The World Premiere of the Cotati Accordion Virtual Festival will be taking place this coming August 22nd and 23rd from 11:00am to 3:00pmonline for all to view. There will be no fee, donations will be accepted, and the platforms will be forthcoming.
Internationally acclaimed virtuosos from 9 different countries, such as Cory Pesaturo, Alex Meixner, Pietro Adragna and Gary Blair, will be performing live, along with streaming chats, interviews, The Lady-of-Spain-a-Ring, The Grand Finale, raffles and more.
The World Premiere of the Cotati Accordion Virtual Festival will give the viewers a chance to see the accordion played at artistic levels never imagined by the uninitiated. Whether you are an accordion aficionado or just curious, the performances will be unforgettable.
Broken People follows a lonesome, queer character named Sam in his search for a total transformation of himself. Sam Lansky’s debut novel, a work of autofiction, opens at a dinner party in Los Angeles. Sam overhears guests discussing a shaman who can fix everything that’s wrong with a person in three days. The promise seduces Sam, who, amidst superficial strangers and empty conversation, alights on a disturbing revelation. “It would be better to be dead, he thought… He did not want to die, in a practical sense—the corporeal permanence of death terrified him—but rather, to already be dead, to skip the death process and coast into a static condition of un-being, was something he fantasized about often. Certainly that had to be more bearable than sustained consciousness.” Broken People, full of gorgeous meditations of quiet desperation like this, is a fever-dream account of whether any of us can change, whether our disappointments and discontents might forever disappear.
At 28, Sam experiences palpable loneliness and self-doubt, combined with the unease that modern life reflected “his own inadequacy…back to him.” As an entertainment editor for an unnamed magazine (ostensily Time), Sam feels the life he’s created for himself, or “had stumbled into…through sheer dumb luck,” was an illusion. He’s written a memoir about his addiction as an adolescent growing up in New York, which is ostensibly The Gilded Razor, the acclaimed coming-of-age story Lansky published in 2016. Sam has since recovered, and yet a hole lies at the center of his story. He looks in the mirror at a body he wants to be invisible, but try as he might, he can’t see himself as anything but diminished and undeserving of love.
Would this heap of anxieties, then, warrant seeking out a radical transformation of oneself? Lansky has no choice but to travel deeper into Sam’s mind, sustaining tension by offering prolonged scenes of his thoughts, thoughts Sam believes could be useful for a new memoir. Sam tells his agent it’s “about finding myself in my twenties.” Here, Broken People begins to assume an ouroboric complexity. The novel, which enacts a kind of navel-gazing, becomes a stunning work of self-witnessing. Says Sam, “I have this loud internal narrator who tells me that I’m a piece of shit, that I don’t deserve anything I have, that any day now the whole thing will come crashing down… I don’t know how to be a person.” Perhaps, then, Sam, or Lansky—it’s not clear—can be a character in his own story. The tantalizing risk that some distance between memoir and fiction, between confession and invention, will collapse is what keeps readers reading.
Many novels have taken place in fewer than three days—but surely fixing everything wrong with Sam in such a short time is impossible. Still, he and Buck, a fifty-something architect from the dinner party, enlist the help of a shaman named Jacob to perform “open-soul surgery” on them. Using large, Latinate words like “transdimensional intercession,” and channeling the new-age language of healing, Jacob explains how each night he’ll hold what he calls “ceremony” (no article). Sam and Buck will take ayahuasca to open themselves up to the medicine’s spirit, what Jacob refers to as “she” or “her.”
Sam’s cynicism of the process echoes in some way that of the reader. Lansky’s use of a trip to effect some deeper personal revelation is, while a bit flimsy, a strategy not to forget the body. A work that traces consciousness—brilliant recent examples by Garth Greenwell and Brandon Taylor come to mind—can, if done poorly, start to look like a disembodied head thinking on the page. Lansky places Sam’s body in grave physical danger, and he gets a preview of the terrifying effects the drug will have on him. Sam becomes aware of “a black mass in his belly, sore and tumescent, the color and texture of lava rock.” But the stakes are higher than whatever Sam needs to emit from his core. Jacob asks Sam and Buck not to die during ceremony. Lansky merges the florid, roving language of an unsettled mind with the churning, roaring, “twisting and gawping” sensations within Sam’s organs. This vivid interplay, disconnect, and tension offers readers a beautiful portrait of Sam the inconsolable initiate.
Lansky puts Sam on a path to be shown places within himself from which he’s long hidden. On each night of ceremony, Sam travels deeper into his past, revisiting memories of former lovers and flings, ever doubtful that he’ll be healed. He’s reunited with his 25-year-old self. As a rather hopeful man who, sober and newly recovered from a period of addiction, Sam sees the world with possibility. Dating in New York, Sam asks himself, “When will I be loved?” He gets a chance at an enchanting life with Charles, a dashing, well-dressed risk analyst whose family money and finance job offer Sam comfort, beauty, and freedom. They spend weekends in the Hamptons, vacations in Paris, and thousands at Louis Vuitton. But beyond the veneer, there’s so much, Sam doesn’t wish to remember. “I don’t know why all the little things feel like big things,” Sam tells Charles during a heated exchange. There are tantrums thrown, fits of paralysis threaten the writing of his first memoir, and Sam sees through Charles’ eyes the surprising “capacity for cruelty” he himself possessed. At the heart of Sam’s brokenness lies fear. Except it looks like lashing out to the ones who love him the most.
