Provincetown, the very queer tip of Cape Cod, is preparing for an influx of about 2,000 women for its annual Women’s Week. Since it was founded in I984 it has become the longest-running lesbian cultural event in the Northeast/ 

Originally a weekend event, it has grown into an annual week-long festival featuring over 300 events, including film screenings, author readings, dune tours, concerts, dance parties, stand-up comedy, ceremonies, and a community clam bake. 

You can see all the activities here https://womensweekprovincetown.com/about/ but for the Queerguru Team, who are based in PTown for most of the year, our personal highlight is the WOMENS WEEK FILM FESTIVAl @ The Whalers Wharf Movie Theatre.

The piece de resistance unquestionably is Ivy Meeropol’s ‘ASK E JEAN’ .  Unless you’ve been living on another planet…..or maybe Texas….. you’ll know E Jean is known better as E Jean Carroll the exceptional female journalist who took The Orange Man to Court TWICE AND WON a total of $88.3 million.  She sued him first for being unable to keep his trousers zipped up and then had to go back to court for him being unable to keep his big mouth shut/. After more huffing and puffing, he finally paid up the first $5.8M this past June …..some three years after he lost in Court.

Meeropol’s excellent account clearly shows what an exceptional woman Ms. Carroll is: a highly intelligent and hugely successful journalist who had her own daily show for years and was in high demand as an advice columnist, the total opposite of the Oregon Man.  What hurt him, at the end of the day, was that she proved she had a far bigger set of balls than he boasted.

The timing of the film could not be more perfect, as the run-up to the US Midterm Elections, the Orange Man, who puts himself above nearly all our laws daily, does so seemingly totally unchecked by everyone.  Where are the E Jeans of the world right now to keep this evil monster under some sort of control?

The rest of OUR TOP PICKS OF MUST-SEE FILMS INCLUDE: 

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.”

Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Oliver was a Provincetown resident who, in 2007, became the best-selling poet in the US, and Sasha Waters’ new film takes us on an incredible journey through her life, a love story for both Mary and Provincetown itself.  Waters has included a veritable who’s who of famous faces to bear witness and talk about their connections with Mary, but it is her poetry itself that is the real star of the piece

We first saw Jewel’s Catch One some 10 years ago when it was released, and it is about the first African-American female-owned disco in Los Angeles, which provided an inclusive, exuberant, and one-of-a-kind environment for gays of color to party in. It became so much more than that, as Jewel sought to offer a welcoming alternative, a place for expression and celebration that was a refuge from daily discrimination. This fiercely independent woman battled through years of harassment to survive and prosper and even when it became the place-to-go for stars like Madonna, she still focused on looking after the local community

Liz Garbus and Elizabeth Wolff’s wonderful documentary, “Give Me the Ball!” is a splendid history of tennis great Billie Jean King’s life and legacy. From her early childhood, romping around playing any sport involving a ball (giving the film its name), to present day, where King is set to finish her history degree in May (at the age of 82), the documentary leaves no stone unturned. A worthy tribute to one of our greatest sportswomen ever