signature shorts programs (Fun in Boys Shorts, Fun in Girls Shorts, and Transtastic), and a passel of free screenings offered in concert with the upcoming AIDS 2020 conference.
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I’ve learned a lot during this period about the advantages and challenges of presenting a festival online—one plus is that I have gotten to conduct Q&A’s with far-flung guests whom we might never have been able to bring to an in-person festival (like actors Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Gemma Arterton, filmmaker David France and Russian activist Maxim Lapunov, who is in exile in an undisclosed European country). One disadvantage is that the screenings need to be geo-blocked to California (that is, distributors and producers have limited our viewing audience to California residents only…sorry to my non-CA friends and readers).


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Below are my personal highlights for the Frameline44 Pride Showcase. The good news is you can see pretty much all of the films at any time between Thursday June 25 – Sunday June 28 by navigating to www.frameline.org/festival and purchasing individual tickets or passes. We have suggested viewing slots because that’s when special live introductions, Q&A’s, and surprise live performances will take place, so we hope you do some “appointment screening” at the suggested times. But the films are available to watch all weekend, and the Q&A’s etc. will be posted after-the-fact to Frameline’s Facebook and YouTube channels.


Peter's Highlights

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Ahead of the Curve at the Drive-In!
We’re thrilled to be hosting the world premiere of this rousing documentary charting the influence and legacy of the groundbreaking magazine Curve (formerly Deneuve), which became a touchstone of lesbian visibility through its tenacious founder Franco Stevens. The most fun will be to see it at the West Wind Drive-In in Concord – yes, a real in-person screening. But you can also watch it online.

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Twilight’s Kiss (Suk Suk)
This is a tender, unsentimental and eye-opening romantic drama set in Hong Kong, featuring characters we rarely see: older gay men navigating social pressures to maintain their (straight) family structures. It’s a quiet and very fine film.

Parade
This is quite a discovery, a time capsule, thought lost forever: a 14-minute film made in 1972, which just resurfaced, showing San Francisco’s first officially permitted gay pride parade, and including fascinating voiceover commentary by participants and attendees. The roots of street protest are fascinating to see, especially at this moment. This one is free, by the way.


Welcome to Chechnya
David France’s searing and urgent documentary takes you right inside the effort to rescue persecuted gays and lesbians in Chechnya. This is necessary viewing, IMO.

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Fun in Boys Shorts
My colleagues and I had a blast putting together this annual compilation of silliness. I especially love “The Shawl”…an animated documentary.


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Summerland
This free screening may already be sold out (except to passholders)…but I wanted to mention it anyway because it will be released later this summer by IFC. It’s a sweeping romance set mainly during World War II, featuring terrific performances by Gemma Arterton and a young unknown kid playing the boy who is foisted upon her during the London Blitz. Also co-starring Penelope Wilton and Tom Courtenay, so you Brit-film fans shouldn’t miss it!
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Peter's Hot Picks for Frameline43

6/1/2019

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It's time again for my cheat sheet alerting you to films and programs I am especially excited about, coming up at this year's Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival (note that we have exhausted the alphabet and have simply adopted a + symbol to signify inclusivity!). With 174 films this year from 38 countries - including 59 US premieres and 22 world premieres - this year's festival is especially fresh, and my shortlist can't hit everything. But here are some surprises and gems among the many wonderful films to be discovered. Kudos to all of my colleagues on the programming team for assembling what I think is a really memorable lineup - please browse the whole program, but do take note of these...:

Big Nights and Special Events

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Vita & Virginia - Opening Night
We open with a lush and sexy biopic about the 20th century's greatest literary lesbian love affair between Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf. Fans of "Downton Abbey" and literary mavens will all swoon.




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Sid & Judy - Centerpiece Doc
If you think you already know everything there is to know about the great Judy Garland, think again. I love this (world premiere!) insider's view of her extraordinary talent and challenges, told through her own voice and that of her husband Sid Luft. It's a revelation, and full of fabulous archival performance clips and rarely heard audio.


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Temblores (Tremors) - Centerpiece World Cinema
From Guatemala, this powerful drama was one of the most memorable films that I saw at this year's Berlin Film Festival, where it premiered - the story of a confident, sophisticated man whose decision to leave his wife and children for his long-time lover wreaks havoc on his life. The lead actor will be present.

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Kinky Boots: The Musical
For the first time, Frameline will present a live-captured, HD Cinema theatrical experience at the festival - it's the world premiere of the Olivier Award-winning London cast of Harvey Fierstein & Cyndi Lauper's raucous and uplifting Kinky Boots. Fun, toe-tapping and touching.


In Sharp Focus: Documentaries

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Unsettled: Seeking Refuge in America and The Infiltrators
Two powerful films shed light on the difficult situation facing LGBTQ refugees and immigrants (often fleeing very repressive cultures and regimes) trying to come to the US to find sanctuary. Unsettled is set here in the Bay Area and follows four asylum-seekers (they will all be at the screening), while The Infiltrators, a Sundance hit this year, follows a remarkable group of activists who infiltrate a federal detention center to expose the treatment of undocumented immigrants. A free panel will follow Unsettled.