Throughout the novel, Lansky weaves the story of Sam’s relationship with Noah, a reckless but also hardened man who had a rougher history of addiction than Sam. While his character is less nuanced than Charles, Noah illuminates Sam’s desire for danger, prompting an important facet of the story Sam tells himself about who he is. In a final twist, Lansky delivers an exciting formal flourish while on his last trip. His narrator-self and character-self split in two, two Is that look at one another. It’s a bold aesthetic choice that Lansky pulls off with considerable style. This, as Edmund White says, is the great experience one has in reading fiction, the splitting of a self. Such a disorientation results in re-seeing what we’ve long resisted looking at.
“The great curse of being a person in the world—you only ever get to be yourself,” writes Lansky. Yet Broken People ends on a note of hope. For Sam’s shamanic experience doesn’t fix anything that’s wrong with him, for nothing was wrong—except his perspective. Sam doesn’t get to be different, but he can train himself to see differently. His troubled past wasn’t the problem so much as how he saw his memories, how those memories made him think himself broken. Lansky’s choice to turn the seemingly true events of his life into a work of fiction, through the rather harrowing aide-memoire of an out-of-body trip, creates the distance a work of self-examination requires. Into the space Sam makes for himself, he emerges more generous. His flaws form a fuller self, rather than the sapped one some carry from coast to coast.
Broken PeopleBy Sam Lanksy Hanover Square Press Paperback, 9781335013934, 304 pp. June 2020
Melissa Bashardoust’s Girl, Serpent, Thorn has the lushness of a fairy tale and the boldness of the best contemporary YA fantasy. This opulent novel, inspired by traditional Persian stories, combines all the romance and intrigue of high fantasy with a deep exploration of the main character’s emotional world and relationship to her own strength. Back matter, including an extensive Author’s Note, provides more context about the fairy tales, myths, traditions, and cultural references that Bashardoust has woven into the novel, as well as suggestions for further reading for those interested in learning more.
Soraya, the shah’s sister, is hidden away from the public eye so that no one will discover the curse a div, or demon, placed upon her as a child: by sending div blood coursing through her veins, the demon ensured any living being Soraya touches will instantly die. When a mysterious, handsome soldier offers to help undo her curse, Soraya is smitten––and quickly embroiled in a political battle that sees her family’s rule upended in a coup d’état. The soldier turns out to be the feared half-man, half-div Shahmar, and he wants Soraya, another human who knows what it’s like to be part-div, to join his side in submitting the humans and divs to his violent rule.
Soraya is successful at undoing her curse, but now she must figure out how to stop the Shahmar from murdering her entire family, while still feigning interest in his romantic advances. To make matters more complicated, Soraya finds herself falling for Parvaneh, a female div who helped turn the Shahmar into the powerful creature he is and has regretted it ever since. Soraya isn’t sure she can trust a div like Parvaneh––especially one who proves so alluring––but with no other allies, she doesn’t have much choice.
The two team up to try to outwit the Shahmar and save Soraya’s family and Parvaneh’s fellow divs before it’s too late. As they sneak around the Shahmar’s heavily-guarded mountain fortress, their attraction deepens, with each touch a heightened sensation for Soraya, who spent so many years unable to even risk brushing up against another person for fear of striking them dead. Soraya describes the spark between her and Parvaneh as a kind of “wanderlust,” with her fingertips yearning “to explore new landscapes, new textures.” As the danger ramps up, these quiet moments between Soraya and Parvaneh become a tender respite, dramatizing Soraya’s longing for intimacy, both physical and emotional.
The story is sexy, bloody, and luxurious, but perhaps the most interesting part is the way Soraya slowly begins to see the things that have always made her different as not a weakness, but a strength. Her curse may have been just that––a curse––but it also gave her a way to defend herself. And when she makes a choice later in the book that means risking becoming cursed again, it is because she understands the div blood that ran through her veins in a new way. Perhaps being different doesn’t mean being shameful. Perhaps it doesn’t have to mean hiding away.
In a story about a protagonist who experiences attraction to more than one gender, this character arc is especially affirming. The Shahmar may be the first one to tell Soraya, “You and I don’t belong fully to either world,” but it is Parvaneh’s gentle love that helps Soraya see maybe she can simply belong to both: “Soraya no longer had to choose between one piece of herself and another. She could be whole.”
Girl, Serpent, Thorn By Melissa Bashardoust Flatiron Books Hardcover, 9781250764942, 336 pp. August 2020
Grab the remote, set your DVR or queue up your streaming service of choice! GLAAD is bringing you the LGBTQ highlights on TV this week. Check back every Sunday for up-to-date coverage in LGBTQ-inclusive programming on TV.
Documentary Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado premieres on Wednesday. Every day for decades, Walter Mercado — the iconic, non-conforming TV personality— mesmerized 120 million viewers with his extravagance and positivity. Then he vanished from the public eye. The film takes a look into his life, that mystery, and his enduring legacy. Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado: Wednesday, on Netflix.
