Wicked Queer 35

Medical student Yad is moving home to his family in a small Dutch city after quitting his party lifestyle back in Amsterdam. Instead of moving forward in his career, he takes a job in domestic care watching after the boisterous elderly Ans. Playing Cupid, Ans introduces Yad to her grandson, Joris, a charming young man who is still dealing with the death of his father and his overbearing mother. The attraction is instant and the boys find comfort in each other until their families’ drag them back to reality. Ultimately, they will have to decide if their summer fling is worth carrying on or if it is enough for them to stick with each other. Refreshingly, the family conflict in this romantic comedy is not that Joris and Yad are gay, but that they are defying family expectations in other ways and must make a new set of choices about how to be themselves. It’s a truly modern tale of queer love!

When Jennifer Laude, a Filipina trans woman, is brutally murdered by a U.S. Marine, three women intimately invested in the case–an activist attorney (Virgie Suarez), a transgender journalist (Meredith Talusan) and Jennifer’s mother (Julita “Nanay” Laude)–galvanize a political uprising, pursuing justice and taking on hardened histories of US imperialism.

EVA AND CANDELA is a portrait of two strong, independent women drawn together by a powerful attraction and their shared desire to take on the movie world. As the years pass, their relationship changes from one of passion to logistics. EVA AND CANDELA, director Ruth Caudeli’s first feature film, is adept at balancing the hope and bitterness that pulls at the edges of a struggling relationship. The film jumps back and forth between Eva and Candela falling in love to their future relationship, all within the timeline of the making and release of the film that they have made together.

José (19 years old) lives with his mother (50s) in Guatemala: a tough life in one of the world's most dangerous, religious, and impoverished countries. José is her youngest and favorite child, and her life is going to church and selling sandwiches. Jose spends his days on crowded buses and in the streets delivering food. Resigned and aloof, in free moments he plays with his phone and looks for random sex. When he meets Luis, Jose is thrust into a dimension of passion and pain and self-reflection that was previously unimaginable. Jose (2018) won "Queer Lion" award at 75th Venice Film Festival and was first ever film from Central America in Venice Film Festival.

Paris, Summer 1979. Anne produces third-rate gay porn. After her editor and lover Lois leaves her, she tries to win her back by shooting her most ambitious film yet with her trusted, flaming sidekick Archibald. But one of her actors is brutally murdered and Anne gets caught up in a strange investigation that turns her life upside-down.

Up-And-Coming filmmakers is an understatement because these filmmakers are here to stay. Come see what the youngest and brightest directors have brought to the big screen this year from all over the world and what they will be bringing for years to come.

Queer Persons of Color: Art ≧ Rage It goes without saying that POC in cinema have had a long, ugly past. These stereotypes have evoked an insidious effect on how the world views us; as lack of representation has proven to be as damaging as misrepresentation. Inclusivity in front of and behind the camera are essential to moving forward and this program does both. WE are here. WE have always been here. WE have stories to tell.

Happiness, revenge, love, and intimacy, in my opinion, are defining characteristics in the Latinx culture and they are some of the themes that reflect the short films chosen for this year's program. Expect to go through a wild ride with turns that'll take you to the edge of your seat. Você está pronto?

Love, sex, hate, obsession, lies...and dancing are just a few words that describe this years very talented women's program.

Before Christine Hallquist was running for Governor of Vermont, she was David Hallquist, the CEO of the largest locally owned electric utility in Vermont. A self-described “closet environmentalist” Hallquist is dedicated to addressing the way electricity use in America contributes to climate change. But his mission is balanced with the utility’s charge to provide affordable and reliable service. For Hallquist, increasing the efficiency of the grid is the only meaningful route to merging these priorities. He implements one of the country’s first ‘smart’ grids, decreasing outages, increasing the capacity for renewable sources and building a national reputation as an energy pioneer. Resistance, however, comes in many forms – traditionalists balk at the renewable intermittency, solar and wind advocates think Hallquist is dragging his feet, and the public fears that ‘smart’ meters on their homes will send private information about their energy use to the government. As Hallquist struggles to build the kind of transparent company whose honest approach can get stakeholders to accept the realities of how we generate and deliver electricity, he realizes he must apply that same transparency to his personal life and reveals to his son a lifelong secret. Dave Hallquist, who presents as a chainsaw-wielding, hard hat-wearing CEO in a male-dominated industry is a woman inside. Now, Derek’s family must face facts that feel far more immediate than the melting of the polar ice caps and denial emerges as a common theme linking all of these issues. Ultimately the personal and the societal come together as Derek learns that his father, newly named Christine, is still indeed his father – and that Christine’s unique perspective as the first American Transgender CEO to transition in office, may be just the what the limiting, binary worldview on energy and the environment needs.