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Vision Portraits / Frameline Award to Rodney Evans
What a delight to bestow this year's Frameline Award to filmmaker Rodney Evans and to screen his touching new documentary Vision Portraits, about artists (like himself) dealing with visual impairment or blindness. We will also be taking the opportunity to show a 15th anniversary 35mm retrospective screening of his marvelous ode to the Harlem Renaissance, Brother to Brother.


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Jean Paul Gaultier: Freak & Chic
A stylish, gorgeous look at the life and work of famed fashion and design maverick Gaultier - but not in the typical greatest-hits-biography format, but rather through a behind-the-scenes view of the making of a fascinating autobtiographical stage revue. And yes, Madonna and Deneuve make appearances...


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Marlon Riggs: No Regrets
Hard to believe it's been 25 years since the death of pioneering director Marlon Riggs - but his vision and talent continue to prove they are necessary for our time, right now. We are showing three of his rarely seen short films along with some special treats (such as a guest appeareance from Brian Freeman, Marlon's frequent collaborator, among other attractions!).


A World of Cinema

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History Lessons
A sly gem of a film from Mexico, in which a sad-sack history teacher finds her life jolted into a new gear by an unruly new student. A little bit Harold and Maude, a little bit Thelma and Louise. Don't miss this one.


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Benjamin
The funniest screenplay in this year's festival belongs to British comedian/writer/director Simon Amstell, whose alter-ego Benjamin (the wonderful Colin Morgan) is an awkward, self-conscious filmmaker in hipster London who seems to do everything to screw up his one chance at falling in love. It's a delight.


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Song Lang
Among Frameline43's hidden gems, this noir romance from Vietnam is a moody, atmospheric film set in 1980's Saigon, depicting the unlikely fascination that develops between a hardened debt collector and the star of a folk opera troupe.


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Monsters.
Making its North American premiere at Frameline, this small masterpiece from Romania--told in three distinct chapters--is an anatomy of a failing marriage, as we meet a husband and wife on what might be the last day of their relationship. 


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Meili
If your tastes run toward downbeat realism, or if you are curious what a mumblecore lesbian indie drama from mainland China might look like, don't miss this intense character study with an amazing central performance. This is one of those film journeys you rely on adventuresome festivals to take you on.


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Tehran: City of Love
Wtih brilliant deadpan humor and understatement, this surprisingly funny and subversive feature from Iran  follows three lonely characters--one of them unmistakably if covertly gay--as they try to stumble their ways toward human connection. I don't know how this got made without offending censors, but I'm so glad it did and that we are screening it.


Wild Rides and Offbeat Trips

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Brief Story from the Green Planet
Winner of this year's Teddy Award in Berlin as Best LGBT Feature, this charming, fable-like story from Argentina follows a transgender woman and her queer friends on a strange road trip as they attempt to return her grandmother's unexpected lodger--an extraterrestrial--to its proper home.


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Bit
A restless young woman from the 'burbs (Nicole Maines, the transgender star of Supergirl) moves to Los Angeles and falls in with a sexy, wild and seductive gang of cool lesbians - trouble is, they're vampires. But soon their campaign to rid LA of predatory
men has our heroine swept up in a bloody and addictive rampage. This is one unusual genre flick, very fun, stylish and high energy.

There's much more to discover, including guest artists from around the globe and some fun parties too. I hope to see many of you at the festival, which runs June 20 - 30.
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Lights. Camera. Take Action! Peter's Picks for Frameline42

6/3/2018

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It's June again! So with all the usual caveats about how every one of this year's 153 films is worth your time, I am providing here a little cheat sheet of films, screenings and events I am particularly looking forward to at the upcoming Frameline festival, the fifth I have contributed to as Senior Programmer. I'm especially proud this year that 52% of all the films are directed or co-directed by women! And also that (having concentrated quite a bit on our world cinema section) we have films representing 39 countries.


International Gems

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And Breathe Normally
An exquisite drama from Iceland that won a Directing Award at Sundance, this slow-burn feature is our World Cinema centerpiece for a reason - it's a deeply rewarding exploration of how two vastly different women from different continents forge a connection in a harsh world.

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Hard Paint
This moody, sexy and ultimately uplifting romance is set in the gritty Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, featuring a lonely young protagonist who dances on his webcam to earn money. Hard Paint deservedly won the Teddy Award at this year's Berlin Festival for best LGBTQ narrative film -- it's terrific. And the directors will be here in San Francisco too!

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L'animale
Not your typical coming-of-age story, L'animale introduces us to tomboy Mati and her Austrian family in a crucial moment of their lives, as she explores what real friendship (and love) mean and her parents try to sort out their complicated needs. I really enjoyed the smart script - director Katharina Mückstein will be here from Austria.

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Man in an Orange Shirt
I worked the phones, emails and every angle hard to bring Frameline the U.S. premiere of this terrific BBC drama that charts two connected love stories set 60 years apart. Vanessa Redgrave gives a standout performance, as does up-and-coming British star Julian Morris, who will be at the Castro Theatre. Yes, this is also coming to PBS Masterpiece...but see it at the Castro first with Julian Morris in person!


