Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival will open its 35th slate next month with Hello Again, the new film adaptation of Michael John LaChiusa’s stage musical. Based on Arthur Schnitzler’s 1897 play La Ronde, Hello Again follows a daisy chain of love affairs through 10 vignettes, with a pansexual cast of characters played by the likes of Audra McDonald, Martha Plimpton, T.R. Knight, Rumer Willis and Cheyenne Jackson. The film is directed by Northwestern alum Tom Gustafson (Were the World Mine), and will screen at the Music Box Theatre on September 21.
The remainder of Reeling’s weeklong program will screen at Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema, with highlights including premieres of two Chicago-made features packed with local actors: Wendell Etherly’s Market Value, a lesbian courtroom custody drama, features supporting turns by Janet Ulrich Brooks, John Hoogenakker and Brian Shaw; Tadeo Garcia’s En Algun Lugar follows a young gay Latino couple (played by Nelson Rodriguez and Andrew Saenz) whose future is threatened by one man’s undocumented status. The festival will also feature a screening of the locally-made web series Brown Girls, currently being developed for HBO.
Other features include After Louie, with Alan Cumming as an AIDS activist suffering from survivor’s guilt; The Pass, a steamy drama about London footballers starring Looking’s Russell Tovey; and closing-night feature Saturday Church, an exuberant first feature from writer-director Damon Cardasis set in New York’s ball scene and featuring Chicago’s Regina Taylor in a supporting role.
On the documentary front, look for Woman on Fire, a portrait of New York City’s first out transgender firefighter, Brooke Guinan; Chavela, about the late ranchera singer who came out as lesbian at age 81; and The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, a look at the black trans activist and Stonewall icon from filmmaker David France (How to Survive a Plague).
The complete schedule for Reeling 35 is now available at the festival’s website. Individual tickets ($10–$12 for most screenings) and passes ($45–$130) will go on sale September 1.
Want more? Sign up here to stay in the know.