A new Netflix film, The Old Guard, will be released on Friday. The film follows a group of mysterious group of immortal mercenaries who have fought to protect the world for centuries. But when their extraordinary abilities are suddenly exposed, it’s up to Andy and Nile to help the group eliminate the threat of those who seek to replicate and monetize their power by any means necessary. The group includes Joe and Nicky, two men deeply in love. The Old Guard: Friday, on Netflix.
Pride Month is behind us, and an unsteady future is ahead of us. In the words of Marsha P. Johnson, “Nobody promised you tomorrow.” This quote is a rallying cry to continue our momentum, and to never give up. As news coverage of peaceful protests across the nation dies down, we need to ensure that “there is no pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.”
This is a critical moment in our nation’s history, and to be on the right side of change is necessary. We have reached another boiling point. White supremacy and white silence have always been embedded in our culture; none of this is new. Black voices have exposed the rotten roots of the country for centuries.
But this is not a lost cause. It’s not too late to become involved. We can continue to educate ourselves. We can continue to hold ourselves accountable. We can continue to dig deep into the darkest parts of ourselves and internalized, institutional, and structural racism. We must continue to enact change.
Our literature has often provided blueprints for cultural transformation. Many of this month’s titles reckon with our queer history, look towards our queer future, and hopefully provide a pathway to both queer joy and systemic change. We must give ourselves space to move toward a world where community is not just a word, but a radical promise of love, understanding, and intervention in the face of adversity.
The fight for justice stands front and center in the 25th anniversary edition of Howard Cruse‘s Stuck Rubber Baby. The book explores one gay character’s involvement in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
Painstakingly researched and exquisitely illustrated, Stuck Rubber Baby is a groundbreaking graphic novel that draws on Howard Cruse’s experience coming of age and coming out in 1960s Birmingham, Alabama.
This 25th anniversary edition brings this rich and moving tale of identity and resistance is back in print–complete with an updated introduction from Alison Bechdel, rare photographs, and unpublished archival material that give a thorough, behind-the-scenes look at this graphic novel masterpiece.
As a young gay man leading a closeted life in the 1960s American South, Toland Polk tries his best to keep a low profile. He’s aware of the racial injustice all around him–the segregationist politicians, the corrupt cops, the violent Klan members–but he feels powerless to make a difference. That all changes when he crosses paths with an impassioned coed named Ginger Raines. Ginger introduces him to a lively and diverse group of civil rights activists, folk singers, and night club performers–men and women who live authentically despite the conformist values of their hometown. Emboldened by this new community, Toland joins the local protests and even finds the courage to venture into a gay bar.No longer content to stay on the sidelines, Toland joins his friends as they fight against bigotry. But in Clayfield, Alabama, that can be dangerous–even deadly.
Fairy tales have long been structured around heterosexual relationships. Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron offers an intriguing re-imagining of the classic Cinderella story, and drives YA readers to dig deeper and challenge their societal expectations.
It’s 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl’s display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again.Sixteen-year-old Sophia would much rather marry Erin, her childhood best friend, than parade in front of suitors. At the ball, Sophia makes the desperate decision to flee, and finds herself hiding in Cinderella’s mausoleum.
There, she meets Constance, the last known descendant of Cinderella and her step sisters. Together they vow to bring down the king once and for all–and in the process, they learn that there’s more to Cinderella’s story than they ever knew. . . This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they’ve been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.
In this life-affirming, heartening and refreshing collection of interviews, young trans people offer valuable insight and advice into what has helped them to flourish and feel happy in their experience of growing up trans.
Speaking openly and candidly about their gender, their experiences of coming out, their aspirations, and their fears – accompanied by interviews and support from their parents and carers – this book is beautiful proof of the potential for trans children to live rich and fulfilling lives when given the support and love they need.
With their trademark candour and empathy, Juno Roche gives voice to a generation of gender explorers who are making gender work for them, and in the process, reveals a kinder, more accepting world, that we should all be fighting for.
Each place in the world has completely different sets of ideological beliefs. In The Pink Line, Mark Gevisser chronicles and investigates the roots of disparities in cultural practices of gender and sexuality around the world.
More than five years in the making, Mark Gevisser’s ‘The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers’ is a globetrotting exploration of how the human rights frontier around sexual orientation and gender identity has come to divide–and describe–the world in an entirely new way over the first two decades of the twenty-first century. No social movement has brought change so quickly and with such dramatically mixed results. While same-sex marriage and gender transition is celebrated in some parts of the world, laws are being strengthened to criminalize homosexuality and gender nonconformity in others. A new Pink Line, Gevisser argues, has been drawn across the world, and he takes readers to its frontiers.
Mirroring our current pandemic moment, Emma Donoghue’s The Pull of the Stars: A Novel chronicles the relationship between three nurses who work in the maternity ward of a small hospital during the influenza outbreak of 1918.
In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia’s regimented world step two outsiders–Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other’s lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world.
With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work. In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.
As always, if our list of LGBTQ releases missed an author or book, or if you have a book coming out next month, please email us.
Fiction
The Blue Star (Reissue) by Robert Ferro (Author), Andrew Holleran (Foreword), ReQueered Tales
Within two weeks of David France reading an article in The New Yorker about the persecution of LGBTQ people in Chechnya, he was on a plane headed to Moscow.
