As Frameline approaches its 50th anniversary, we are working to ensure the films we love can be seen by audiences for years to come. Frameline has commissioned several archival restorations from the Frameline Distribution catalog, revealing crisp details and deeply saturated colors as they were intended to be seen. Our communities are vibrant, our films should be too!

Film preservation is more than just physical restoration, it is also the process of cultural preservation, of valuing LGBTQ+ history and recognizing the artistic contributions of queer filmmakers to the history of cinema. Frameline’s restorations are available for theatrical bookings and exhibition and can be watched on streaming platforms everywhere.

Frameline is proud to present the work of pioneering queer filmmakers like never before.

FRAMELINE47 PREMIERE | JUNE 19th, 1 PM, The Castro Theater

Director Stephen Winter in attendance

Through a campaign of satirical surprise attacks, an underground band of radical Black queer HIV+ activists and drag queens take to the streets of New York City to combat conservative politicians and government apathy towards AIDS. A frenetic debut feature from writer/director Stephen Winter, Chocolate Babies unleashes a world of anarchic camp and unapologetic Black queer power in one of the hidden gems of New Queer Cinema, ripe for rediscovery and ready to be introduced to new audiences.

Following its festival run in the mid-1990s (playing at SXSW, the Berlinale, and Frameline21), Chocolate Babies struggled to secure major distribution due to its radically independent Black queer vision, but eventually found a home at Frameline Distribution who championed the film and continued to bring it to new audiences. Frameline proudly presents the world premiere of this pristine restoration in rich color and vivid detail like never before.

25th Anniversary 4K archival preservation completed in partnership with the UCLA Film & Television Archive, the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project, and with funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

In the early ’70s, the world-famous Cockettes—including disco superstar Sylvester— orchestrated a decidedly queer, hysterically funny send-up of the televised wedding of First Daughter Tricia Nixon, anticipating the present-day practice of up-to-the-minute political satire.

Television correspondent Hurtme O. Hurtme covers the wedding and interviews celebrities in attendance such as Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Jacqueline Onassis, Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth Taylor, and Coretta King. During the reception, Eartha Kitt puts LSD in the punch bowl and all hell breaks loose.

Revel in psychedelic debauchery as you’ve never seen it before with a new pristine 4K remaster of Tricia’s Wedding. Restoration commissioned by Frameline and the OutFest UCLA Legacy Project and facilitated by the UCLA Film & Television Archive for the 50th anniversary of this queer cinema landmark.

Beautifully restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive from a 16mm internegative and a 35mm print, Gay USA is the first American feature-length documentary by and about LGBTQ+ people. Director Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. (best known for his 1985 gay drama Buddies) mobilized camera crews across the country to document the national Gay Freedom Day marches in June of 1977. 

Gay USA conveys the passion, anger, and defiant optimism of a community under attack. In the month of June 1977 alone California’s anti-gay Briggs Initiative had just been announced, Anita Bryant’s vicious homophobia had helped repeal Miami’s gay rights ordinance, and a gay man named Robert Hillsborough had only days earlier been the victim of a fatal gay-bashing in San Francisco. Bressan weaves in audio of some of those homophobic voices and gives an overview of historical homophobia, including an account of gays and the Holocaust – and then illustrates the triumphant power of love and pride with a magnificent cross-section of footage from marches in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Diego, and Philadelphia.

Gay USA‘s nationwide release, after its August 1977 San Francisco premiere, brought images of out and proud LGBTQ+ people to cities across the country. Gay USA offers a vibrant and beautiful snapshot of an incredible year in LGBTQ+ history and conveys a powerful message of hope to contemporary viewers.

Preservation funding provided by The Andrew J. Kuehn Jr. Foundation, Frameline and Outfest.

Through voiceover and static San Francisco landscapes, Jenni Olson’s classic 1997 experimental narrative short tells the melancholy story of a dyke pining over a one night stand with a straight girl.

Blue Diary world premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 1998. The 20th anniversary HD scan from the original elements is a huge improvement on the former SD version that’s been available online previously. Blue Diary was shot by noted experimental filmmaker and artist William E. Jones, cut by acclaimed San Francisco editor Dawn Logsdon, and the voiceover is performed by talented indie director Silas Howard (then known as Lynn Flipper). As the initial foray into 16mm urban landscape filmmaking by writer-director Jenni Olson, Blue Diary establishes many of the themes that Olson would explore further in her subsequent 16mm features, The Joy of Life and The Royal Road, and both films are also available through Frameline Distribution.