Recent high school grad Joey (Lola Kirke, Mozart in the Jungle and Mistress America) is scooping ice cream at the local fair when she meets Rayna (Breeda Wool, UnREAL), a leggy blonde in Daisy Dukes who likes drinking and flirting, and who has a weakness for “them tomboys,” as her grandmother calls them. Rayna takes Joey home along with some ice cream, and soon Joey is head-over-heels in love and lust—even after she discovers that the older woman has a couple of kids and a trucker husband named Roy. Based on the award-winning short film of the same name, this story of star-crossed love provides a nuanced depiction of working-class life in rural America. Director Deb Shoval gets the details right, from Joey’s series of dead-end jobs to the car on blocks outside Rayna’s trailer house. The film finds gritty beauty in the scuffed basements, bars, malls, and meadows where Joey and her friends work and play. It observes the gradations of class within Joey’s circle: Joey’s sister looks down on Rayna as a welfare-check-collecting freeloader, and Joey’s mother desperately wants Joey to join the army, her one shot at college. Tensions mount as Rayna and Joey’s relationship moves from summertime fling to something more serious. While the pair are creative about setting up clandestine meetings—in a barn, the front seat of a pickup, and, most memorably, a tent—they have a harder time imagining a life together. “Would you go into the army if you were rich?” asks a college-going lesbian friend of Joey. “Probably not,” she answers laconically. In this movie, the price of same-gender love is steepest for those who can least afford it. Desc. courtesy of Frameline: The San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival.

JEWEL’S CATCH ONE documents the oldest Black owned disco in America and establishes the legacy of businesswoman, activist, and healer, Jewel Thais-Williams, who stood up against hate and discrimination for 42 years. The story of Jewel and “The Catch” celebrates four decades of music, fashion, celebrity, and activism that helped change the course of our country by breaking down racial, social, and cultural barriers. One of the original safe spaces for both the LGBT and Black communities, The Catch also served as a refuge for many during the AIDS crisis. As her club grew to become known as the “unofficial Studio 54 of the West Coast,” Jewel became a national model for how to combat discrimination and serve the less fortunate. The film is a lush visual and musical journey highlighted by exclusive interviews with Sharon Stone, Thelma Houston, Evelyn “Champagne“ King, Madonna, Sandra Bernhard, Thea Austin, Jenifer Lewis, Representative Maxine Waters and Bonnie Pointer. CCH Pounder narrates this historically important film.

A great un-shaming is uniting and healing Inuit and LGBTQ communities in the eastern Arctic. The territory of Nunavut was built upon decades of relocation, re-education, and Christianization of nomadic Inuit people. Colonization and shame have shadowed the community, hitting LGBTQ people especially hard, as the systematic destruction of native culture has driven the Inuit’s original complex, inclusive sense of sexual orientation and family structure underground. Directors Woods and Yerxa methodically trace colonization from the 1950s, through the gradual thaw leading to LGBTQ protections in the Nunavut human rights act in 2003, up to the current state of affairs. The moving story comes alive through the voices of returning LGBTQ Inuit adults and the new generation of youth; tribal elders reviving ancient inclusiveness; white LGBTQ activists and scholars; and an Inuit filmmaker and LGBTQ ally who’s making it all visible. As indigenous values and contemporary mores come together, the way opens up for Inuit people to lead this continuing and exciting journey. Desc. courtesy of Frameline: The San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival.