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Reel Affirmations offers array of films celebrating LGBTQ stories

A provocative and compelling slate of movies screening this week

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‘Smalltown Pride’ is just one of dozens of films screening this weekend.

Clear your schedules — Washington’s International LGBTQ Film Festival, Reel Affirmations, is returning for its 29th year of screenings on Oct. 20. 

The festival will be held at the E Street Cinema, 555 11th St. N.W., from Oct. 20-23. Within the four-day-long span of festivities, there will be 14 feature-length films from nine countries, and 27 additional short films being streamed exclusively online. 

Reel Affirmations has been screening movies that feature and support members of the LGBTQ community since 1991. The pandemic didn’t slow them down at all, as they received hundreds of films in 2021 and had to make the difficult choice of how to narrow them down to roughly 45. Out of those 45 films being shown, seven awards will be handed out to deserving participants. Those awards include the Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature, the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature, and Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature. 

Notable films have remained a staple in Reel Affirmation’s lineup since its conception. Among films that have been screened there have been Academy Award-winning and nominated films, like “Moonlight,” and films that tell stories that create a bond between LGBTQ individuals. Some of those being featured this year include “#LookAtMe,” a film from Singapore about social media, religion, and activism; “Our Bodies are Beautiful,” from Argentina, addressing feminism, identity, and trans women; and “When Time Got Louder,” portraying the altering of family relationships after sexual awareness creates independence for LGBTQ members of the family. 

“Filmmakers pushed the envelope to explore and celebrate LGBTQ+ stories long before television dared to mention taboo topics, and today we continue with this tradition through film festivals around the globe dedicated to exploring and expanding our understanding of each other, with humor and compassion”, says Director of Arts & Cultural Programs and Executive Director at the DC Center, Kimberley Bush. 

In terms of affordability and accessibility, tickets for both in-person showings and online streaming are available. A single live screening ticket is $15 for in person, $10 for streaming, and you can bundle and save by buying three live screenings for $60 or six for $55. If you want to watch all 27 virtual shorts, you can pay a flat fee of $125, and if you want to watch all of the live and virtual shows, it’ll be $175. 

Here’s the schedule for the weekend:

Thursday, Oct. 20:

7 p.m., “When Time Got Louder” from director Connie Cocchia

This drama runs 80 minutes and addresses the story of Abbie, a college-aged girl who leaves her family to explore her independence and sexuality. While Abbie’s away she realizes she’s torn between her love for her brother who has autism and her new life away from the family. 

8 p.m., “All Man: The International Male Story” from directors Bryan Darling and Jesse Finley Reed

Gene Burkard found freedom in San Diego, away from his closeted self in the Midwest, by transforming male fashion into something cosmopolitan, trend setting, and carefree. International Male reached both gay and straight demographics, generating revenue from the refined new images of masculinity. This documentary tells the story of a band of outsiders who changed the way men looked at each other and their own image. 

Friday, Oct. 21:

7 p.m., “Nelly and Nadine” from director Magnus Gertten

Two women fall in love in the Ravensbruck concentration camp in this 92-minute documentary. On Christmas Eve 1944, Nadine and Nelly fell in love, and despite being separated during the last few months of the war, they reunited and spend the rest of their lives together. Despite hiding their love story from most friends and family, Nelly’s granddaughter is now uncovering their remarkable story. 

9 p.m., “Waking Up Dead or Look At Me” from director Terracino

The first comedy of the weekend kicks off with a bang. Hot-shot, destructive, and all-around mess Danny Maldonado was conquering Hollywood. Cut to a few years later and he’s been dumped by his boyfriend, his career has flatlined, and his long-estranged mother is dying. When he’s given a second chance, Danny vows to clean up his act, but will he follow through?

Saturday, Oct. 22:

12 p.m., “Smalltown Pride” from directors Riley Sparks and Chelle Turingan

Filmed in Alberta, Nova Scotia, this documentary depicts the struggles and joys of growing up queer in a small town. The crew follows a group of LGBTQ+ individuals and allies as they prepare for their local Pride celebrations. Meeting in church basements, various kitchen tables, and some classrooms, the group prepares to take on a conservative town council that won’t even fly a rainbow flag. By working together they aim to create a mutual love and acceptance between everyone in their community.

2 p.m., “Maybe Someday,” from director Michelle Ehlen

A non-binary photographer in their 40s attempts to move across the country to start their life over again during their separation from their wife. In this 91-minute comedy, Jay, the photographer, takes a detour to see their high school best friend (and former crush). Throughout the film Jay struggles with the cycles of love, loss, and letting go. 

4 p.m., “Pat Rocco Dared,” from director Charlie David

This documentary reclaims the story of the “King of the Nudies,” Pat Rocco, and shows how Rocco is much more than his erotic filmmaking career — he’s the whole Hollywood package. 

6 p.m., “Prognosis – notes on living,” from directors Debra Chasnoff and Kate Stilley Steine

Oscar-winning filmmaker Debra Chasnoff steps in front of the camera in this 80-minute documentary about her struggle with a deadly diagnosis. Emotionally raw, funny, and profoundly intimate and the key elements to her story about life and letting go. 

8 p.m., “Manscaping,” from director Broderick Fox

A Black American visual artist, Australian fetish barber/porn producer, and transgender Canadian barber are followed in this documentary detailing the reinvention of the traditional barbershop and restyling masculinity. 

9:30 p.m., “Blessed Boys,” from director Silvia Brunelli

Two 18-year-old friends, Milo and Lino, were raised in the same small town for their entire lives, never stepping outside the comforts of their hometowns. That is, until Lino’s little sister claims to be a saint and miracle-worker, and Milo takes a step back to revaluate his routine life, and his feelings for Lino. 

Sunday, Oct.23:

12 p.m., “A Run For More,” from director Ray Whitehouse

This documentary follows the first openly elected transgender official in Texas. Frankie Gonzales-Wolfe finds her voice, questions her relationship to the community, and tries to win an election in this film, shot over four years. 

2 p.m., “Our Bodies Are Your Battlefield,” from director Isabelle Solas

This Argentinean documentary follows the lives of Claudia and Violeta, trans women who identify as transvestites in the deep divide of feminist Argentineans and conservatives. They find themselves in the center of this socio-political revolution, and present their fight to love and stay alive. 

4 p.m., “Being Thunder” from director Stephanie Lamorre

This documentary follows Sherente, a two spirit-genderqueer teenager from Rhode Island’s Narragansett tribe. Sherente performs in traditional dance competitions at regional pow-wows. Sherente wears traditional female dresses, but behind the scenes the tribal leaders manipulate the scores or disqualify him, just because of their beliefs in traditional gender roles. 

6 p.m., “#LookAtMe,” from director Ken Kwek

Teenagers Rocky and Sean are invited to church with Sean’s girlfriend. When they arrive they are hit with a searing anti-LGBTQ sermon. Sean, a YouTuber, posts a video criticizing the pastor, and lands himself in the public eye of Singapore’s strict public expression laws. While he remains in prison, his gay twin brother Ricky makes a name for himself as a prominent LGBTQ activist. 

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‘Pink Narcissus’ reasserts queer identity in the face of repression

Gorgeously restored film a surreal fantasia on gay obsessions

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Bobby Kendall stars in ‘Pink Narcissus.’ (Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing)

Back in 1963, there really wasn’t such a thing as “Queer Cinema.”

Of course there had been plenty of movies made by queer people, even inside Hollywood’s tightly regulated studio system; artists like George Cukor and Vincente Minnelli brought a queer eye and sensibility to their work, even if they couldn’t come right out and say so, and became fluent in a “coded” language of filmmaking that could be deciphered by audience members “in the know,” while everyone else – including the censors – remained mostly oblivious. 

Yes, the movie industry was adapting to the demands of a generation that had grown increasingly countercultural in its priorities, and topics that had once been taboo on the big screen, including the more or less open depiction of queerness, were suddenly fair game. But even so, you’d be hard-pressed to find examples of movies where being queer was not tied to shame, stigma, and a certain social ostracization that remained, for the most part, a fact of life. Hollywood may have been ready to openly put queer people on the screen, but the existence it portrayed for them could hardly have been described as happy.