Delicious Docs

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Bixa Travesty
Fierce, inspiring, electrifying - you won't want to miss this amazing profile of Brazilian performance artist/rapper Linn da Quebrada, a black transgender whirlwind who uses poetry to take on racism, machismo, gender inequality and homophobia. Another Teddy Award winner too!

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Dykes, Camera, Action!
An excellent survey of the triumphs and pitfalls of representing authentic lesbian stories in films and TV,  and the challenges facing queer women behind the camera. We'll follow the screening with an amazing panel focusing on queer women documentarians, moderated by B. Ruby Rich.

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The Ice King
I never knew the story of extraordinary British 1970s-80s figure skater John Curry, who single-handedly changed the sport by bringing balletic artistry into its vocabulary, and faced down homophobia along the way. The editorial craft in this archive-rich film is off the charts.

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TransMilitary
Our opening night selection is a moving, timely, and important look at the situation facing the more than 15,000 transgender people currently employed in the U.S. military. Focusing on the experiences of four individuals, the personal film is told with heart and urgency, and is a vital report from the current front lines of the ongoing fight for LGBTQ inclusion in American life.

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Every Act of Life
This is an affectionate and honest behind-the-scenes portrait of the Tony- and Emmy-winning playwright Terrence McNally, chock full of terrific performance footage from his memorable works including Love! Valour! Compassion!, The Lisbon Traviata, Ragtime, Master Class and so many more. Great interviews with Angela Lansbury, Nathan Lane, Audra McDonald...so you know why I fell for this one. McNally will be here for the screening too!


Offbeat Specials and Oddball Surprises

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Yours in Sisterhood
The premise is simple and brilliant: women across the country are filmed reading aloud unpublished letters to the editor sent in the 1970s to Ms. Magazine. It ends up being an amazing two-lensed portrait: it's both a fond remembrance of the heyday of second-wave feminism, and a commentary on the far-less-than-perfect status of women in today's American society. This ought to be a sleeper hit, do not miss it!

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Chedeng and Apple
This is a goofy and occasionally grisly black comedy, whose charm is held firmly in place by the two older actresses in the leads who happen to be legendary divas in the Philippines. They play two best friends on the lam, one in search of her long-lost girlfriend and the other fleeing a crime (with evidence hidden in her Louis Vuitton bag). I coudn't stop giggling.

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Worldly Affairs
This year's annual showcase of sexy/romantic short gay films from abroad is exceptional this year, including new films from Israel, Québec, and San Francisco's own Travis Mathews (via Brazil).

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2018 Frameline Award: Debra Chasnoff (1957 - 2017)
She was a pillar of the Bay Area documentary scene and an inspiring filmmaker/activist, whom we lost too soon. Come enjoy this tribute to the amazing Debra Chasnoff (among other achievements, she was the first person to thank her same-sex partner when she won her Oscar), and stay for the screening of her groundbreaking documentary It's Elementary.



Naturally there's so much more I could be crowing about - celebrities in the house, light comedies, artful experiments...email me if you want more highlights or are wondering about a film I haven't mentioned here. The full program is here and tickets are on sale now.
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Exit a shaman

8/2/2017

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I have been struggling to accept that Sam Shepard is gone. I never met him, but his fierce dreamscapes, the theater he conjured from the detritus of the American West, were profoundly meaningful to me as I came of age, another son of the West wondering where, and how, the myths had gone. For those of us who were exposed to his theater in the Bay Area of the 70's-80's, or who (like me, in college), have had a chance to perform those hallucinatory--yet somehow emotionally precise--raving monologues and stripped-bare showdowns before an audience, his theatrical voice was a mysterious revelation, an incantation, gushing from some ineffable psychic wound that made his work deeply human. A shaman is gone, but the crack that he opened in the language, and our imagination, remains.

Please also read Patti Smith's beautiful remembrance of her friend.


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Long before Moonlight...

6/23/2017

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Earlier this week I delivered the following introductory remarks to Frameline's retrospective screening of Looking for Langston by Isaac Julien. I thought I'd share them here.
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When Moonlight won the Oscar for best picture this year, it occurred to us on the programming team that it was an extraordinary breakthrough for LGBT film…but also that this film did not emerge fully blown, out of a vacuum. It is a direct descendant of a long line of fierce and poetic depictions of black queer lives, running back through artists like Patrik-Ian Polk, Cheryl Dunye and Marlon Riggs, to the filmmaker whose work we will see today. To help us and our audiences take some measure of the progress and current state of art-making for LGBTQ filmmakers of color, we’ve put together a special multi-film program called “Barriers and Breakthroughs: Illuminating Filmmakers of Color Before and Beyond Moonlight” – 14 films and 2 panels that together help paint a picture of the past achievements and current opportunities and challenges facing artists working across multiple racial and sexual identities.

We kick things off today by going to the source: what is arguably the first black queer film by a black queer filmmaker: Isaac Julien’s Looking for Langston, today presented in a beautiful new digitally restored format.
 