It’s there that he first met the men and women who are featured in his new documentary “Welcome to Chechnya,” which premieres Tuesday on HBO. Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the autonomous region of Russia, enacted a campaign in 2017 to find, imprison, torture and sometimes kill LGBTQ Chechens. Many who survived imprisonment have fled to Moscow, where they live in a safe house while seeking political asylum in other countries.
“What I learned from that story in The New Yorker was that the crimes that had been exposed earlier in the year hadn’t stopped, that nothing about the exposure in the world media, nothing about the expressions of outrage from European leaders, nothing about the meek, near silence from the Trump administration had done anything to slow the campaign that was being carried out by the leadership in Chechnya against the LGBTQ community,” France tells Variety. “And in fact, the Russian LGBTQ movement was left all alone to try and fashion some sort of response to what was going on there. And what they had put together was a search and rescue operation, like something that you would imagine in a World War II movie. And I was outraged that they were being forced to do this all on their own, and that the world wasn’t coming to pay attention to and put pressure against the Chechen government.”
Among those in the film are David Isteev, who leads the rescue missions through the Russian LGBT Network and Olga Baranova, director of the Moscow Community Center for LGBT+ Initiatives. And then there’s Maxim Lapunov, who came to Moscow after being released from prison, where he was tortured for several weeks in 2017. Chechen authorities let him go because he is not ethnically Chechen.
“I was told that Maxim had agreed, even on the first conversation, to allow me to film him and that he was a charismatic character, a person who is an entertainer,” France said. “He made it his job to bring joy to people. When he was captured on the streets of Grozny, he had been selling balloon art. He was twisting balloons into these elaborate sculptures and selling them to people in front of the main mall in Grozny, Chechnya. That’s where he was seized by the security agents. So when I met him, he was an open, generous figure who allowed me to share his journey with him in the most profound way.”
In order to hide the identities of the residents in the safe house, France used technology to replace their faces with those of 22 LGBTQ activists in New York City. “What we did was to borrow from the world of deepfakes and find this social justice use for it,” he explained. “This technology allowed us to just stretch the faces…over the images that I shot in the film. The face moves exactly the same way. It smiles, it cries in exactly the same way, but it is somebody else’s face.”
While Lapunov’s identity is kept secret this way through most of the film, his real face is shown when he goes to court to sue the Russian government for failing to protect him from what his lawyers argue was unlawful arrest, detention, torture and discrimination.
There are many people not identified at all, but the doc includes disturbing and graphic footage of them being beaten and tortured. “When we learned of that footage, it was shocking,” France said. “It’s footage that was shot as trophies by the people who committed those crimes. They were keepsakes from these horrible events, and they were also deliverables. They were sent over WhatsApp groups up the chain of command, so that Ramzan Kadyrov would know that his orders are being carried out.”
“And when you saw the footage, I realized that I wanted to take that away from them, and turn their trophies into evidence,” he continued. “This is documented by the people who did it themselves, and those same people have denied in public forum that anything like this is happening there. And yet, here is proof.”
France spent about 18 months filming in Moscow and Chechnya. “Here is an ongoing crime against humanity that has not generated the outrage that it deserves,” said France, who earned an Oscar nomination for “How to Survive a Plague,” his 2012 directing debut about AIDS activists in the early days of the epidemic. “Without that outrage, it will keep going. But I also want people to know what the conditions are for LGBTQ people around the globe…There are still 70 countries where it’s a crime to be queer, and eight of those countries, and several other semi-autonomous regions like Chechnya is, consider it a crime worthy of the death penalty.”
As international borders are closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the activists in Moscow need even more help. “What was a very expensive proposition has become even more expensive. Keeping people in hiding, taking care of people, keeping them safe and fed, and with medical care for this long extended period, while they’re still struggling with foreign governments to try to keep open that back door to humanitarian parole visas,” France said. “And also to support Maxim Lapunov and his family in their lawsuit. Because they are still in safe houses, and they are still pursuing this suit…There’s no telling how long that battle’s going to last, but they’re in it for the long run.”
Lapunov was able to feel some of that support when he traveled to the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year for the doc’s premiere. “It made him so happy,” France said. “To feel the audience responding to his story gave him confidence that the sacrifices that he’s made, and he’s going through, have a purpose.”
Taking to social media, Sesame Street posted a short but sweet line of solidarity to the LGBT+ people, paired alongside an illustration of its colourful characters holding hands, recreating the famous six-striped Pride flag.
“On our street, we accept all, we love all, and we respect all,” it wrote. “Happy #PrideMonth!”
Tallying more than 97,000 likes on Instagram, thousands of users praisedSesame Street for showing its support. “That’s it, I’m moving to Sesame Street,” one user remarked.
Another added: “THIS! It’s no wonder this programming has withstood the test of time. 50+ years of inclusivity and education through love.”
“Thank you Sesame Street for teaching me how to learn and how to treat everyone with love and respect,” a user reflected.
“I can’t forget the times I was a kid, I’ve watched this show every day at my grandmother’s house. You guys never changed or never hated.”
Sesame Street executives have long wrestled with the idea that Bett and Ernie are gay.
However, as the Advocate reported, not all responses to the US series’ Pride post were positive.
“My daughter is six” a Facebook user commented. “The fact is she will not see a family like hers in the show before she outgrows it” referring to the show’s long-documented lack of LGBT+ representation.
