In a time where the loudest voices offering up their opinions and making decisions about trans people aren’t trans themselves, Adam Sieswerda, with his mother Amy Jenkins, provides a voice we need to be listening to in the documentary ADAM’S APPLE.  This is much-needed representation for trans kids, a message of reassurance for their families and a notice to the rest of us to leave people live their own lives in peace. In essence, it’s a message of hope, and as Harvey Milk once said, ‘You gotta give them hope.’ We should listen to Harvey, and we certainly need to listen to Adam.

 

A beautiful, naked, athletic, fifty-something woman strikes various bodybuilder poses with a cheeky glint in her eyes. Barbara Hammer is in control, and she knows how to get your attention. So begins Barbara Forever, a fascinating, intimate portrayal of the pioneering lesbian film-maker, feminist activist, lover, and artist. With an archived collection of over eighty films, plus a treasure trove of memorabilia, director Brydie O’Connor struck gold when she began her research into the life and times of the inimitable lesbian movie queen.

 

 

This documentary is NOT gay, but it is by far the campiest film in the Festival. Cookie Queens is a coming-of-age story about the joys, pressures, and tensions woven into one of America’s most cherished rituals: Girl Scout Cookie season ….. and frankly most of the allegedly sweet girls in this movie scared the living daylights out of me!

 

 

Iconic Filmmaker John Waters is a much-admired PTown local, so it’s only right that Criterion’s new restoration of his cult movie Desperate Living is screened at the Festival.  This film brought Water’s notorious trash trilogy to a fittingly twisted close with this antifascist fairy tale. After hysterical housewife Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) murders her husband with the help of her fed-up housekeeper (Jean Hill), the newfound sisters in crime escape to the bizarro shantytown of Mortville, a depraved penal colony presided over by a despotic queen (Edith Massey) whose tyranny pushes her subjects to shocking revolt. Deviant cops, death by dog food, DIY surgery. Waters unleashes all this and more in an at once relentlessly warped and oddly moral vision of queer rebellion.

 

When  HUNKY JESUS, the heart-warming story of San Francisco’s Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence annual Easter Event had its World Premiere at London’s queer BFI Flare film Festival, we got to meet/interview the director Jennifer M Kroot and the star Sister Roma (i.e. The World’s Most Photographed Nun).  Both they and the movie were a sheer delight.  You’ll kick yourself if you miss this one 

 

We always sit up excitedly when there is a new film from Gregg Araki one of the main proponents of New Queer Cinema and whose film Kaboom (2010) was the very first winner of the  Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival

This, his first movie in 11 years, “I Want Your Sex” is the story of Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) an ordinary guy who gets an internship with a hot artist named Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), a woman who uses her power and sexuality to get whatever she wants. For the bulk of “I Want Your Sex”  Elliot is trying to figure out the rules with a woman who is his boss, mentor, teacher, sexual partner, and more. 

 

“Jaripeo” is a clear-eyed survey of the queer culture that exists within Michoacán’s hypermasculine rodeos.The opening scene features a white Toyota truck winding through the hills surrounding Michoacán, reaching a crest where a vast expanse of cornfields comes into view. Mojica (Efraín Mojica) is the driver, while Zweig (Rebecca Zweig) occupies the back seat. From this spot, Mojica recalls their experiences visiting the rodeos where drunkenness, partying, flirtation, and queer desires take hold. Mojica and Zweig also speak to the many gay men who parse their lustful fixation on masculinity, either in themselves or in their flings and partners.  It’s so refreshing to see that even in a small rural city in Mexico, there is acceptance and community to be found, which can/must lead to better things 

 

Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World. Spoilt for choice with this year’s Fest having TWO docs on PTown Artists, we gravitated to Sasha Walters definitive documentary about the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver. The 91-minute film, with a great deal of footage shot locally,  explores Oliver’s transition from a traumatic, isolating childhood to literary fame, her deep connection to nature, and her intensely private life as a queer icon.  Preceding its World Premiere the film has been acquired by distributor Kino Lorber which (hopefully) means it will later get a theatrical distribution

 

To be perfectly honest, Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders, the latest documentary from one of Queerguru’s favorite filmmakers, Emmy Award Winner Jeffrey Schwarz, is the most anticipated film in the Fest for our whole team.  It’s the story behind what is still one of the most controversial queer films ever made. During the summer of 1979, the hottest club in New York City was on the streets of the West Village where the gay community came together to protest the filming of a new Al Pacino movie called Cruising.  Spurred on by a series of articles by Village Voice writer Arthur Bell, these activists took offense to the idea of a film where homosexuality was explicitly linked to murderous depravity. In some quarters, Cruising has been reclaimed as a gay cinema classic, but we are leaving our options open right now. Like all of Schwarz’s films, this one is UNMISSABLE

 

 

This compelling narrative faeture from Sam McConnell is the story of Eddie Owens ( Brock Yurich) a closeted small-town bodybuilder chasing a pro card, whs lives under the intense devotion of his religious mother, Joanne (the fabulous Tammy Blanchard), who manages his career through faith; unbeknownst to her, he quietly funds his training through late-night online sex work he keeps hidden. Struggling to win on the competitive circuit, Eddie turns to a new coach, Mike, and develops a secret romantic attachment. As these hidden worlds begin to collide, the pressure mounts. Torn between ambition, belief, and identity, Eddie searches for a path forward and”one that allows him to live authentically while holding on to the relationships that matter most to him.

 

Uncle Roy, this intriguing doc makes such a fascinating contribution to the whole queer history canon that may have been lost for good except for the inquiring mind of award-winning documentary filmmaker Keri Pickett.  It’s her Uncle in the title, whom she didn’t get to know until she followed him to NY to pursue her dream of becoming a professional photographer.  He was a deeply private person and she had absolutely no idea that he was considered a “forefather of gay photography”, she took it upon herself to reintroduce his portraits of a generation largely lost to AIDS.  Over the next three decades, their relationship deepens, and Keri realizes that his photography and the world’s largest archive of theatrical figure skating need a home. As Roy slips into dementia, Keri struggles to care for him, and her efforts to preserve his legacy become more urgent.  TOTALLY UNMISSABLE ESP FOR ALL QUEER HISTORY BUFFS

 

 

 

PS Tony, a biopic based on the true life story of the legendary chef Antony Bourdun, who spent a year of his life in Provincetown at the start of his journey to become a chef, will have some sort of trailer preview screening along with a conversation with the Director Matt Johnson_(director) and Dominic Sessa (Star  The film is a love story with Boudin and also Provincetown.  And will be released theatrically on August 7th.

 

General information at: provincetownfilm.org/festival FAQ: provincetownfilm.org/about/faq

 

 

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