Isaac Julien, who received the 2002 Frameline Award for his pioneering filmmaking, is a hard-to-categorize British visual artist: filmmaker, installation artist, video poet, trickster, who often addresses the intersections of histories, migrations, identities, and sexualities in his visual assemblages. Queen Elizabeth herself seems wise to his talents: just this week she used her annual Birthday Honours to name him a Commander of the British Empire – pretty heady stuff for the son of Caribbean immigrants from the island of St. Lucia, who grew up in the gritty East End of London quite far removed from Europe’s high-art circles.
 
His breakout film in 1989 is the work we are going to see today, Looking for Langston, a meditation on the Harlem Renaissance, the poet Langston Hughes, and both the legacy and the future of Black queer desire. Isaac had been moved and inspired on a visit to New York in 1987 to think about these matters not only because he was steeping himself in Harlem Renaissance poetry and photography—work created by artists many of whom were gay or bisexual, closeted and out—but also because his visit happened to coincide with the funeral of James Baldwin, which he witnessed with his partner Mark Nash. He returned to London and fashioned this dreamlike, theatricalized film scenario: part funeral, part club rave, part homage and part imagined love story - using images and sounds that leap across decades to create a dense intertextual pattern that is suffused with wit and passion. The passion is there from the start: the first voice you hear is that of Toni Morrison in her eulogy for James Baldwin….but the wit is right there too—as the camera floats through a stylized 1920’s funeral home, the body in the casket is none other than Isaac Julien.
 
The film is all about Looking—not just “Looking for” some kernels of truth about the elusive essence of Langston Hughes, but also "Looking at": the film is a luscious celebration of the black queer gaze. And you can spell that last word any way you want.
 
On its release, the film fought off an attempt by the Langston Hughes estate to block the use of several of the poems used in it—in fact at its first festival screening in New York, someone had to stand by the projector and push a mute button every time Hughes’ poetry was read in order for the festival to avert a court injunction. But over the years most of those wrinkles were ironed out. The layered audio track is worth paying close attention to—featuring not only Hughes’ words but the rapturous poetry of Essex Hemphill and Bruce Nugent, and wonderful period music as well as contemporary songs written by Bay Area composer Blackberri.

Today the film stands as a milestone – or more accurately the Rosetta Stone – for what queer filmmaking could be. As the film scholar B. Ruby Rich mentions in her Frameline catalog note, given the context of both the triumph of Moonlight and our current threatening political climate, this may be “the most essential film revival of 2017.”

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We’ll precede it with Isaac Julien’s rarely screened short film The Attendant, completed just a few years after Looking for Langston. Here the setting is also a kind of theatrical tableau – this time in a museum, where a middle-aged Black gallery guard locks eyes with a beautiful white boy—played, by the way, by John Wilson, who also appears as a fetching object of desire in Looking for Langston.  This loaded moment in the museum sets off a witty sequence of erotic and symbolic encounters that manage to reference everything from the history of British slavery to Tom of Finland. Writing in the New York Times, Holland Cotter observed that “the film presents a complex sexual and racial dynamic of dominance and submission and a poignant sense of loss, which serves as a reminder that the piece, [like Looking for Langston,] was made at the height of the AIDS epidemic.“

We are really grateful to Isaac Julien and his gallery team in London for making these films available, as well as to Brian Freeman for first suggesting this timely program. Isaac is traveling to South Africa and not able to be here, but noted in an email to me that it was a special honor to bring these films to Frameline, since even though they have appeared in San Francisco before, they have actually never played here officially as part of the Frameline festival – and have never been seen at all in these digital restorations.

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A quick look at some Frameline41 highlights

6/15/2017

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I'm a bit late with this round-up but want to point out a few don't-miss screenings at the upcoming festival, which opened Thursday June 15 and runs through June 25, featuring 147 films from 19 countries. It seems that this year (my fourth as Senior Programmer), LGBTQ film has leapt to new levels of sophistication, so the program feels especially strong from a cinematic standpoint. (I say this not to take any enhanced credit for the quality of the program; in fact I played a somewhat smaller role for Frameline this year because I was finishing my Jacques Pépin documentary.) For a sense of what might be happening in the zeitgeist for LGBTQ film, check out the programming team's thoughts in David Lewis' insightful article from last week's San Francisco Chronicle. Now on to a few picks for Frameline41.

World Cinema - a smorgasbord...

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The Wound
A striking, haunting drama set during a coming-of-age initiation ceremony among South Africa's Xhosa community, where notions of masculinity collide with forbidden affections. Sensitively written and performed.

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God's Own Country
Set on a rugged Yorkshire sheep farm, this tale of a love that begins to take root between a sullen lad and the new Romanian farmhand is a slow burn, featuring muddy (torrid) frolicking and memorable scenes of animal husbandry. What's not to like? Director Francis Lee in person at the Castro!


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I Dream in Another Language
Deep in a Mexican rain forest, a handsome anthropologist travels to a remote village to record the last two remaining speakers of a dying indigenous language, only to find the the two men refuse to speak to each other. His quest takes him on mystical, spiritual and wonderful journey into the past.

