With upwards of 65,000 attendees and more than 100 movie screenings over 11 consecutive days at five Bay Area venues, Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival, is easily the daddy bear of queer film festivals.
This year's festival opens on June 15 with a quintessentially San Francisco film: The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin, a documentary about the author of the 9-novel series, Tales of the City. Originally serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle, Tales of the City became a TV miniseries and the books—which span from 1978 to 2014—are considered archives of San Francisco history.
The festival closes on June 25 with After Louie, starring Alan Cummings, who will also be receiving the Frameline Award. In this drama, Cummings plays a former AIDs activist struggling with survivor’s guilt who encounters a younger generation of carefree gay men. He’s perplexed with their social media, sexting and seeming political indifference.
Other movies we're excited about include:
Whitney: Can I Be Me: A documentary about Whitney Houston that features never-before-seen footage of her journey from a youth inspired by gospel music to a superstar plagued by addiction. The movie addresses the pressures of a racist and homophobic industry that forced the singer to discard her true self and adopt an impossibly pristine public persona. June 22, 6:30pm, Castro Theatre
Freak Show: A dark comedy/coming-of-age drama from filmmaker Trudie Styler (Mrs. Sting) about a cross-dressing student who struggles with tormentors at his red-state school. The film features Alex Lawther, Bette Midler, Abigail Breslin and Laverne Cox. June 24, 9pm, Castro Theatre
Looking For Langston: A new digital restoration of Isaac Julien’s classic 1989 meditation on desire, poetry and the Harlem Renaissance. This black-and-white fantasy merges archival footage and photographs with a dreamlike story of black gay men, jazz and the words of Langston Hughes. June 19, 4:15pm, Castro Theatre
Becks: Tony-award winner Lena Hall (of Hedwig fame) stars as a Brooklyn singer-songwriter who returns to her Midwestern hometown to move back in with her ex-nun mom (Academy Award nominee Christine Lahti) after her girlfriend dumps her for a younger woman. June 21, 6:30pm, Castro Theatre
Girl Unbound: This documentary is set in Pakistan’s tribal region of Waziristan where females are forbidden to attend school, listen to music or walk outside unescorted or uncovered. So, the idea of a female athlete is an anathema to the culture. As the living embodiment of that radical idea, Maria Toorpakai has been a target of Taliban death threats since the age of sixteen. But against all odds, she is the top-ranked female squash player in all of Pakistan. June 18, 1:30pm, Castro Theatre
My Friend Dahmer: Marc Meyers’ dark and incisive portrait of young Jeffrey Dahmer, based on the best-selling graphic novel of the same name. Ross Lynch (of Disney Channel fame) plays Dahmer who was a shy, alcoholic teen before becoming a serial killer. Anne Heche plays his mom. June 20, 9:15pm, Castro Theatre
Chavela: A documentary that re-discovers the legacy of iconic chanteuse and sexual outlaw Chavela Vargas, who, after running away from Costa Rica at 14, became a world renowned, Grammy-winning Mexican icon. A pistol-packing, cigar-smoking, tequila-downing, woman-loving (she had affairs with both Ava Gardner and Frida Kahlo) singer, Chavela’s renditions of classic Mexican ranchera songs are definitive for many Latinos. June 19, 6:30pm, Castro Theatre
God’s Own Country: Francis Lee won Sundance’s directing award for world cinema for this romantic drama about how passion can transform lives. This British film tells the story of a hard-drinking young Yorkshire farmer who keeps his emotions in check until an irrepressible Romanian immigrant comes to help out on the family farm. June 17, 6:30pm, Castro Theatre
Additional screenings of each movie will be shown at The Roxie, Piedmont, Elmwood and Victoria Theaters around the Bay Area.