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Frameline members get early bird access to purchase Frameline35 Opening Night, Closing Night and Centerpiece Tickets! Read film descriptions below and purchase tickets using the order form in the Pass Section of our Shop. Don't forget to login first to access this offer.
OPENING NIGHT FILM & GALA
Gun Hill Road
Thursday, June 16 @ 7:00pm
Castro Theatre
$75 Frameline members
Buy now in the Shop!
An official selection of this year’s Sundance Film Festival,
Gun Hill Road is a tense and complex
family drama about a teen embracing her gender identity and a father who must
put aside his notions of manhood and reinvestigate his own ideas of what having
a “normal” child means.
There is no doubt that Enrique Michael Rodriguez has many
ideas of what his young son—and namesake—will become: strong, proud of his
Nuyorican heritage, macho…just like Enrique himself. But when Enrique returns
home to the Bronx after three years in prison, he finds that he doesn’t know
his son Michael at all. Enrique tries to make up for lost time by focusing even
more attention on his son, only to realize that Michael is transitioning and
spends a lot of time as Vanessa. And Vanessa is struggling to balance school,
her poetry, her family, and a boyfriend who prefers private time to public
dates. Meanwhile, Vanessa’s supportive mother, Angela, tries to keep her family
together in spite of her own volatile personal life.
Three pitch-perfect leads anchor an incredible cast. The always sexy Esai Morales (Caprica,
NYPD Blue, Bad Boys) simmers as Enrique,
Judy Reyes (Scrubs, OZ) plays
Angela with grounded vulnerability, and newcomer Harmony Santana is a true
breakout star, shining as Vanessa.
This film is a Frameline Completion Fund recipient.
Opening Night Gala at Temple Nightclub
Join us after Gun Hill Road for our glittering Opening Night Gala at Temple Nightclub (540 Howard
Street). The worldwide LGBT film community will come together to kick off ten
days of outstanding films. Tempt your taste buds with culinary delights,
signature cocktails and superb wines from our Gala Partners. Mix, mingle, dance
and flirt your way through three floors filled with film lovers as we kick off
our thirty-fifth Frameline Festival!
CLOSING NIGHT FILM & PARTY
Christopher and His Kind
Sunday, June 26 @ 7:30pm
Castro Theatre
$50 Frameline members
Buy now in the Shop!
Christopher
And His Kind presents a
stunning piece of LGBT history with this BBC-produced dramatization of novelist
Christopher Isherwood's 1976 memoir. Recounting the English-American writer's
years in 1930s Germany, this is the true story of Isherwood's celebrated The
Berlin Stories, which served
as the basis for the Broadway musical and film Cabaret.
In the 1930s,
Isherwood moved to hedonistic Berlin "because of the boys". But he also moved
there to pursue his burgeoning writing career and to escape England and the
stifling expectations of his snobbish mother (Lindsay Duncan, HBO's Rome). Handsome Matt Smith (the U.K.'s latest
Dr. Who) plays the
young Isherwood as the film beautifully captures his relationships with the poet
W.H. Auden, flatmate Jean Ross (Isherwood's real life friend and the basis for
his immortal character Sally Bowles) and the Jewish, upper class Wilfrid
Landauer (Iddo Goldberg, Secret Diary Of A Call Girl). Against the intoxicating backdrop of Berlin's
gay subculture during the waning bacchanalia of the Weimar Republic, Isherwood
falls hopelessly in love with Heinz Neddermayer-yet their relationship faces impossible
challenges in the face of the gathering storm of the rise of the Nazi party.
There has been a
resurgence of interest in Isherwood and his works with Tom Ford's A Single
Man and the documentary Chris
And Don: A Love Story (Frameline32) that chronicled the author's 35-year relationship with artist Don
Bachardy. Christopher and His Kind gives us the story of this beloved author's early years in his own eloquent
words.
Closing Night Party at the Contemporary Jewish Museum
Soaring architecture and Gertrude Stein will play host to
our dazzling Closing Night Party at the Contemporary Jewish Museum (736 Mission
Street, between 3rd & 4th Streets). Enjoy delicious
bites, signature cocktails, and sophisticated wines as you see and be seen in
the CJM’s exhibit on the work and life of Gertrude Stein. Or make a statement
yourself in the building’s stunning Grand Lobby—what better way to honor
thirty-five years of Frameline Festivals? Join us as we announce our
Frameline35 AT&T Audience Award Winners and send our visitors off in style.
CENTERPIECE FILM
Three
Tuesday, June 21 @ 6:30pm
Castro Theatre
$12 Frameline members
Buy now in the Shop!
From the director of iconic
indie flick Run, Lola, Run comes Three, Tom Tykwer's latest exploration of human
motivation. If you let it, love can be as easy as one-two-three, as Tykwer
proves in this atmospheric piece about bisexuality, love and longing in
cosmopolitan Berlin.
One: appealingly disheveled
Simon, all scruff and dimples, who's ready to move on from tragedy.
Two: slyly humorous Hanna,
wry and knowing, who wants more than the comfortable companionship she has with
Simon.
Three: magnetic blonde Adam,
impish and confident, an occasional father who looks for connection. Which he
finds with Simon. And Hanna.
But none of the three knows
what the other two are doing. Here infidelity is just what the love doctor
ordered. Hesitant first approaches turn voracious, and the affairs pulse with
sensuality, especially when Simon and Adam smolder on-screen. As each
coupling's relationship grows more satisfying physically and spiritually, the
trio's palpable chemistry drives the story to a dizzying climax. These spheres
must collide eventually - right?
Sophie Rois, Devid Streisow,
and Tykwer regular Sebastian Schipper give exquisite performances, lending an
air of enigmatic charisma to characters sorting out what it means to live life
with abandon in one of the great cities of the world. Tykwer fractures the
first half of the film with haunting poetry and stark fantasies. He pulls back
from these as the characters' lives slide into focus, which feels like taking a
step back from a chaotic mosaic to see a fresh and invigorating story come into
view.
CENTERPIECE FILM
Wish Me Away
Wednesday, June 22 @ 7:00pm
Castro Theatre
$12 Frameline members
Buy now in the Shop!
"Sometimes living one's honest life is damn near
impossible." Or so it felt to award-winning country music star Chely Wright for
most of her closeted life-first raised in a Christian home in a tiny Bible-Belt
town and then as a member of the sexually repressed and homophobic country
music industry in Nashville.
Surrounded by a family, community, culture and religion that
all believed that being gay is just wrong (and, to many, "of the devil"),
Wright prayed regularly for God to rid her of her homosexuality, vowing to give
up on love in return. Instead, music became her love, as she scored hits like
"Shut Up and Drive" and "Single White Female". But while her dreams of stardom
came true, she remained tormented by her sexuality and paralyzed by the fear of
coming out. Would the country music industry tolerate a lesbian in their ranks?
Would her fans reject her? She tried dating men (including fellow country star
Brad Paisley), poured her energy into philanthropic endeavors, and contemplated
suicide before finally acknowledging what she knew she needed to do. In 2010,
she began calculated preparations to release an album and a book (Like Me) that would finally reveal her coming-out story and
make country music history.
Through sometimes-tearful interviews and conversations,
video diary entries, music videos, and several of her songs, this touching
portrait follows Wright up to her full-court media press, from Oprah to People magazine, as she discovers the transformational power of living an authentic
life.
Chely Wright is scheduled to appear in person!