The Garden Left Behind traces the relationship between Tina, a young Mexican trans woman, and Eliana, her grandmother, as they navigate Tina's transition and struggle to build a life for themselves as undocumented immigrants in New York City.

Leo is 22 and sells his body on the street for a bit of cash. The men come and go, and he stays right here - longing for love. He doesn't know what the future will bring. He hits the road. His heart is pounding.

At the very end of the world, three women meet by change and start a life changing polyamorous journey. A journey along routes and through time that turns into pure joy and rivers of pleasure and fun. They slowly unwind as they explore irreversible passion and the utopia of monogamous love, far from possession and pain, as the inevitable end to a love that fits no canon. Through her notes, Violeta tells us about the adventures of the Daughters of Fire: a group of women in the search of their own erotica. Warning! This film contains explicit images of nudity and/or strong language. Viewer discretion is advised. (Seriously though, it’s art - relax.)

Jakob is 17 years old, works at a slaughterhouse and struggles with a crippling anxiety disorder. After a chance encounter with a 26-year-old stranger over a sex-cam chat, his journey to Nevrland begins.

Meet Miss Rosewood! Self-appointed transgender terrorist on New York hardcore performance scene, a walking scandal on high heels, and the only woman in town with enough balls to empty a condom into the hair of Leonardo DiCaprio. No limits are too sensitive to be transgressed by the fearless missus, who spreads both terror, horror, admiration, as well as bodily fluids left and right in an environment otherwise accustomed to pretty much everything. But there is a sensitive and likeable person behind the thick makeup and Helle Jensen has reached through to her in a film, which is not afraid to take 'a walk on the wild side', but which also joins Rosewood, backstage, where she has the name Jon Cory, and a family that has learned to understand the persona with whom she acts out her dreams and fantasies. Written by CPH:DOX

Trans Every Day. We are not just trans on the day we come out, or the day we begin our transitions, or any other particular day. Here are six films about many other days in trans lives, because we are trans, every day. Viewer discretion is advised.

For many queer people, some of our toughest years were when we were teenagers living at home. Homophobic parents and school environments often made life unbearable. Now meet the next generation of queer youth, as they forge a path of love, with the support of their families. In the face of one of the harshest political climates, with homophobia and racism on the rise, these fearless teenagers are claiming their identities and taking the world by storm. ROOM TO GROW is an intimate look into what it means to be an LGBTQ teen today.

Featuring international films by a selection of new talents, this year’s lineup includes lyrical works from Spain and Sweden, a brilliant coming of age short from the Netherlands, and a bittersweet love story from Israel. Viewer discretion is advised.

The Coming Back Out Ball Movie is an observational feature documentary that follows a group of older LGBTIQ+ people, who have been invited to attend a Ball celebrating their gender and sexual identity. Faced with the complexities of ageing and isolation, these extraordinary people seize each day with determination and humour. In a time that is rapidly changing for the LGBTIQ+ community around the world, we witness some of our cast experiencing acceptance and love for the very first time in their lives.

Tania is a trans girl who performs at discos in Buenos Aires. Pedro is a young creature of the night, a voguing dancer. Daniela works as a waitress and deals with a break-up that’s left her in deep melancholia. The three of them are close friends. When Tania receives the news that her grandmother has passed away, she returns to their hometown with her two friends to take care of the house she’s left her as an inheritance. But she finds out that an Alien has accompanied her grandmother during her last years, keeping her company. The grandma asks Tania to return the creature to the place where it appeared the first time. Tania, Pedro and Daniela begin a journey looking for that unknown place. But when Tania begins to feel sick and the road gets tough, they will have to look inside of themselves to overcome their fears and prove their true friendship so they can accomplish their mission before it is too late for the Alien and maybe for Tania.

Dr Jean Markham (Anna Paquin) returns to the town she left as a teenager to take over her late father's medical practice. When a school-yard scuffle lands Charlie (Gregor Selkirk) in her surgery, she invites him to visit the hives in her garden and tell his secrets to the bees, as she once did. The new friendship between the boy and the bee keeper brings his mother Lydia (Holliday Grainger) into Jean's world. In the sanctuary of the doctor's house the two women find themselves drawn to one another in a way that Jean recognises and fears, and Lydia could never have expected. But, in 1950's small-town Britain, their new secret can't stay hidden forever.

Jacques is an older writer from Paris. Arthur is a young student in Rennes. They instantly fall in love. But they'll have to face rejection and sickness to keep it that way.

Each year, thousands of gay men are introduced to methamphetamine through hookup apps and sex clubs in search of heightened sexual pleasure. With consistent use, the power of the drug overtakes most users. 'Crystal City' explores the worsening epidemic through the eyes of recovering addicts and active users as they attempt to overcome their disease.