Yet this was the setting in which a Manhattan artist named James Bidgood began a filmmaking project that would dominate his life for the next several years and eventually become a seminal influence on queer cinema and queer iconography in general – all executed, with the exception of an ambitious climactic sequence, in a cramped New York apartment utilizing elaborate handmade sets and costumes, which would define an entire queer aesthetic for decades to come. Though disputes with the film’s financiers would eventually cause him to remove his name from the project, resulting in years of anonymity before finally being credited with his work, he has now taken his rightful place as one of the architects of modern queer sensibility.

The movie he made – “Pink Narcissus,” which has been newly restored in glistening 4K glory and is currently being screened in theaters across the U.S. after an April premiere at Manhattan’s Newfest – didn’t exactly take the world by storm. When it finally premiered on “arthouse” theater screens in 1971, it was slammed by mainstream critics (like Vincent Canby of the New York Times, who compared it to “a homemade Mardi Gras drag outfit” as if that were a bad thing) and largely ignored, even as a new spirit of creative freedom was bringing more and more visibility to openly queer content. A screening at 1984’s “Gay Film Festival” reintroduced it to an audience that was finally ready to embrace its feverishly stylized, near-surreal fantasia on gay obsessions, and since then it has loomed large in the queer cultural imagination, providing clear and directly attributable influence over the entire queer visual lexicon that has developed in its wake – even if it has remained widely unseen among all but the most dedicated queer cinema buffs.

With a running time of little more than an hour, it’s not the kind of movie that can be described in terms of a cohesive linear plot. “Official” synopsis efforts have typically framed it as the story of a young male hustler who, while waiting for a call from a favorite “trick,” fantasizes about various erotic scenarios in his spangled and bejeweled apartment. But since it is a film with no spoken dialogue that takes place largely in the imagination of its central character, it’s difficult to place a definitive construct upon it. What’s certainly true is that it presents a series of daydreamed episodes in which its protagonist – played by sultry lipped Bobby Kendall, a teen runaway who had become a model for Bidgood’s “physique” photography as well as his roommate and (probably) on-and-off lover – imagines himself in various scenarios, including as a matador facing a bull (who is really a leather-clad motorcyclist in a public restroom), a Roman slave thrown to the mercy and pleasure of his emperor, and both a Sheik and a harem boy obsessed with a well-endowed exotic male belly dancer. Eventually, the young man’s thoughts venture into the streets outside, where he is immersed in a seedy, sordid world of sexual mania and degradation, before facing a final fantasy in which, as an “innocent” nymph in the woods (perhaps the human embodiment of the film’s titular butterfly), he is engulfed and consumed by his own sexual impulses, only to be reborn in his apartment to face the inevitable transformation from “twink” to “trick” that presumably awaits all gay men who dedicate their lives to the transgressive desires that drive them.

All of that, to modern sensibilities, might seem like a series of stereotypical and vaguely demeaning tropes intended to warn us against the slippery slope of a hedonistic lifestyle, composed into a moralistic avant garde parable in which pleasure and punishment are intertwined with all the surety of fate; but what sets “Pink Narcissus” apart from so many early examples of queer cinema is that, despite its reliance on “rough trade” trappings and the performative “tragedy” of its overall arc from youth and beauty to age and corruption, it exudes an unmistakable attitude of joy.

We’re talking about the joy of sensuality, the joy of self-love, the joy of partaking in a life that calls to us despite the restrictions of societal “normality” which would have us deny ourselves such pleasures; in short, the joy of being alive – something to which every living being theoretically has the right, but for queer people is all-too-often quashed under the mountain of disapproval and shame imposed upon them by a heteronormative society and its judgments. Considering that it was made in a time when the queer presence in film was mostly limited to victimhood or ridicule, it feels as much an act of resistance as it does a celebration of homoeroticism; seen in a cultural climate like today’s, when joy itself seems as much under attack as sexuality, it becomes an almost radical act – a declaration of independence asserting our natural right to be who we are and like what we like.

