Film

VICTIM Friday, Sept. 23, 2022 –7 p.m. & Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022 – 4 p.m. “‘I wanted him!’ With these words Dirk Bogarde consigned his matinee idol alter-ego to history, and a gripping landmark in gay cinema was born. Bogarde’s closeted, married lawyer Melville Farr is drawn into exposing a terrifying blackmail ring when an admirer (Peter McEnery) commits suicide rather than implicate him. Supporting the recommendations of the Wolfenden Committee, director Basil Dearden, producer Michael Relph and screenwriter Janet Green denounced the poisonous, institutionalized homophobia gay men of all classes faced, and cleverly packaged the politics within an accessible crime-thriller. VICTIM, and […]

The new David Bowie documentary, Moonage Daydream, succeeds not only for what it is, but what it isn’t. That has a lot to do with the clichés — and, occasionally, limitations — of the well-trodden format of the music documentary. We know bad ones — or just boilerplate ones — when we see them. They typically open in medias res; the subject mumbles something backstage through celluloid grain and a plume of smoke. Here come the talking heads: Jakob Dylan, Dave Grohl, Bono. The director takes us from the cradle to the grave — and you’re left a few bucks poorer, wondering if this is all […]

OUTwatch, Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival and Rialto Cinemas are all co-sponsoring Loving Highsmith Based on Patricia Highsmith’s personal writings and accounts of her family and lovers, the film casts new light on the famous thriller writer’s life and work, permeated by themes of love and its defining influence on identity. The Price of Salt (the first Lesbian novel which broke with convention by depicting a lesbian relationship that ended with the promise of fulfillment, not moral condemnation, misery or death), Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train and the Talented Mr. Ripley were all written by Highsmith.“It focuses extensively on Highsmith’s sexuality and relationships with women, […]

The Italian Cultural Institute, Cinema Italia San Francisco In collaboration with Artistic Soul Association under the auspices of the Consul General of Italy in San  FranciscoPresent PASOLINI 100: Homage to Pier Paolo Pasolini On the 100 year anniversary of his birth Saturday, September 10, at the Castro Theatre 429 Castro Street San Francisco, CA This Special Homage to Pasolini, who pushed the boundaries of politics, art and sexuality, follows the complete retrospective that Cinecittà premiered at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of Pasolini’s birth. San Francisco will pay homage […]

When his golden-haired, blue-eyed brother Jimmy mysteriously died in Vietnam in 1975, gay filmmaker Peter McDowell was just a kid, growing up within his family’s “veil of silence.” As an adult, armed with a video camera, Peter embarks on a quest to uncover the possibly queer brother he never knew. Plotted like a terrific detective story, Jimmy in Saigon follows Peter’s search for the truth about the strikingly enigmatic Jimmy—a rebellious kid drafted into the war, who stunned his family by returning to Saigon after his tour of duty to enjoy “hedonistic pleasures.”  The film will screen at Frameline 46 San Francisco […]

In June of 2016, 49 lives were tragically taken during a mass shooting on Latin Night at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. One of the survivors of that night is Jeannette Filiciano, a lesbian single mother struggling to come to terms with a tragedy for which no one will ultimately be held accountable. Between raising her teenage son, fighting with her mom around whether homosexuality is a sin, rigorous training as she tries to go pro as a competitive bodybuilder and, a little over a year later, dealing with Hurricane Maria’s effects on her family in Puerto Rico, […]