“That may be just a ‘waiting period’ for the show — but it is her childhood and it will never happen. So many of the other kids get to see families like theirs represented.
“Her friends at school who don’t think a kid ‘can have two mommies’ don’t see it either.”
Indeed, while Sesame Street has gingerly begun to increase its inclusivity, having the likes of Billy Porter and Lil Nas X on the show, showrunners have long-denied that characters Bert and Ernie are queer.
Fan speculation has simmered for decades that the roommates are in a relationship, seeing them emerge as queer icons. But executives have consistently denied that they are queer, with executive vice president of Sesame Workshop, the non-profit which created Sesame Street tepidly saying that they are if the viewer thinks they are.
“People can think whatever they want [about Bert and Ernie].” Brown Johnson said in 2019.
“You want to think they’re gay? Okay. You want to think they’re not gay? They’re not gay,”
Frameline, the world’s longest-running and largest showcase of queer cinema, is proud to announce the full program for the Frameline44 Pride Showcase taking place Thursday, June 25 through Sunday, June 28, 2020 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of San Francisco Pride. Presented in partnership with the Castro Theatre, this four-day virtual event features 12 world premieres, one international premiere, three North American Premieres, and two U.S. premieres, including new narrative features, documentaries, and shorts programs, along with special live and pre-recorded intros, Q&A’s, and other unique programming to evoke the live festival experience Frameline is known for. Tickets ($8–$10 per screening) and passes (starting at $250, and valid all year) are available now online at frameline.org. To ensure maximum flexibility for patrons, ticket holders will be able to tune in live to each screening or access any film at any time during the four-day event.
“Pride Month has begun with riots and protests in the face of systemic injustice. The LGBTQ+ community is no stranger to these issues and we honor and support all those raising their voices in dissent and demanding equality,” said James Woolley, Frameline Executive Director. “Frameline has featured inspiring, thought-provoking cinema for more than 40 years and created a festival atmosphere that fosters community engagement and discourse, and we are proud to continue this tradition with our Pride Showcase.” “Frameline believes that the courageous act of sharing your story can change the world. We are honored to present a lineup of films during the Pride Showcase that upholds our mission of providing a platform to showcase diverse voices,” said Paul Struthers, Frameline’s Director of Exhibition & Programming. “Two presentations highlight this in especially timely ways: Sue Williams’ ‘Denise Ho-Becoming the Song,’ which chronicles the iconic musician’s career from pop star to activist in Hong Kong and the power of art to address social unrest; and SHOWTIME’S ‘The Chi,’ where some of our field’s most creative and talented Black artists are not only featured but leading the production—including creator and executive producer Lena Waithe and writer Marcus Gardley. It’s a portrait of a community—Chicago’s South Side—and exemplifies that Black stories matter. We are humbled by the opportunity we have to engage, act, and grow with our audiences this month.”
Highlights include the world premiere of Sue Williams’ documentary DENISE HO – BECOMING THE SONG; Jessica Swale’s SUMMERLAND featuring Gemma Arterton, who will be participating in a live Q&A following the film; Thom Fitzgerald’s valentine to San Francisco STAGE MOTHER, which will also include a live Q&A with Jacki Weaver, Mya Taylor, and Jackie Beat who star in the film; a special presentation of Jen Rainin’s world premiere documentary AHEAD OF THE CURVE at Concord’s West Wind Drive-In Theater; Isabel Sandoval’s LINGUA FRANCA and P. David Ebersole’s and Todd Hughes’ HOUSE OF CARDIN, which played at the Venice Film Festival; Ray Yeung’s TWILIGHT’S KISS (SUK SUK) and David France’s WELCOME TO CHECHNYA, which played at the Berlin International Film Festival; and perennial favorites “Fun in Boys Shorts,” “Fun in Girls Shorts,” and “Transtastic” short film programs, which will include the world premiere of ISLAND QUEEN. Directed by Zackary Grady and Jenn Harris, this short features Rachel Dratch and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who will be featured in a Q&A following its premiere.The Pride Showcase kicks off Frameline’s 2020 festival offerings and allows the organization to continue its tradition of celebrating Pride each June while prioritizing the safety of its audience, staff, filmmakers and community partners. As previously announced, the larger Frameline44 Festival has been postponed until the fall.
Feature FilmsBREAKING FAST Directed by Mike Mosallam Cultures clash and passion blooms in this lively and insightful romantic comedy. Mo, a gay Muslim in West Hollywood, is suddenly single and searching for love in a sea of partying and hook-ups. When a new romance blooms, Mo carefully navigates through an exciting and complicated new reality. This funny, thoughtful film tackles issues of faith, friendship, and sexuality with upbeat energy and a big heart.
EMA Directed by Pablo Larraín In the latest from visionary filmmaker Pablo Larraín, director of Jackie and producer of the Oscar-winning A Fantastic Woman, newcomer Mariana Di Girolamo electrifies the screen in the titular role of Ema, a young, unhinged, bisexual dancer who embarks on a difficult journey to regain custody of her adopted son. This dazzling, uniquely cinematic experience, which left audiences spellbound at both the Venice and Sundance Film Festivals, is one that will linger long after the credits roll.