That’s why “Pink Narcissus” looms so large in the landscape of queer filmmaking. It’s the irrefutable evidence of queer joy singing out to us from a time when it could only exist in our most private of moments; it’s unapologetically campy, over the top in its theatricality, and almost comically blatant in its prurient obsession with the anatomy of the anonymous male models who make up most of its cast (and Kendall, who seems to dress himself in various outfits only to undress for the next erotic daydream), but it feels like a thumb on the nose to anyone who might shame us for for celebrating our sexual nature, which Bidgood’s movie unequivocally does. 

Restored to the vivid (and luridly colorful) splendor of its original 8mm format, “Pink Narcissus” is currently touring the country on a series of limited screenings; VOD streaming will be available soon, check the Strand Releasing website for more information.

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Queer history, identity interweave in theatrical ‘Lavender Men’

Exploring one of Abe Lincoln’s most intense male relationships

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Pete Ploszek and Roger Q. Mason star in ‘Lavender Men.’ (Photo by Matt Plaxco courtesy Pride Flix)

For someone who’s been dead for 160 years, Abraham Lincoln is still hot.

No, we don’t mean it that way, though if we were talking about the Lincoln of “Lavender Men” – a new movie starring and co-written by queer playwright Roger Q. Mason, who also wrote the acclaimed play from which it is adapted – we certainly could be. We’re really just making the observation that the 16th POTUS continues to occupy a central place in America’s national imagination. And in an age when our America is torn by nearly as much division (over many of the same core values) as the one he presided over, it’s impossible not to compare the ideals he has come to stand for with the ones currently holding sway over the country’s political identity, and wonder at how short we have fallen from the mark.

Yet there has always been a gap between the historical reality of Lincoln’s “Great Emancipator” reputation and the romanticized pedestal upon which he has been placed; and if he looms large as an influence over American identity, it’s as much for his enigmatic nature as for the values he represents. Was he a true believer in the principals of “liberty and justice for all” or a political pragmatist who recognized that preserving the nation – and its growing power in the larger arena of world affairs – required the abolition of an increasingly unsustainable system that had divided it? Your answer to that rhetorical question will likely depend on which version of “American Identity” aligns most closely with your own.

It’s also a question that’s further complicated in the context of Lincoln’s private life, something that has itself been the subject of debate as modern historians and scholars consider the questions about his sexuality unavoidably implied in his well-documented biographical record, which reveals not only a pattern of closely bonded male “friendship” with various companions throughout his life but plentiful evidence that the romantic nature of these relationships was something of an “open secret” in his lifetime, as explored in last year’s brash but scrupulously documented “Lover of Men.” If Lincoln was himself an “other,” a queer man who had risen to position and power in a world that despised and shunned people like him, what new light would that cast on his legacy?

That’s the crux of the premise behind “Lavender Men,” which builds a “fantasia” around one of Lincoln’s most intense male relationships – with Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, a young family friend who helped him carry out his 1860 campaign for president and would later become the first “notable” casualty of the Civil War when he was shot while removing a Confederate flag from the window of an inn facing the White House. The film, however, doesn’t take place in a period setting; instead, it happens in an empty modern-day theater – an apropos allusion to the location of Lincoln’s ultimate fate – where the overworked and underappreciated Taffeta (Mason) oversees the production of a play about the romance between Lincoln and Ellsworth (Pete Ploszek and Alex Esola). After a particularly demoralizing performance, the put-upon stage manager ponders alone about their own life – as a queer, plus-sized, Black Filipinx TGNC person trying to find connection and community in a world where they feel invisible – through an imagined retelling of Lincoln’s doomed love story in which the narrative is projected through the lens of their own struggle to be seen, loved, and accepted,

Expanded from the play and directed by co-screenwriter Lovell Holder, a lifelong friend of Mason who helped develop the project and oversaw the original 2022 stage production at Los Angeles’s Skylight Theater Company, the film was in his own words “shot over 10 days on a shoestring budget” – and it admittedly shows. However, it leans into its limitations, letting the spare, isolated atmosphere of the empty theater exert its own influence over the material. In this framing, Taffeta becomes something like a reverse ghost, a spirit from the present haunting a past in which their own unfulfilled longings – and resentments – are reflected through the rumored romance of a president and his “little” man, and their exploration of the narrative, with all its inherent observations about the dynamics of power, gender, status, and physical attraction, ultimately becomes a meditation on the importance of redefining personal identity free from the shaping influence of other people’s experience or expectations.

