This week sees the 24th Edition of the annual PROVINCETOWN FILM FESTIVAL with five days of “unflinching cinema”. Like the Cape Cod town it is situated this is one of the most diverse film festivals ever in the US, and like its population, has a very significant queer presence.
Continuing the hybrid schedule that is the norm these days, the program contains a mixture of in-person screenings and online ones too. However, it is worth actually turning out in the next week just to catch sight of some of the expected ‘guests’ who will include Luca Gaudagnino (Call Be By Your Name) collecting his Filmmaker on The Edge Award. Plus the brilliantly funny Bowen Yang, star of Fire Island.…. the best queer com of the year, who is quite rightly being given the Next Wave Award
PIFF festival showcases over 80 American and international independent narrative, documentary and animated features and shorts.
Here is QUEERGURU’s take on all the QUEER ones..
All Man: The International Male Story, is a compelling feature documentary debut of Bryan Darling and Jesse Finley Reed that highlights a crucial part of queer history. This provocative catalog was founded by the very charismatic ex AirForceman Gene Burkard in the 1970s when the bulk of men’s clothes were brought by wives or mothers. In those days there were very limited choices which were both boring and totally inspiring ensuring that no men were ever interested in shopping at all Except for a few of course, and when Burkard focused his catalog on all flamboyant clothes, from wild-patterned shirts and mesh tank tops to the bikini-est of bikini underwear, he hit upon the jackpot. He knew that if had them all modeled by chiseled men held up as paragons of masculinity, then straight men could be tempted to wear them, whereas gay men could semi-legitimately lust after the scantily clad men. It very cleverly proved fashion’s power to unite the interests of gay and straight men.
Chrissy Judy is the writer/directing feature film debut of Provincetown filmmaker Todd Flaherty This dark comedy of his explores the universal pain of breaking up with your best friends and questions, “What do you do when your chosen family no longer chooses you?” It’s a situation that sadly so many of us in the LGBTQ can relate to even if we are not drag queens like Chrissy. He is determined to reinvent himself or risk becoming an irrelevant solo act both on stage and off.
Trust us, you won’t be able to resist this film after watching the trailer….
Dawn :A Charleston Legend. Dawn Simmons was a prolific English author and biographer. Born Gordon Langley Hall, Simmons lived her first decades as a male. She was one of the first transgender pioneers and also was one of the first women to have an interracial marriage. This fascinating 34 min doc is a return to PTown Film Fest for filmmaker Ron Davis who also produced Life in The Doghouse which was screened here in 2018
I guess I really had not fully recognized that this documentary was about a hallowed ground that has in fact always been on my bucket. So I am eternally grateful to filmmakers Amélie van Elmbt & Maya Duverdier and their film that goes inside the legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York. Formerly the home to a coterie of many of the most important artists of the 20th century. Dreaming Walls features a dinner shared by residents of New York’s famous and famously under-construction Chelsea Hotel, as they debate whether or not long-gestating renovations to the hotel will impact its reputation as a den of sex, drugs, and freewheeling counterculture.
This one has to be seen especially if you are nostalgic for that vibrancy of NY that is lost forever now.
It’s been some 7 years since filmmaker Jean Carlomusto was in Provincetown and on that occasion she brought her superb Emmy Nominated doc Larry Kramer in Love and Anger and the great man himself. Now she is back with Esther Newtom Made Me Gay the story of butch lesbian, octogenarian athlete, and groundbreaking scholar whose life’s work has influenced generations of LGBTQ activists and scholars. The film tells her story of awakening to gay life in the 1950’s, the women’s liberation movement and lesbian-feminism, drag culture and forging a butch identity which for her is now in conversation with trans-masculinity.
Right after seeing the preview trailer of Fire Island and before we talked with director Andrew Ahn we knew this was a no-brainer. This delightful and intoxicating film written by (and starring) Joel Kim Booster is without question THE queer rom-com of the summer. Borrowing heavily from (the unwed) Jane Austen and her Pride and Prejudice, this tale of looking for Mr. Right in one week on the queer paradise that is Fire lsland hits all the right buttons for all romantic gay men. And others I should add. Based on Booster’s own annual trips to the Island it avoids the pitfalls of the usual cliches of other queer comedies. Instead, we end up with this ensemble piece that is not afraid to make a few punches that often shatter the idyllic peace, thus keeping it all too real at times.