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Against the Law
I was fascinated and appalled to learn the tragic history of the persecution of gay men in the UK during the 50s and 60s. This drama recounts the story of one man, Peter Wildeblood, and skillfully interweaves documentary testimony as well.

Among the docs, hidden histories and biographies galore

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Chavela
A marvelous, archivally rich and revelatory look at the fierce, iconoclastic Mexican torch singer Chavela Vargas. Pedro Almodóvar may have re-discovered her in 1990s, but here her whole messy and thrilling life gets its due.

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The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin
While yes, it's an unabashed valentine to the city of San Francisco and the charms and openness that attracted its favorite son to live and write here, it's also a poignant look back at the last four decades of gay and lesbian life in America, through a novelist's eye.  Well-crafted and told. It was our opening night screening (sold out) but just added an encore screening by popular demand.

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The Lavender Scare
A gripping account of the decades-long effort at the highest levels of U.S. leadership to rid the U.S. government of homosexuals starting with the Cold War--and the battle for justice led by civil rights pioneer Frank Kameny.  Filmmaker Josh Howard & author David Johnson in person.

Fab US Features

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After Louie
The incomparable Alan Cumming will be here to receive the 2017 Frameline Award and bask in what I know will be a thunderous reception to his beautiful performance as a man of a certain age trying to bridge a gap between generations.  Wilson Cruz also expected in the house!

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Signature Move
The festival boasts some terrific South Asian-themed films this year. Jennifer Reeder's delightful feature traces a budding romance between a Pakistani-American lawyer and a former female lucha libre wrestler...while she also negotiates bringing her traditional mother around to a more modern acceptance of 21st century love. (Mom is played wonderfully by the veteran actress Shabana Azmi, who starred in Deepa Mehta's controversial Fire some 20 years ago!)

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Freak Show
A celebration of being your true oddball self, this is a fun, music-filled, affirming--but not trivial--coming-of-age story set in a high school, where the resident gender-expansive "freak" has a few lessons to teach the mean kids. Starring the wonderful Alex Lawther (who played young Alan Turing in The Imitation Game) with a memorable turn by Bette Midler as his boozy mom, and cameos from Laverne Cox, John McEnroe and Abigail Breslin.

"Only at a Film Festival" - some offbeat picks

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Looking for Langston
A new digital re-mastering of Isaac Julien's 1989 classic meditation on the Harlem Renaissance and queer black desire--an especially timely reminder that the poetic, boundary-crossing Moonlight has deep and fierce precedents. A perfect set-up for attending our panels focusing on opportunities and challenges facing LGBTQ filmmakers of color.

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Stumped
Don't be fooled by the apparent grimness of the topic (it's the story of a quadruple amputee) - this is a unique, uplifting, wry and funny documentary about resilience and the quirks of the human spirit.

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Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves
The longest title in the festival and definitely the longest film (clocking in at just over 3 hours), this is a cinephile's must-see. In a fictional re-imagining of the iconoclastic political activism that led to Canada's 2012 "Maple Spring" (think "Occupy" on steroids), the film deploys a brilliant arsenal of cinematic styles to ask some pretty deep questions about what real change demands. It critiques youthful rebellion while also eviscerating the status quo. Epic in every way. Bring a cushion.

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Peter's Picks for Frameline40

6/6/2016

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For the last 3 years I've been asked by friends and strangers to give my insider "favorites" among the films I've had a hand in programming at Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival. Alert: any programmer worth his/her salt doesn't talk about "favorites," because we've worked too hard to winnow down a huge number of films to a very competitive few, and we want you to see them all! That said, with 155 films this year from 24 countries - including films about LGBTQ life in countries and cultures we rarely hear about, including China, Cuba, Myanmar, and the Canadian Inuit - I understand the temptation to request something of a cheat sheet.

But rather than calling these "favorites," I am simply calling out here those screenings I personally am especially looking forward to, whether for selfish reasons (e.g., a shorts program I am proud of) or because of special guests, or simply a beautiful film that should be seen on the big screen.

A reminder that the festival runs June 16-26, including a full week in the East Bay. And if a film you made, or are excited to see, isn't listed below, it's not because I don't love it. It's that I don't have room on this blog to reproduce the entire Frameline40 website!

Quirky comedies, sexy dramas

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Pushing Dead
Among the 21 first-time features in this year's festival, Tom Brown's quirky comedy centers on the foibles of a lovelorn San Francisco man--a longtime HIV survivor--and his maddening interactions with a Kafkaesque health insurance bureaucracy. A wonderful cast including James Roday, Danny Glover, Robin Weigert and Khandi Alexander give a special shine to the Lower Haight and other out-of-the-way corners of the city. Look for a good showing of cast and crew at the world premiere.

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Paris 05:59 - Theo & Hugo
After a jaw-dropping erotic first scene that would earn an X-rating if it hadn't been shot in free-wheeling Paris,
this story of two guys' first encounter turns a surprising corner, as the guys head out on bikes into the dawn streets of Paris to discover who each other really is. Sexy, romantic, bold and very well executed.

