Frameline is thrilled to partner with guest bloggers from the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire during this year's festival! We've invited students from the LGBTQA Studies: San Francisco Travel Seminar at UWEC to share their experiences of Frameline and their thoughts on San Francisco's queer community. As they attend Frameline and experience San Francisco, they will be creating LGBTQ-themed documentaries, as well as vetting films for their second Eau Queer Film Festival in the fall. For more information about the contributors, click here.
"Knock the mother fuckers down, knock the mother fuckers down down down. This chorus line has been stuck in my head since watching this magnificent film. This film was on my list of movies that I absolutely had to see during the festival, I was not going to miss it for anything. The main reason for this is that I am in love with the Vogue genre of dance ever since watching Paris is Burning. The ballroom scene and community is just amazing to me, watching people vogueing is mesmerizing. The atmosphere in the theatre during this movie was astonishing, everyone was getting into it and were clapping and screaming, hooting and hollering. It was a dancing and theatrical masterpiece in my mind and I am so glad I got to experience it in such a historical and beautiful venue as the Castro.
And besides, the encore performance from Miss Bar-B-Que was just phenomenal. Something that I will never forget."-Kelly Brill
"When introducing this film, the director, Sheldon Larry, said a phrase that really struck me; which was, “This film is Queers making films for Queers.” While in the process of making our own films for the Eau Queer Film Festival we were directed to try and understand who our audience is. Hearing this statement, I was intrigued to understand how a film directed specifically for queer individuals looked like. During the film I looked for better understanding into this concept, and I am still struggling to define it even though this film does help create perspective. By basing this film off of such a historical film to the LGBT community was the first step to this concept, in my eyes. Next, the Ball is a form of culture that is not universally known to individuals outside of large cities and outside the LGBT community, which creates a direct target audience. However, even though I could see the intention of focusing on the target, I think the film did a good job of sending out a universal message and making it relatable to people who were unfamiliar with this culture." -Megan Chilman