LINGUA FRANCA Directed by Isabel Sandoval When Olivia (Isabel Sandoval), an undocumented Filipina trans woman in Brooklyn, becomes the caregiver for an elderly Jewish woman (Lynn Cohen, Sex and the City’s Magda), the last thing she suspects is for romantic and sexual tensions to arise with Olga’s black sheep grandson (The Witcher’s Eamon Farren). A timely and heartfelt tale of lost souls finding each other, with chilling reminders of ICE raids and deportations looming in the background
STAGE MOTHER Directed by Thom Fitzgerald If you cross Sister Act with Sordid Lives and add a dash of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, you’d wind up with Stage Mother. Two-time Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver plays Maybelline, a Texas church choir director whose life is turned upside down when she unexpectedly inherits a San Francisco drag club from her estranged son. Lucy Liu, Adrian Grenier, and Tangerine’s Mya Taylor also star in this moving and quick-witted valentine to San Francisco.
SUMMERLAND Directed by Jessica Swale During the throes of the London Blitz, solitary writer Alice (Gemma Arterton, Vita & Virginia) is irritated to learn that a child evacuee, Frank, is to be placed in her cliffside cottage. But his gentle openness sends her ruminating on a passionate love story that Alice buried long ago; as she excavates these memories, the pair form an unlikely bond. This sweeping drama, steeped in folklore and the power of memory, proves love just might come back around. *Please note that SUMMERLAND will only be available to view June 27–28.
TAHARA Directed by Olivia Peace While attending the funeral for one of her classmates, sheepish Carrie (Madeline Grey DeFreece) unexpectedly sparks her queer awakening after a practice lip-lock with her horny and hetero Hebrew-school bestie Hannah (Rachel Sennott). Over the course of the day, the two teens wrestle with their complicated feelings of mortality, social ranking, and desire in director Olivia Peace’s uproarious and incisive generational debut.
TWILIGHT’S KISS (SUK SUK) (North American Premiere) Directed by Ray Yeung The challenges facing aging gay men are dramatized with great warmth in this Hong Kong-set portrait of a new love affair from director Ray Yeung (Front Cover, Frameline40). Each a father to adult children, Hoi and Pak have both acknowledged their sexuality late in life. As their developing affection and camaraderie potentially turn to love, the question of what each man is willing to give up becomes a pressing matter.
Documentaries
AHEAD OF THE CURVE (World Premiere) Directed by Jen Rainin From its start in 1990, Curve magazine was a visionary and unapologetic celebration of lesbian life from cover to cover. Facing the magazine’s possible demise in 2019, director Jen Rainin and Curve founder Franco Stevens explore contemporary questions of lesbian visibility and legacy through interviews with contemporary LGBTQ+ tastemakers, “celesbians” including Melissa Etheridge, Jewelle Gomez, Denice Frohman, Kate Kendell, and Lea DeLaria, along with rich archival footage recounting the formation of a lesbian cultural institution.In addition to the online presentation, a special screening of AHEAD OF THE CURVE will take place at the West Wind Solano Drive-In Theater in Concord, California (1611 Solano Way, Concord, CA) on Saturday, June 27 at 9 p.m. Tickets range in price from $23–$25 and are available now.
DENISE HO – BECOMING THE SONG (World Premiere) Directed by Sue Williams At the peak of her musical career, Hong Kong’s Cantopop diva Denise Ho was performing in lavish costumes at packed stadium concerts. Her eccentric performances garnered audiences, but it was her brave lyrics that resonated with a city in turmoil. In Sue Williams’ uplifting documentary, the filmmaker chronicles Ho’s career from pop star to activist and the parallels to Hong Kong, a city in constant transformation.
HOUSE OF CARDIN Directed by P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes In a film as bubbly and vibrant as its subject at hand, filmmaking duo P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes (Mansfield 66/67) shift their cameras toward self-made fashion genius Pierre Cardin. Including interviews with Naomi Campbell, Sharon Stone, Dionne Warwick, and Jean-Paul Gaultier, House of Cardin celebrates the designer’s influential career, including his pioneering attempts to diversify the catwalks of Paris with women of color modeling his signature looks.
WELCOME TO CHECHNYA Directed by David France A prizewinner at both the Sundance and Berlin International Film Festivals this year, the latest documentary feature from Oscar-nominated director David France (How to Survive a Plague) highlights an undercover team of LGBTQ+ activists in Russia, desperately trying to save their vulnerable queer community from further persecution and even death as homophobic attacks surge in Chechnya.
Episodic
THE CHI Episode 302 “Brewfurd” Written by Oakland native Marcus Gardley, Directed by Rashaad Ernesto Green Frameline is thrilled to present a very special sneak preview episode from the upcoming season of the SHOWTIME® series THE CHI in honor of LGBTQ+ Pride month. Produced entirely in its namesake city, season three of THE CHI finds a maturing Emmett (Jacob Latimore) trying to alter the way his mother Jada (Yolonda Ross) sees him, going from unmotivated teen to full-fledged businessman. Created and executive produced by Emmy® winner Lena Waithe, the hit drama series is executive produced by Justin Hillian, Aaron Kaplan, Common, Derek Dudley and Shelby Stone of Freedom Road Productions, Rick Famuyiwa and Jet Wilkinson. THE CHI is produced by Fox 21 Television Studios.
