On the verge of a big anniversary milestone, Frameline (runs Wed/18-June 28) is understandably observing its 49th edition with as much trepidation as celebration: Its slogan this year is “The World Is Watching.” That’s clearly a comment on our national straits at a moment when LGBTQ+ rights seem more at peril than they have in decades—not to mention all the other things (like, say, democracy) this White House administration has endangered. Queer history, arts, institutional representation, program funding, et al. are facing various kinds of official erasure and/or pushback. Presumably there will be fewer international guests and patrons at the festival this year… and who can blame them? Many countries are now advising citizens that it’s not a great time to visit the United States.
Nonetheless, there is always strength to be found at the first, largest, longest-running gay film festival in witnessing stories of perseverance and courage from around the globe. Nothing is more galling to oppressors than a community united against them—and Frameline has brought together one such diverse yet mutually supportive, activist population as its audience for almost half a century.
The 11-day event kicks off Wed/18 at ACT’s Toni Rembe Theater near Union Square with Jimpa. This latest from Australian director Sophie Hyde (of Good Luck to You, Leo Grande) has John Lithgow and Olivia Colman as two generations of a multinational family whose third wave (Aud Mason-Hyde) is a non-binary teenager whose chosen identity isn’t the only one that ruffles some feathers here. Hyde and her young star will be present at the screening.
The next night at KQED there’s a “Juneteenth Film” spotlight in the form of Daniel Junge and Sam Polland’s documentary I Was Born This Way. It’s about the late Carl Bean, the singer turned AIDS activist who had a 1977 hit with the titular disco anthem, which was later covered by Pet Shop Boys, Jimmy Sommerville, Lady Gaga, and others.
Then back at ACT, a “First Friday Film” is director Sam Feder and producer Amy Scholder’s Heightened Scrutiny, which views the politicized hash currently being made of U.S. trans rights through a focus on ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, who’s taken that fight to the Supreme Court. There will be a panel discussion and party afterward.
Launching Pride Weekend Fri/27 at Herbst Theatre is Rashaad Newsome and Johnny Symons’ Assembly, which deploys everything from dance to AI in a complex multimedia meditation on Black queer being and liberation. The official closing night selection on Sat/28 (also at Herbst) is James Sweeney’s Sundance prize winner Twinless, a decidedly offbeat comedy-drama about two men who meet in a support group for people who’ve lost their twin siblings.
Encompassing about 150 titles from 40 countries, Frameline 49 has something for just about everyone. There are documentaries about subjects as wide-ranging as a wrongful conviction murder case from 1981 (Night in West Texas), climate change manifesting in the Florida Everglades (River of Grass), and medical abuses once routinely practiced towards intersex children (The Secret of Me).
Other nonfiction features focus on a particular stellar personality: Poet Andrea Gibson (Come See Me in the Good Light), astronaut Ride (Sally), famed SF breakdancer Gabriel Jaochico (aka B-boy WICKET), French art visionary Jean Cocteau, a Drag Race favorite (world premiere A Deeper Love: The Story of Miss Peppermint), spoken word wizard Staceyann Chin (A Mother Apart), literary giant James Baldwin (Jimmy), “modern primitives” pioneer Fakir Mustafar (A Body To Live In), late NYC ballroom legend Venus Xtravaganza (I’m Your Venus), and Paralympian Angela Madsen (Row of Life). Other portraits are more politically charged, as in Gen_ about gender-affirming Italian physician Dr. Maurizio Bini, or The Librarians, whose protagonists agitate against the rising tide of book bans. Then there’s It’s Dorothy! and Strange Journey, which look at the neverending influence cast by The Wizard of Oz and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
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On the narrative side, there are earnest Amerindie dramas like Shantara Michelle Ford’s Dreams in Nightmares, in which a bi, lesbian, and trans trio of African American college besties take the queer nation’s pulse on a road trip; or Elena Osman’s Outerlands, whose nonbinary protagonist (Asia Kate Dillon) struggles to find a place in gentrification capitol San Francisco, while unexpectedly saddled with caring for a one-night-stand’s 11-year-old child. On the campier or just crazier side, Juliette Lewis falls in love with (then becomes) a chair in Amanda Kramer’s By Design, Annapurna Sriram’s Fucktoys is a phantasmagoria of next-generation John Waters-esque excess, and two dudes get a sexy but duplicitous extraterrestrial as their new flatmate in Addison Heimann’s Touch Me.