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Summertime
Turn back the clock to the heady days of second-wave feminism in this 1970s romance set (once again!) in la belle France - what is it with the French and their incredibly sexy dramas? Here our heroines are grounded farm girl Delphine and firebrand bisexual Carole (Cécile de France).
Oh la la.


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Tomcat
The picture-perfect lives of a Viennese couple take a disturbing turn that makes them question everything they thought they knew about themselves. This psychologically compelling portrait is pretty unforgettable - maybe that's why it won this year's Teddy Award in Berlin for best feature.

Feature dramas: Youth in focus

2016 brings a strong slate of international films telling stories centered on the experiences of young people. In the new normal, these kids aren't necessarily battling parents and society over being gay. In a more accepting world, the complications of their lives are diverse and nuanced.
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Being 17
This exquisite new feature from French auteur André Téchiné looks at the rivalrous relationship between two teenagers living in a remote village in the French Pyrenees. The cinematography and landscapes are breathtaking (see it at the Castro!), and the story is an insightful foray into the turmoil of adolescence.

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Girls Lost
Three misfit high school girls in Sweden discover a magical plant that allows them to be transformed for short periods, werewolf-like, into boys...and they make the most of their adventure. This brilliantly realized fantastic tale has elements of both horror and humor, and ultimately is a quite poignant depiction of three young women's different experiences of gender identity.

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Rara
Told from the point-of-view of a 13-year-old girl, Rara is the story of two moms in Chile who are raising their daughters
while trying to shield them from both the judgments of their conservative town and the custody battle that is brewing with an ex-husband. Well written, acted and made.

Documentaries: Social Justice Issues to the Fore!

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Kiki
Our Opening Night film is an exuberant and politically engaged look at the current ballroom scene in New York City, centering on the lives and inspiring fierceness of talented voguers who are mainly queer and trans youth of color. Think of it as a savvy, contemporary update of Paris Is Burning for the age of #BlackLivesMatter.

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Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four
A powerful film telling the nightmarish story of four Latina lesbians wrongly convicted of a terrible crime during the insanity of the "Satanic ritual abuse" scare of the 90's. It's good filmmaking and compelling stories, and best of all - all four subjects will be here in person!

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Growing Up Coy
We couldn't have known, when programming this film, that the issue of transgender people's rights to use a bathroom would become a nationwide hot button. The touching story of the Mathis family's battle to protect their delightful young child's basic rights is not only an excellent film--it follows a simple Colorado family as they get caught in a national media glare--but it can now be seen as a bellwether for our current controversy.  If you want to put a human face on the issue, come to the screening, where you will also meet the courageous mom and little Coy herself.

Documentaries: Non-Fiction Revelations

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Strike a Pose
At first glance, it's the thrilling behind-the-scenes story of the 7 young dancers plucked from obscurity in 1990 by Madonna to become her posse for the Blonde Ambition tour and the groundbreaking documentary Truth or Dare. But it is so much more: it's about fleeting fame, secrecy, resilience,  trying to grow into maturity and surviving your own demons. Best of all: 5 of the dancers will be in attendance.


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Inside the Chinese Closet
An intimate and fascinating portrait of two young Chinese professionals--one a gay man, the other a lesbian--as they face societal and family pressures to find a sham marriage and provide their parents with grandchildren. It's deeply insightful into a different culture, in the way only a great observational doc can be.

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Women He's Undressed
An inventive biography of one of Hollywood's greatest costume designers, Orry-Kelly, who not only created indelible images dressing the casts of Casablanca, Auntie Mame and Some Like It Hot...but he was Cary Grant's secret lover (shhh....we're not supposed to know that). This is a delightful and dishy film by Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career.)

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Who's Gonna Love Me Now?
Among my favorite people from many years of directing the SF Jewish Film Festival are the sibling filmmaking team of Barak and Tomer Heymann (Paper Dolls, The Queen Has No Crown). Their new film follows an Israeli man, Saar Maoz, a long-term HIV survivor living in London, as he considers reconnecting with his estranged family back on a conservative kibbutz. The surprising turns and revelations throughout the film are very rewarding. The subject will be here, too!


Short but not small

We have 15 different shorts programs this year, including the usual classics Fun in Boys Shorts, Fun in Girls Shorts, Worldly Affairs and Only in San Francisco. But I also had a lot of fun curating two new offbeat programs:
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We Need to Talk
An eclectic mix of five short films, all catalyzed by someone having to disclose something. Gives the lie to the old canard that guys just don't--or won't--talk.


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Oh the Horror!
Those of you who are familiar with me know that I am not especially a fan-boy for genre flicks, and horror movies usually make me shut my eyes and cringe. But the short films in the creepshow category I came across this year - including some really funny ones - demanded to be seen.

And lest we forget...

It's Frameline's 40th anniversary, so there are some terrific retrospective screenings of films like Tongues Untied and The Celluloid Closet that have had a social impact and paved the way for the new crop of social justice documentaries. There's a fun program - Flashback 1977 - remembering Frameline's founding year (though my Lowell High School graduation will not be memorialized, I'm afraid). And I am moderating a panel on social justice documentaries as well: LGBTQ Films as an Agent of Social Change - Then & Now.