Shorts
PARADE Directed by Ronald Chase This film of the very first Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco was believed to be lost for almost 50 years. This was actually the first “official” gay parade, organized with permits by the city. The very first parade was held a year after the Stonewall Riots (1970) on Folsom Street, organized by the rock group Black Sabbath as a promotional event for a number of emerging bands. This parade followed a year later (1971), with a very small attendance and a lot of very brave people. Notice the turnout was sparse (only two blocks of well-wishers turned out to watch), but the atmosphere was electric. Chase felt that gay people should make their own case to the public, and this film was made in hope it might be helpful in changing attitudes in the straight community. This short is presented in partnership with SF PRIDE in celebration of their 50th anniversary.
TRANSTASTIC SHORT FILMSMAKING SAMANTHA — Directed by T Cooper
KAPAEMAHU — Directed by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, Dean Hamer & Joe Wilson
DANCE, DANCE, EVOLUTION — Directed by Jules Rosskam
BIND — Directed by Emory Chao Johnson
WISHES — Directed by Amy Jenkins
THE NAME OF THE SON — Directed by Martina Matzkin — (North American Premiere)
DUNGAREES — Directed by Abel Rubinstein — (North American Premiere)
SHÉÁR AVORY: TO BE CONTINUED — Directed by Abram Cerda
FUN IN BOYS SHORTSMATT & DAN: GRINDR — Directed by Will Gordh (World Premiere)
WHEN IN ROME (PAESE CHE VAI) — Directed by Luca Padrini (World Premiere) GO GO, BOY! — Directed by Oriana Oppice
PETE CAN’T PLAY BASKETBALL — Directed by Nicolas Borenstein (World Premiere)
ABOUT A SHORT FILM — Directed by Kevin YeeBLOW JOB — Directed by Jeffrey Braverman (World Premiere
THE DICK APPOINTMENT — Directed by Mike Roma (World Premiere)
SHORT CALF MUSCLE — Directed by Victoria Warmerdam
THE SHAWL — Directed by Sara Kiener
FUN IN GIRLS SHORTS
WERE YOU GAY IN HIGH SCHOOL? — Directed by Niki Ang (World Premiere)
I KNOW HER — Directed by Fawzia Mirza
DINETTE SEASON 2 EPISODE 1 & 2 — Directed by Shaina Feinberg (World Premiere)
PEACH — Directed by Sophie Saville & Rowan Devereux (International Premiere)
THE SECRET GARDENER — Directed by Lorena Russi (U.S. Premiere)
BREAK IN — Directed by Alyssa Lerner (World Premiere)
CC DANCES THE GO-GO — Directed by Erin C. Buckley (World Premiere)6:23AM — Directed by Geoffrey Breton (U.S. Premiere)
Pride Showcase Sponsors The Frameline44 Pride Showcase is made possible with generous support from returning Premier Partners GILEAD SCIENCES, INC., SHOWTIME®, BANK OF AMERICA, and MONIKER. Additional funding is provided by THE ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS AND SCIENCES, WELLS FARGO FOUNDATION, AT&T,WARNERMEDIA, ARNOLD & PORTER, BANK OF THE WEST, BLOOMBERG PHILANTHROPIES, and SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY.
About FramelineFrameline’s mission is to change the world through the power of queer cinema. As a media arts nonprofit, Frameline’s integrated programs connect filmmakers and audiences in San Francisco and around the globe. Frameline provides critical funding for emerging LGBTQ+ filmmakers, reaches hundreds of thousands with a collection of over 250 films distributed worldwide, inspires thousands of students in schools across the nation with free films and curricula through Youth in Motion, and creates an international stage for the world’s best LGBTQ+ film through the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival and additional year-round screenings and cinematic events. For more information on Frameline, visit www.frameline.org.
Movie theaters in California counties with regional variances can begin opening later this week if they limit theater capacity to 25% or no more than 100 attendees, under state guidance released Monday.
While less-populated counties in more rural parts of the state may take this step, urban counties in the Bay Area are unlikely to open theaters soon.
Movie theaters are part of a long list of other businesses sectors that can start reopening as early as Friday as the nation’s most populous state relaxes its stay-at-home order and moves into what Gov. Gavin Newsom has called Stage 3.
Counties that meet certain metrics, including number of cases, positive test rates and testing and tracing capabilities, can move into Stage 3.
The state recommends movie theaters implement reservation systems, assign arrival times and keep some seats empty, allowing movie-goers to maintain 6 feet (2 meters) of distance from other groups. Movie-goers should, at a minimum, wear face coverings when entering and exiting the theater or buying concessions, the state guidance says.
The state also suggests theaters use disposable or washable seat covers that are easy to clean and prop open doors so people don’t have to touch handles.
One of the most widely held myths about the fight for LGBTQ equality is that it started at New York City’s Stonewall Inn during the summer of 1969. That uprising, while pivotal, was in reality preceded by a grassroots “homophile” movement that has been largely overlooked.
“Every single person who identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community can thank Frank for for developing what we now celebrate each and every June, which is Pride.”
Eric Cervini, a historian, is trying to change that. His first book, “The Deviant’s War,” documents the efforts of gay activists during the late 1950s and ‘60s to plant the seeds that would eventually lead to decades of progress for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.