In 1892, Lizzie Borden lives a quiet life in Massachusetts under the strict rules established by her father. Lizzie finds a kindred spirit in the live-in maid, Bridget, and friendship soon blossoms into a secret romance. But tension mounts in the Borden household, leading to a violent breaking point. Discussion led by assistant professor Sarah Zaidan from Emerson College to follow. This is a free screening.

Marlon Riggs, with assistance from other gay Black men, especially poet Essex Hemphill, celebrates Black men loving Black men as a revolutionary act. The film intercuts footage of Hemphill reciting his poetry, Riggs telling the story of his growing up, scenes of men in social intercourse and dance, and various comic riffs, including a visit to the "Institute of Snap!thology," where men take lessons in how to snap their fingers: the sling snap, the point snap, the diva snap.

A young homeless man uses online hookups to find places to stay. He becomes a hustler and falls in love with one of his clients. A closeted politician looms in the background of this seedy and poetic slice of gay New York, a torch song for the digital age that explores poverty, sex as currency, users and abusers.

In early 1963, right before the onset of full-fledged Beatlemania, John Lennon (Ian Hart) and Beatles manager Brian Epstein (David Angus) take a four-day holiday in Barcelona. Lennon, the working-class street tough, and Epstein, the dapper homosexual, make for unlikely friends, but their relationship blossoms over the vacation. Epstein harbors romantic feelings for his friend and client, but Lennon is more interested in the starstruck stewardess who finds her way to their hotel.

Men's Shorts Program: All up in your space! This collection of films navigates the spaces we share, the ones we desire, the ones we occupy, and where we don't.

Birds of The Borderlands follows four Arab queers as they risk their place in their families, communities and even countries to be themselves. Hiba is a Bedouin trans-girl fleeing her tribe before they discover her secret transition; Youssef is a gay Iraqi refugee murder-witness, waiting in hiding for UNHCR to hand him his fate; Khalaf is a gay Imam turned LGBT activist forced to seek asylum abroad after a vicious assault from his family; Rasha is a young Jordanian feminist who finds herself in a relationship with Jordan, the Australian filmmaker who is determined to help the film’s characters but doesn’t understand the price paid for freedom in a country where honor can still be thicker than blood.

Manny, Joel, and Jonah tear their way through childhood. Their mother and father have a volatile relationship that makes and unmakes the family many times over, often leaving the boys fending for themselves. As their parents rip at one another, Manny and Joel harden and grow into versions of their father. With the triumvirate fractured, Jonah, who is the youngest, becomes increasingly aware of his desperate need to escape. Driven to the edge, Jonah embraces an imagined world all his own. Discussion with director Jeremiah Zagar to follow. This is a free screening.

In Celebration of Wicked Queer's 35 years we are revisiting films that made an impact on our culture and continue to resonate. Angela Robinson's debut feature film (an expansion on her award-winning short film of the same name) stunned the queer festival circuit when it debuted in 2005. Plaid-skirted schoolgirls are groomed by a secret government agency to become the newest members of the elite national-defense group, D.E.B.S. (aka Charlie's Angels with lesbians). Angela Robinson has gone on to be one of the foremost out queer directors working in the industry today (PROFESSOR MARSTON AND THE WONDER WOMEN, WQ 2018). Come and check out her first feature film.

Emilia is a 30-something bisexual woman who refuses to grow up as her female friends already did. Angélica, one of Emilia’s friends, is getting married. Her other friends, Clara and Renata, seem to have all their lives figured out: amazing jobs, family, kids… While Emilia is still living with her mother and trying to define her relationship with Mariana. She is also trying to survive as an actress and she teaches acting classes in a cheap school. She feels more comfortable with her students than with people of her same age. Her life will be even messier when she is fired from her job and she is forced to live a ‘standard’ life. Angélica’s bachelorette party would reveal that not only Emilia is unhappy with her life. We are all hiding what we really are.

Handsome control freak Patrick (writer-director Ryan Lonergan, A THOUSAND BEAUTIFUL THINGS), his second half, the charismatic, impulsive, trust fund baby Sutton (Garrett McKechnie, TERRITORY), and the third and newest member of their threesome, darling boy toy Frankie (Jack Ball, HENRY GAMBLE’S BIRTHDAY PARTY), live the charmed life of your average, everyday thruple. But when Frankie is stricken with a mysterious illness, the dynamic trio swings into action, heading west in search of a holistic cure. On the way, between fights and makeup sex in nondescript hotel rooms, the unique challenges facing this three-way relationship are probed. Shot in radiant black and white with a lively music score, part gorgeous travelogue, part political allegory, and a full on examination of the quirks and kinks of a loving threesome, KILL THE MONSTERS is the road trip you wish you could take.

Celebrity chef Erasmus (Steve Coogan) and his partner Paul (Paul Rudd) have a happy and rather self-indulgent life together. Their perfect existence is turned upside down when, at a dinner party, Erasmus is confronted by the grandson he never knew he had. With the child's father in prison it seems he has nowhere else to go and so, after much debate they decide to take him in. With changes and challenges on both sides, this could prove a recipe for disaster. Filled with heart and humor, this new family looks set to serve up one of the most deliciously funny films of the year.