And I hope you all come out to meet (or get introduced to) the legendary Bob Hawk, recipient of the Frameline Award this year and mentor-muse-"film-whisperer" to generations of queer indie filmmakers. We'll be showing the new film about his life, Film Hawk.

And finally:

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Looking
World premiere. Closing night. Cast in attendance.

Our lives and city on the big screen.

This will be a blast.

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Mother Teresa's Career Advice

11/16/2015

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In the wake of the Paris attacks, Beirut, Kenya, Sinai, Israel/Palestine, and catastrophic climate change, I start to feel overwhelmed by despair. What possible good can come of the field I have chosen to learn and dedicate my working life to? Who am I kidding? Film, theater, arts, literature...these may nourish the soul, but in a broken world, these efforts seem futile at best, indulgent at worst.

And then a story comes to light. Just an anecdote, really, and about someone I have had only passing knowledge of: Mother Teresa, of all people. The following story happened long ago to Morgan Jenness, a very talented theater colleague of my partner Brian. I share it--in her words--for all of us, especially artists, who may be filled with self-doubt or hopelessness in times like these:


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"When I was in my very early 20's I decided that theater was not really what I should be doing - I had seen a photo of Mother Teresa holding a very tiny baby - the two smiling/beaming at each other and it struck me like lightning that this is what I should do - go to India, find her, own only a sari and a bucket and go around picking up and caring for the sick and dying.

"So I was working temp jobs, trying to raise money to go to India and in the midst of this Mother Teresa makes a surprise trip to NYC. I call all the places she had been, call her convent in the Bronx, trying to find out how I can meet her. Someone at my job suggests I call the Indian Consulate, and when I do the man tells me that she will actually be there for a talk in about 45 minutes or so.

"I dash out of the job - saying goodbyes to all - call my friend Max to try to meet me and head up - the building is in the east 60's off Central Park as I recall...I get there and Mother Teresa has not arrived and the guard will not let me in. While I wait, two cars pull up...out of one exits a flock of nuns, and out of the other tiny Mother Teresa between two tall men. They come down the sidewalk towards me - jumping foot to foot - and she nods to the guard to let me in. My friend Max arrives and I grab her hand and we both follow Mother Teresa, the tall men, and flock of nuns up the stairs trailing behind like the duckling Ping in the Chinese folk tale.

"Max and I stand at the back of a large ballroom filled with beautiful Indian people, women in gorgeous saris, feeling out of place. Mother Teresa speaks eloquently about her work - at one point a man says, 'They say that rather than give a man a fish, one should teach him how to fish.' She says 'most of these people are not strong enough and need to be given what they need..but I will make a deal with you, I will give them a fish and when they are strong enough you can teach them how.' Booya.

"She is funny, she is tough and I am hearing angels of purpose singing in my head. At the end of the talk she is about to be taken into a smaller room and I think now or never. I fling myself at her, she takes my hand in both her hands and looks up at me (she is TINY) First I think - wow, she looks like Elizabeth Swados, and then I am caught by her eyes - which are just like burning coals. I tell her I want to come to India and pick up dying people and she asks you feel you need to do this, and I say yes and she looks at me and says no, you can not come.

"The angels stop singing. I have been rejected at first glance by Mother Teresa. She says, 'When you are so filled with love for these people that you cannot stand to be away from them for another second then you can come' and I get it - it's not about me. She asks what I do - I mumble about theater and singing...nonsense. She says, 'There are many famines. In my country there is a great famine of the body, and in your country there is a great famine of the spirit....that is what must be fed.' And she pats my hand and spins around and enters the room...I stand there and Max has to come up and take me away ....and I still carry those words with me today."

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Our Cinematic Moment: Gays Gone Bad

11/5/2015

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Earlier this year,  I and my film programming colleagues at Frameline—the San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival—met to begin the always agonizing process of selecting our favorites from several hundred new films submitted by filmmakers from around the world, to assemble a representative snapshot of our cinematic moment.

There are a few obvious trends  that we could spot immediately: strong narratives from Latin America with gay male or transgender protagonists (In the Grayscale, Mariposa, Carmín Tropical, among many others); fascinating stories emerging from areas like the Balkans, which have rarely produced queer work (Sworn Virgin, Love Island, Xenia); a spate of bracing documentaries about North American athletes, created in the wake of Michael Sam, Jason Collins, and the Sochi Olympics (Game Face, Out to Win, To Russia with Love).

But there’s one development that has taken me a bit longer to identify as it isn’t as clear-cut. Call it the Year of the Bad Queer.

Some of the most memorable North American narrative films of the past year have featured GLBT protagonists—not side characters, but principals—who are deeply, irredeemably flawed. I’m not talking about the traditional flaws of antiheroes—quirks and oddities, suspect motives, disarmingly human failings. I’m talking about polarizing, problematic, occasionally awful people who happen to be gay. Their journey is at the center of the film, so we are asked to care about their fate, but their behavior is offensive, they are morally impoverished, mean, vain, passive-aggressive, violent, immature, or, in more technical language, generally fucked up.