While Cervini notes that his book is not a biography, its central character is Frank Kameny, whose life and activism is the thread throughout its nearly 400 exhaustively researched pages. Though Kameny is not as well known as later activists like Harvey Milk or Marsha P. Johnson, his contributions to LGBTQ rights are at least — if arguably not more — important.
“Everyone should know his name,” Cervini said of Kameny. “Every single person who identifies as part of the LGBTQ+ community can thank Frank for for developing what we now celebrate each and every June, which is Pride.”
“The Deviant’s War” started as Cervini’s senior thesis at Harvard, where he graduated from in 2014, and continued into his PhD dissertation at the University of Cambridge, where he received his doctorate last year. A Texas native, Cervini, who came out in high school, said he “had not the slightest clue about what queer history was or who was important” while growing up.
“So much of this history just is not taught in high schools, very little of it is taught in colleges and so much of it is also hidden,” he said.
Cervini said his first introduction to LGBTQ history came from watching the 2008 film “Milk” starring Sean Penn while in high school.
“Starting from that moment, I said, “I want to learn more about my own past and my queer ancestors.’”
He initially set out to write about Milk for his undergraduate senior thesis but found that all the primary source materials were in San Francisco. But then in Harvard’s library database, he stumbled upon a name he had never seen before: Frank Kameny.
“He was so instrumental in those early years, and he had his hand in every part of the pre-Stonewall gay rights movement,” Cervini said. “Historians knew about him, they had long identified him as the ‘grandfather of the modern gay rights movement,’ but there hadn’t been any book written about him.”From astronomer to warrior
The meat of “The Deviant’s War” starts in late 1957, when Kameny, then a 32-year-old, Harvard-educated, Hawaii-based astronomer for the U.S. Defense Department, was summoned to the Army Map Service headquarters in Maryland and asked a question that would drastically alter the trajectory of his life: “Information has come to the attention of the U.S. Civil Service Commission that you are a homosexual. What comment, if any, do you care to make?”
It was a time when psychiatrists deemed homosexuality a “sociopathic personality disturbance” and consensual same-sex activity could be punished by “sexual psychopath laws,” and Kameny was fired, just two months after the launch of Sputnik. He would never work for the U.S. government again.
“He had lost absolutely everything,” Cervini said. But unlike most of the thousands of gay and lesbian federal employees dismissed during the so-called Lavender Scare, Kameny decided to fight back. So the end of his government career marked the beginning of over a half-century of activism.by TaboolaSponsored Stories
But Cervini notes that “The Deviant’s War” covers just a part of Kameny’s activism — from his government dismissal in the late ‘50s to just after Stonewall. To fully cover his contributions to the LGBTQ movement, Cervini added, would take volumes and much longer than the seven years he put into writing the book.
In just the early years of his activism, Kameny covered significant ground: He sued the federal government in what’s considered the first civil rights claim based on sexual orientation to be brought to the Supreme Court; he co-founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, one of the earliest LGBTQ rights groups; and he was among a small group that held what is thought to be the first gay demonstration outside the White House. Not long after, he decided to take on the American Psychiatric Association and its classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder.
After more than five decades of activism, Kameny died at the age of 86 on Oct. 11, 2011. His death fittingly coincided with National Coming Out Day, which has been celebrated annually since 1987.
While Kameny is undoubtedly the star of Cervini’s debut book, we also meet a number of other pre-Stonewall activists who were crucial to the LGBTQ rights movement, including Barbara Gittings, Kay Tobin Lahusen, Ernestine Eppenger (a.k.a. Ernestine Eckstein) and Randy Wicker. We also find out about the early contributions of some more well-known names, like Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Riveraand Bayard Rustin.
“Even though Frank’s photo is on the spine of the book, we’re using him as a lens for understanding not just his life but all the different diverse lives within the early movement that then allowed all of our success much later to occur,” Cervini said.An activism ‘guidebook’
While his book is focused on the mid-20th century, Cervini said there are many lessons in it today for today’s activists.
“It really is a guidebook for how activism works and also what doesn’t work when we’re dealing with an oppressive government,” he said. “Once again we’re fighting a lot of the same battles, and I think looking backwards and searching for templates for how we can combat persecution effectively and inclusively is so important, and that’s what I hope to do with this book.”
Another important lesson he hopes readers take away from “The Deviant’s War” is that Kameny and a number of his contemporaries “stood on the backs of those with the least to lose,” namely those who were not, like Kameny, white cisgender men.
“We are under attack once again,” he said, citing the transgender military ban and state-level policies pertaining to transgender youth. “Now we all have a moral obligation to be continuing the fight after the marriage successes, and after an openly gay viable presidential candidate. Now it’s our turn to return the favor and to fight for those with the least to lose.”
For today’s activists who are “continuing the fight” for LGBTQ equality, Cervini said they should recognize that they are currently making history and should follow the lead of Kameny, who saved tens of thousands of documents that enabled Cervini to tell his story.
“We need to make sure we’re not throwing out our emails when we’re planning marches and demonstrations against the current regime,” he said.
“The Deviant’s War” is available starting Tuesday, June 2, and Cervini will be participating in a virtual book tour through June 6, with guests including screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who won an Oscar for his screenplay for “Milk,” and Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims. Cervini also shares LGBTQ history lessons regularly on his Instagram account.