Needless to say, it’s not the kind of movie that will appeal to every taste; highly conceptual in nature, with a nonlinear storytelling pattern that frequently calls attention to its own artificiality, it might prove perplexing to audiences used to a more traditional approach. Even so, it’s refreshingly unpretentious, acknowledging its own campiness without undercutting the authenticity of the voice which drives it – which is, of course, Mason’s.

Delivering an entirely charismatic, commandingly fabulous, and palpably honest tour de force, the playwright/actor is at the center of “Lavender Men” at every level, evoking our delight, laughter, tears, discomfort, and myriad other shades of response as they take us on their historically themed tour of queer identity, which involves its own collection of repressive and/or demeaning social expectations about “fitting in” – and illuminate this hidden chapter of queer history along the way. Indeed, capturing their performance – which Mason reprises, along with fellow original co-stars Ploszek and Esola, from the stage production – is arguably the film’s most significant accomplishment. It’s a powerful example of the kind of fierce, spirited expression that is rarely seen outside the half-empty houses of underground theaters, well worthy of several repeated viewings.

For Mason, however, the thing that matters most is not their performance, nor even their brilliantly conceived script. Discussing the movie, he describes it as something much bigger than that: “I hope this film serves as a rally cry, a fountain of joy and a grounding of purpose for the LGBTQIA+ movement in the U.S. and abroad at a time when we need stories which affirm, empower and embolden us more than ever.”

“Lavender Men” is showing in limited theaters now. Watch for information on streaming/VOD availability.

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Jacob Elordi rides high in ‘On Swift Horses’

Sony Pictures’ promotions avoid referencing queer sexuality of main characters

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The stars of ‘On Swift Horse.'

You might not know it from the publicity campaign, but the latest big-screen project for breakout “Euphoria” actor and sex symbol Jacob Elordi is 100% a gay love story.

Alright, perhaps that’s not entirely accurate. “On Swift Horses” – adapted from the novel by Shannon Pufahl and directed by Daniel Minahan from a screenplay by Bryce Kass – actually splits its focus between two characters, the other of which is played by “Normal People” star Daisy Edgar-Jones; but since that story arc is centered around her own journey toward lesbian self-acceptance, it’s unequivocally a “Queer Movie” anyway.

Set in 1950s America, at the end of the Korean War, it’s an unmistakably allegorical saga that stems from the marriage between Muriel (Edgar-Jones) and Lee (Will Poulter), a newly discharged serviceman with dreams of building a new life in California. His plans for the future include his brother Julius (Elordi), a fellow war vet whose restlessly adventurous spirit sparks a kindred connection and friendship with his sister-in-law despite a nebulously strained dynamic with Lee. Though the newlyweds follow through with the plan, Julius opts out in favor of the thrill of a hustler’s life in Las Vegas, where his skills as a card shark gain him employment in a casino. Nevertheless, he and Muriel maintain their friendship through correspondence, as he meets and falls in love with co-worker Henry (Diego Calva) and struggles to embrace the sexual identity he has long kept secret. Meanwhile, Muriel embarks on a secret life of her own, amassing a secret fortune by gambling on horse races and exploring a parallel path of self-acceptance with her boldly butch new neighbor, Sandra (Sasha Calle), as Lee clings obliviously to his dreams of building a suburban family life in the golden era of all-American post-war prosperity.