Also representing those 39 nations beyond the United States are four features each from Brazil (Baby, The Nature of Invisible Things, Night Stage, Only Good Things) and Canada (Drive Back Home, Lakeview, Really Happy Someday, epic 4.5 hour trans narrative Castration Movie: Pt. 1), three from Argentina (#300Letters, Perro perro, Thesis on a Domestication), plus a couple from South Korea (Between Goodbyes, Lucky Apartment), the U.K. (Dreamers, A Night Like This), India (Pooja Sir, We Are Faheem & Karun), and France (Drone, To Live to Die to Live Again). Not to mention contributions from Italy (Diciannove), Ireland (Four Mothers), Austria (If You Are Afraid You Put Your Heart Into Your Mouth And Smile), Uruguay (Keep Coming Back), Mexico (Ninxs), Hong Kong (Queerpanorama), Croatia (Sandbag Dam), Australia (The Serpent’s Skin), Taiwan (Silent Sparks), Iceland (Skinny Love), Philippines (Some Nights I Feel Like Walking), Sweden (Trans Memoria), New Zealand (Went Up the Hill). And that’s just among full-length films—there’s much more among the festival’s myriad shorts, many grouped in themed programs.
Looking backward as well as forward, the schedule also features some choice revivals. Beyond The Meatrack (below), there are new restorations of fabled 1960s underground kitsch-erotica fantasy Pink Narcissus and groundbreaking 1977 lesbian parenting documentary In the Best Interests of the Children. Marking its 25th anniversary is Valencia, the adaptation of Michelle Tea’s memoir about 1990s queer life that was created in a sort of episodic exquisite-corpse fashion by over twenty individual directors.
While we were only able to preview a small fraction of the festival’s overall spread, here are a few recommended films in this year’s Frameline:
Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day
A group of semicloseted gay filmmakers find themselves under increasing hostile scrutiny from Communist Party minders in 1950s Yugoslavia. Reminiscent of Cold War and The Lives of Others, this ambitious B&W drama from Croatian director Ivona Juka is a powerful tale of political persecution that spares neither graphic sexuality or institutional brutality.
Lesbian Space Princess
When her butch superheroic girlfriend of five minutes moves on—then gets kidnapped by the villainous Straight White Maliens—our royal yet nerdy, agoraphobic nerd-girl protagonist must venture out of safe “gay space” and ride to the rescue. Emma Hough Hobbs & Leela Varghese’s Australian animated feature is like a 90-minute Sapphic episode of Futurama. Which, yes, is a compliment.
The Meatrack
Under the pseudonym “Richard Stockton,” future SF rep-house entrepreneur and Strand Releasing cofounder Mike Thomas made what was called a “poor man’s Midnight Cowboy” when it originally got released in 1970. It’s about a bisexual hustler (David Calder) whose quest for love is stymied by past traumas, exploitative clients, and all the excesses of the high counterculture era. It’s an eccentric time-capsule curio that’s been newly restored.
The Nature of Invisible Things
Rafaela Camelo’s debut feature is a Brazilian-Chilean coproduction that provides a touching seriocomedic view of childhood. With no one else to look after her, 10-year-old Gloria has to spend much of her summer vacation hanging around the hospital where her single mother works as a harried nurse. Things brighten when she meets same-aged Sofia, brought her by her own harried ma while a grandmother’s illness is dealt with. The two girls learn about mortality, friendship, “being different,” and more in this near-plotless-yet-astute slice of life.
Plainclothes
Luke (Tom Blyth) is a young undercover cop forced by his superiors to lure men into compromising behavior at a local mall, then arrest them for “homosexual acts.” He’s conflicted about those duties even before he meets one potential mark he’s genuinely attracted to. Carmen Emmi’s 1990s-set drama can be underwritten and uneven at times, but it really packs an emotional punch.
Sauna
Johan (Magnus Juhl Anderson) is new to Copenhagen and city life, diving headfirst into the gay scene via a job at bathhouse Adonis. But he’s looking for something more than hookups, finding it in the unanticipated form of university student William (Nina Rask), who is midway through a female-to-male transition process. They come to love one another—but they often fundamentally do not understand each other, making Mathias Broe’s film an unusually nuanced and sympathetic treatment of how sometimes love cannot conquer all.
She’s the He
Facing high school graduation as virgins, BFFs Alex (Nico Carney) and Ethan (Misha Osherovich) have the terrible idea of posing as trans in order to attract the attention of hot girls. Well, actually, that’s Alex’s idea—Ethan is mortified, especially once he realizes he may not actually need to “pretend.” Siobhan McCarthy’s film sending up the minefield of up-to-the-moment gender politics while also paying anarchic homage to straight teen romcoms. Surprisingly, this mix of the crass, sweet, and extremely silly works, to occasionally side-splitting effect.
FRAMELINE 49 runs Wed/18-June 28. Various venues, SF and Oakland. Some films will also be available for streaming Mon/23-June 30. For tickets and more info go here.