PS You may also like to check out Queerguru’s interview with director Andrew Ahn HERE
FRAMING AGNES. Canadian trans filmmaker Chase Joynt confidently left the recent Sundance Film Festival clutching two awards, knowing he has been successful in a rare achievement. His sophomore feature-length documentary Framing Agnes is even better than his remarkable debut No Ordinary Man which he had co-directed with Aisling Chin-Yee.
In this new movie, Joynt gently chips away on how being transgender is so widely misunderstood mainly by our sheer ignorance. His film continues an important message to dispel so many long help myths as it gives such dignity and grace as part of a continuing dialogue about the transgender community. RWD.
PS You may want to check out Queerguru’s interview with the filmmakers https://queerguru.com/filmmakers-chase-joynt-and-morgan-m-page-talk-about-framing-agnes-one-of-the-very-best-queer-films-at-sundance-2022/
The film turns the phrase a hot mess into a crown of pride as Girl Picture throws a bucket of emotions into the air and seems them beautifully land a la Jackson Pollock on a canvas of Finnish adolescent sexuality. Alli Haapasalo’s Girl Picture is the story of three young women coming of age captured on three separate Fridays. Each of the young women is trying to resolve an inner conflict. Ronnko (Eleonoora Kauhanen) is desperate to connect to her sexuality, which, while definitely heterosexual has yet to find practical satisfaction. Emma (Linnea Leino) is an aspiring figure skating champion who finds that the discipline of competition is overwhelming her sense of self. Mimmi (Aamu Milinoff) is feeling angry, displaced and abandoned as her mother starts to build a new family.
I’ll Show You Mine: Nick (Casey Thomas Brown) arrives on the doorstep of his aunt Priya (Poorna Jagannathan), prepared to record his memoirs for her to write, but things turn into more of a therapy session for both. Nick is a self-proclaimed pansexual with a history of exploitation as a gender non-conforming model, while Priya’s sexsploits are more secret — until they’re not. Maybe a tad too talkie in parts but both actors are dynamic, which kind of makes up for that.
The opening scene of Lonesome resembles a Hollywood Western as our protagonist Casey (Josh Lavery) keeps pace with the sun while running away from his reality. He dons a cowboy hat and the classic blue jeans and white T-shirt combo that immediately endow him with an eye-candy-cum-rebellious persona. His face has the sharpness as well as the vulnerability of youth. Staying true to his young age, he doesn’t miss a chance to sleep with men, even at his lowest moments. His story is that of a rural gay man making his way into the big city. However, what he lacks is hope. His only redeeming quality is his libido.
Mama Bears is the name of an organization, now 30,000 strong that operates dozens of Facebook support groups for Christian parents who have become advocates for their LGBTQ children. This excellent heart-tugging, and very timely documentary from Emmy-winning director Daresha Kyi’s follows three families who are dealing with understanding the tensions between faith, gender and sexuality with their LGBTQ children
One of the kids featured is 15-year-old Parker and he is being told “not to be gay. “I’m trying not to be,” he tearily retorts.. Their reconciliatory moment doesn’t happen for a few more years, when Parker at 21, can now demand the support he needs: “I sucked it up for 21 years being your son, I need you to suck it up and be my mom.”
Wildhood is a beautiful queer coming of age story set within Canada’s first nation Mi’kmaq people, a community over 14,000 years old, based in rural Nova Scotia. The road movie introduces us to Link, (Phillip Lewitski), a Two-Spirit, half Mi’kmaq teenager, and his younger half-brother Travis (Avery Winters-Anthony). The term Two-Spirit loosely refers to queer first nation people – a more detailed indigenous definition is the intersection of the relationship to land, gender, sexuality, ceremony, and culture.
Luca Guaadagnino who is being honored by PTown Film Festival with their Filmmaker On The Edge Award is bringing his latest film a documentary a documentary of the great shoemaker Salvatore Ferragamo. It is a fascinating personal, artistic and business story, from his childhood in Bonito, where he made his first pair of shoes, to his journey to America to seek his fortune, from his experiences in Hollywood to his return to Italy, from the verge of bankruptcy to resurgence in his Florence factory and rise to definitive acclaim. SALVATORE: SHOEMAKER OF DREAMS shows the mystery and magnetism of a complex man, whom many believe like fashion giants of his period, was homosexual. More importantly, he was an icon of Italian and international luxury fashion.
AND if that is not enough there are special screenings of some classic gay films such as ShortBus, Pink Flamingoshttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069089/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1, and The Incredible True Adventures of Two Girls In Love. PLUS two fabulous QUEER SHORTS Programs.
For the full program of Provincetown Film Festival JUNE 15-19, 2022 https://www.provincetownfilm.org/festival/