Leisurely, pensive, and deeply infused with a sense of impossible yearning, it’s the kind of movie that might easily, on the surface, be viewed as a nostalgia-tinged romantic triangle – albeit one with a distinctively queer twist. While it certainly functions on that level, one can’t help but be aware of a larger scope, a metaphoric conceit in which its three central characters serve as representatives of three conflicting experiences of the mid-century “American Dream” that still looms large in our national identity. With steadfast, good-hearted Lee as an anchor, sold on a vision of creating a better life for himself and his family than the one he grew up with, and the divergent threads of unfulfilled longing that thwart his fantasy with their irresistible pull on the wife and brother with whom he hoped to share it, it becomes a clear commentary on the bitter reality behind a past that doesn’t quite gel with the rose-colored memories still fetishized in the imagination of so many Americans.

Fortunately, it counterbalances that candidly expressed disharmony with an empathetic perspective in which none of its characters is framed as an antagonist; rather, each of them are presented in a way with which we can readily identify, each following a still-unsatisfied longing that draws them all inexorably apart despite the bonds – tenuous but emotionally genuine – they have formed with each other. To put it in a more politically-centered way, the staunch-but-naive conformity of Lee, in all his patriarchal tunnel vision, does not make him a villainous oppressor any more than the repressed queerness of Muriel and Julius make them idealized champions of freedom; all of them are simply following an inner call, and each can be forgiven – if not entirely excused – for the missteps they take in response to it

That’s not to say that Minahan’s movie doesn’t play into a tried-and-true formula; there’s a kind of “stock character” familiarity around those in the orbit of the three main players, leading to an inevitably trope-ish feel to their involvement – despite the finely layered performances of Calva and Calle, which elevate their roles as lovers to the film’s two queer explorers and allow them both to contribute their own emotional textures – and occasionally pulls the movie into the territory of melodrama.

Yet that larger-than-life treatment, far from cheapening “On Swift Horses,” is a big part of its stylish appeal. Unapologetically lush in its gloriously photographed recreation of saturated 1950s cinema (courtesy of Director of Photography Luc Montpellier), it takes us willingly into its dream landscape of mid-century America – be it through the golden suburbs of still-uncrowded Southern California or the neon-lit flash of high-rolling Las Vegas, or even the macabre (but historically accurate) depiction of nuclear-age thrill-seekers convening for a party in the Nevada desert to watch an atom bomb detonate just a few short miles away. It’s a world remembered by most of us now only through the memories and artifacts of a former generation, rendered with an artful blend of romance and irony, and inhabited by people in whom we can see ourselves reflected while marveling at their beauty and charisma.

As lovely as the movie is to look at, and as effective as it is in evoking the mix of idealism and disillusionment that defines the America of our grandparents for many of us at the start of the second quarter of the 21st century, it’s that last factor that gives Minahan’s film the true “Hollywood” touch. His camera lovingly embraces the beauty of his stars. Edgar-Jones burns with an intelligence and self-determination that underscores the feminist struggle of the era, and the director makes sure to capture the journey she charts with full commitment; Poulter, who could have come off as something of a dumb brute, is allowed to emphasize the character’s nobility over his emotional cluelessness; Calle is a fiery presence, and Minahan lets her burn in a way that feels radical even today; Calva is both alluring and compelling, providing an unexpected depth of emotion that the film embraces as a chord of hope.

But it is Elordi who emerges to truly light up the screen. Handsome, charismatic, and palpably self-confident, he’s an actor who frankly needs to do little more than walk into the scene to grab our attention – but here he is given, perhaps for the first time, the chance to reveal an even greater depth of sensitivity and truth, making his Julius into the film’s beating heart and undisputed star. It’s an authenticity he brings into his much-touted love scenes with Calva, lighting up a chemistry that is ultimately as joyously queer-affirming as they are steamy.

Which is why Sony Pictures’ promotions for the film – which avoid directly referencing the sexuality of its two main characters, instead hinting at “secret desires” and implying a romantic connection between Elordi and Edgar-Jones – feels not just like a miscalculation, but a slap in the face. Though it’s an eloquent, quietly insightful look back at American cultural history, it incorporates those observations into a wistful, bittersweet, but somehow impossibly hopeful story that emphasizes the validity of queer love.

That’s something to be celebrated, not buried – which makes “On Swift Horses” a sure bet for your must-see movie list.

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