Some examples of the Bad Queer phenomenon would include the following, all of them quite accomplished films with theatrical distribution deals in place or at least a lot of festival accolades and buzz.

  • The title character of Justin Kelly’s I Am Michael—based on the true story of Michael Glatze, played by James Franco—goes from being a committed gay youth activist to a homophobic evangelical preacher intent on hurting the community he once loved.

  • The screenplay of Sebastián Silva’s Nasty Baby is almost sadistically constructed so that its central character—a garden-variety Brooklyn performance artist, played by Silva himself—transforms (spoiler alert) from likable prospective gay dad in the first half to brutally violent criminal in the second.
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• In her feature debut, writer-director-star Desirée Akhavan creates in Appropriate Behavior a central character, Shirin, who’s best described as a lesbian, Iranian-American version of Hannah Horvath from Girls—socially awkward, narcissistic, immature for her years, and incapable of taking responsibility for her failings.
 
•  In Joey Kuhn’s debut feature Those People, the film’s most volatile, charismatic gay character is Sebastian Blackworth, a self-absorbed, manipulative, Upper East Side socialite who may have abetted his swindling father’s crimes (think Bernie Madoff).

  •  Lily Tomlin’s title character in Paul Weitz’ Grandma, while admittedly a fierce and admirable advocate for her pregnant granddaughter, is mean, self-pitying, occasionally violent, and a self-described “asshole.”

  •  The irreverent Canadian black comedy Guidance is about a self-loathing, alcoholic former child star who’s in denial about his homosexuality and, in career desperation, lies his way into a job as a high school guidance counselor, offering the children vodka shots and such affirmations as “I want you to be an inspiration to all the other sluts.”

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Rather than be appalled by this newly hatched cast of fuck-ups or lament the scarcity of queer heroes, I think we should see this trend as reassuring—precisely because these films refuse to repeat the tropes of two decades of GLBT protagonists. Unlike their predecessors, the dramatis personae in this new generation of indies are not defined primarily by their sexuality, and their struggles are not about their sexual orientation. They’re dealing with a host of dysfunctions— bad parents, economic distress, addiction, grief—but they’ve largely integrated being gay into their otherwise messed-up lives. What’s most striking about these new antiheroes is that their flaws usually get the better of them. Most of these films’ denouements do not come with a side order of redemption (with the possible exception of Elle in Grandma, which, interesting enough, was created by a heterosexual writer-director).

So why this sudden proliferation of queer jerks and nasties? (Okay, there have been a few such characters in the past, like Aileen Wuornos in Monster or Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley, but they were once the exception.) I believe we’re seeing a new generation of writers and directors who are eager to create characters that veer away from the well-worn track of indie queer protagonists to date. Ironic and unsentimental, these filmmakers have moved beyond brave teens coming out to disapproving parents, misunderstood rural folk heading for the big city, or anything smacking of martyrdom for a gay cause. They’ve seen enough episodes of Modern Family to know that America may not need another likable homosexual on the screen on whom the audience can project its sympathy or approval. They’re feeling emboldened, or even entitled, to present what might be considered offensive gay or lesbian characters. Perhaps they wish to be seen as provocateurs as well as auteurs. They certainly show a healthy disregard for accusations of “internalized homophobia” (which have been leveled by some critics of these films). And they seem to trust the audience is ready to embrace stories that aren’t, in the end, an exercise in community pride.

As a result, queer film audiences finally have a narrative pleasure that has long been afforded to straight audiences since the dawn of film noir: a central character who is highly problematic, but fascinating.

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There is an instructive parallel to this phenomenon that happened nearly fifty years ago involving another minority, namely American Jews. In the wake of growing social acceptance of Jews and waning anti-Semitism at home, a wave of cinematic “bad-boy Jews” swamped the screen in the late ’60s and early ’70s.” Think of the cad played by Richard Benjamin in Goodbye, Columbus, the matricidal George Segal in Where’s Poppa, or several of Elliott Gould’s rakes, cynics, and reprobates. This loosening and complicating of Jewish characters on-screen reflected a newfound confidence among young Jewish writers and directors, who were willing to risk offending people in order to widen the spectrum of Jewish personae beyond the pleasant pigeonholes of scholar, singer, soldier, milquetoast, or suburban assimilator that predominated in the postwar period.*

Could we be witnessing an analogous “bad queer” moment now, even as we witness the onset of marriage equality and I Am Cait? I suspect we are in for an extended run of “gays gone bad” on the big screen, if only because screenwriters now need something spicier than vanilla queerness to flavor their films. Expect a rash of Patricia Highsmith adaptations (two are already around the corner) and, who knows?, maybe another biopic about J. Edgar Hoover, Roy Cohn, and Jeffrey Dahmer.

* See J. Hoberman’s Entertaining America: Jews, Movies, and Broadcasting (2003, Princeton U. Press) for more on this period in American Jewish screen history.

Note: This article was first published as an "Art Memo" in the Nov.-Dec. 2015 issue of Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide. My thanks to editor Richard Schneider for encouraging it.
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