In Celebration of Wicked Queer's 35 years we are revisiting films that made an impact on our culture and continue to resonate. Ripploh's brutally honest portrayal of a gay schoolteacher and the contrasts between his public and private lives was startling for its time (Ripploh has admitted that much of the film was autobiographical). On its release in 1980 the film was siezed by US Customs and deemed "pornographic." With its frank depiction of sexuality, the film is a loving document of pre-AIDS gay culture in West Berlin in the early 1980s and a touching comedy about the human desire for and struggle to achieve intimacy. "The triumph of "Taxi zum Klo" is that, in the midst of its portrait of isolation, Frank Ripploh himself emerges as a cheerful, open man, willing to reveal his weakness, willing to hope that things will take a turn for the better. The movie is about a person, not about his sex life. It understands that all of our identities and lifestyles are just hopeful strategies in the search for a sense of belonging, usefulness and love." www.rogerebert.com Warning! This film contains explicit images of nudity and/or strong language. Viewer discretion is advised. (Seriously though, it’s art - relax.)

QUEER! MUSLIM! PROUD! The first ever Queer Muslim shorts selection of Wicked Queer brings you stories about identity, faith, family and love! Coming out to parents, fighting for who you are despite society's oppression, being brave and finding compassion... Delivered from all around the world, these stories show how much we have in common even though we come from different backgrounds.

Not everything in life is funny....luckily this program is. From bisexual mothers coming out late in life, to dildos, to Weho sluts, to even a woman marrying herself...this program has it all.

Ariel is a young religious dressmaker who, after a failed sexual encounter, discovers a secret her family has tried to hide all of her like: she was born intersex but, after corrective surgery, raised as a girl. A decision is now in her horizon: she can either keep living as a socially accepted but oppressed woman or live her life as an intersexual person and face the judgement of society.

The life of Tony-winning playwright Terrence McNally (Master Class, Ragtime): 60 years of groundbreaking plays and musicals, the struggle for LGBT rights, addiction and recovery, finding true love, and the relentless pursuit of inspiration.

Chela and Chiquita, both descended from wealthy families in Asunción, Paraguay, have been together for over 30 years. But recently their financial situation has worsened and they begin selling off their inherited possessions. But when their debts lead to Chiquita being imprisoned on fraud charges, Chela is forced to face a new reality. Driving for the first time in years, she begins to provide a local taxi service to a group of elderly wealthy ladies. As Chela settles into her new life, she encounters the much younger Angy, forging a fresh and invigorating new connection. Chela finally begins to break out of her shell and engage with the world, embarking on her own personal, intimate revolution.

Taxi driver Phanishwar is living with a mysterious girl, Nanaam, who he keeps in chains. When a medical student, Rami, a victim of revenge porn leaked online by an ex-boyfriend, seeks refuge in Goa, she stumbles into the strange but placid lives of Phanishwar and Nanaam. __Viewer discretion is advised for this movie.__

Queer Lives. We got history. Remembering the spots, the pot, and the round the way folks that are part of the fabric of our community.

In most cultures, 'elders' are revered and respected, however seniors in the LGBTQ community are often forgotten and overlooked. 2019 is the 50th anniversary of Stonewall and Wicked Queer celebrates 35 years of bringing LGBTQ films to Boston, it was a good time to recognize the lives and stories of LGBTQ seniors. The seniors amongst us are living history with voices to be heard, they are our 'elders' who paved the way for generations to follow, and lead us with powerful examples.

Last program of the festival. Our programmers picked a film or two each that we found outré, unique, outrageous, or that in some other way made us say "Get the fuck out!!" Byeeeeeee!

Vision Portraits is the personal story of filmmaker Rodney Evans (Brother To Brother) as he embarks on a scientific and artistic journey, questioning how his loss of vision might impact his creative future. Through illuminating portraits of three artists: a photographer, a dancer and a writer, the film looks at the ways each artist was affected by the loss of their vision and the ways in which their creative process has changed or adapted.

Lesbians didn't always get to see themselves on screen. But between Stonewall, the feminist movement, and the experimental cinema of the 1970s, they built visibility, and transformed the social imagination about queerness. Filmmakers Barbara Hammer, Su Friedrich, Rose Troche, Cheryl Dunye, Yoruba Richen, Desiree Akhavan, Vicky Du, film critic B. Ruby Rich, Jenni Olson, and others share moving and often hilarious stories from their lives and discuss how they've expressed queer identity through film.

TRANSFINITE is a sci-fi omnibus feature film composed of seven standalone magical realistic short stories where supernatural trans and queer people from various cultures use their powers to protect, love, teach, fight and thrive.