With transgender people frequently in the news, mostly because of restrictive laws or outright bans, it's imperative their stories be heard. That's precisely what director/writer D. Smith accomplishes in her luminous, refreshing documentary "Kokomo City."
The 43rd SF Jewish Film Festival will run July 20-August 6 at the Castro Theatre, Vogue Theatre, and the Piedmont Theatre in Oakland. Here are the notable LGBTQ-themed narrative, short and documentary selections.
Based on the autobiographical novel by Makoto Takayama, director and co-screenwriter Daishi Matsunaga's "Egoist" is one of the most original and moving gay movies of the year.
"Afire" takes a long time to ignite, but once it does, brace yourself. Like its lead character, novelist Leon (Thomas Schubert), writer/director Christian Petzold's new film is a lot to handle.
Theater's gift is that it welcomes all, one of the virtues being celebrated in the new film "Theater Camp," which might make Drama Club cool in the same way "Glee" reimagined and revitalized chorus/choir.
The frightening true-life tale of a series of anti-gay murders is the subject of "Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York," a new four-part documentary on HBO.
The best way to describe "Joy Ride" is as a good and bad 'trip gone wrong' copycat that gets off to a great start, lags a bit, and then surprises us with scenes that are alternately outrageous and heartbreaking.
Just about anything you would want to know about gay Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini is showcased in Criterion's essential collection of nine Pasolini films, with extended interviews and a fascinating booklet of essays and images.
Frameline47 emphasizes the interplay between past and present, in particular queer cinema history and the collective history of the LGBTQ community at large.
Looking through this year's Frameline film selections, a majority of the films focus on young adult LGBTQ people and their concerns. Out of 71 films, 50 are in the teens-to-35 category.
Frameline47 will host 47 screenings at the Castro Theatre, currently in controversy as to what its future might bring. This will entail half of the nearly 90 film screenings during the June 14-24 runtime, including streaming encores June 24-July 2.
Disney's Oscar-winning 1989 animated adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Little Mermaid" launched a whole new era for the studio. But the live-action remake seems like just more vault-raiding.
The 22nd San Francisco DocFest will be held June 1-11 with 39 features and 47 shorts at the Roxie Theater. DocFest always offers a smattering of LGBTQ-related films this year with six features plus nine short films.
Filmmaker Camera Obscura's tech-dystopian "Virtue" comes to us like a latter day version of James Whale's "Frankenstein" to assure us that indeed, "Fire bad!" It also features a bevy of 1990s SF luminaries.
