June 2009Largest GLBT Film Festival in the World Opens this MonthBy Jim Van BuskirkThe San Francisco International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Film Festival, Frameline 33, opens on June 18, with 219 feature-length and short films on tap. Opening night’s An Englishman In New York, a sequel to the 1975 British television film The Naked Civil Servant, showcases John Hurt reprising his role as the flamboyant Quentin Crisp. With screenings at the Castro Theatre, Roxie Film Center, Victoria Theatre, and Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, Frameline 33 is the world’s longest-running and largest GLBT festival. Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight, directed by Michelle Lawler, a loving portrait of Vicki Marlene, a septuagenarian still strutting onstage, will be shown on June 19. The film mixes reminiscences of the hard-living and hard-loving transgender drag performer with footage of her legendary performances at Aunt Charlieís in the Tenderloin. The film’s producer Kim Klausner, with former partner Debra Chasnoff, co-directed the groundbreaking 1984 documentary Choosing Children, which was recently selected to be preserved by the prestigious Outfest Legacy Project. Chasnoff, who won an Academy Award in 1992 for Deadly Deception, is represented in this yearís program by Straightlaced: How Genders Got Us All Tied Up, to be screened on June 26. Her interviews with young people about their experiences with sexual diversity, tolerance and self-confidence, is the latest entry in her Respect For All Project, which includes award-winners It’s Elementary and That’s a Family. Fawn Yacker, who served as cinematographer on Chasnoff’s films, directed and produced, with Dee Mosbacher, Training Rules. This powerful documentary, which screens June 21, follows Penn State University sophomore Jennifer Harris as she sues, with assistance from San-Francisco-based National Center for Lesbian Rights, homophobic women’s basketball coach Rene Portland for harassing and threatening players, going so far as throwing some off the team and stripping them of their college scholarships. The Festival celebrates San Francisco’s rich filmmaking community by bestowing its 2009 Frameline Award to brothers George and Mike Kuchar. Jennifer Kroot’s feature documentary, It Came from Kuchar, about the lives and careers of the legends of underground cinema who inspired and influenced generations of filmmakers, will be screened. Raging Grannies: The Action League, is award-winning director Pam Walton’s look at a group of older women’s use of activism and street theater in support of various progressive causes. In Fruit Fly - the latest offering from H.P. Mendoza, writer, composer, and star of Colma: The Musical - a Filipina performance artist moves into a Mission District artist’s commune, where she encounters a world of colorful characters. Bay Area filmmakers are well represented in the always-popular shorts programs. Dominic Angerame, Executive Director of Canyon Cinema, the preeminent distributor of independently produced non-narrative films, curated Canyon Cinema: Queer Underground. Desi del Valle and Hollie Lemarr co-directed the gentle love story Back to Life; local drag stars Fauxnique and Peaches Christ star in Get Happy; and Katastrophe creatively reenvisions a Andy Warhol drama in Big Deal. Other showcased films include Canadian queer cinema visionary John Greyson’s experimental documentary Fig Trees; Nancy Kissam’s deadpan Southern Gothic Drool; Pascal-Alex Vincentís debut Give Me Your Hand, about conflict and camaraderie between twin brothers; Hollywood, Je T’Aime, Jason Bushmanís look at a Parisian out of his element in Los Angeles; and I Can’t Think Straight, Punam Shaidaís vision of Shamim Sarif’s story of women’s love in apartheid-era South Africa. For more information: www.frameline.org. |
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