Established in 1986, the Frameline Award is given to a person or entity that has made a major contribution to LGBTQ+ representation in film, television, or the media arts. Past honorees range from film historian and author Vito Russo to Hong Kong director Stanley Kwan to avant-garde lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer to drag artiste extraordinaire Divine to actor-activist George Takei to long-time leader of the Festival and the organization Michael Lumpkin.

To learn more about the honors given out at the annual San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, please visit our dedicated Festival Awards page.

The Frameline Queer Lens Award is given to a queer filmmaker who brings their singular vision and perspective to the screen and, in doing so, makes an indelible impact on the art form. We were honored to present the inaugural iteration of this award, the Frameline Queer Lens Award for Filmmaking, to director, screenwriter, and producer Todd Haynes at Carol Day 2025 on Sunday, December 21, 2025.

Todd Haynes

John Waters, American filmmaker and author

Rodney Evans, American filmmaker

Debra Chasnoff (1957-2017), American filmmaker and activist

Alan Cumming, Scottish actor and director

Robert Hawk, American filmmaker and producer

Jeffrey Schwarz, American filmmaker, producer, and editor

George Takei, American actor and activist

Jamie Babbit, American writer and filmmaker

B. Ruby Rich, American film scholar

Margaret Cho, American comedian and actor

Wolfe Video, American film distributor

George Kuchar (1942-2011) & Mike Kuchar, American filmmakers

Michael Lumpkin

Andrea Sperling, American film producer

François Ozon, French writer and filmmaker
Dubbed the garçon terrible of French cinema following his feature debut — the acerbic satire Sitcom (1998) — François Ozon carved a unique path for himself within the realm of French (and queer) cinema. From the erotic thrillers like Swimming Pool (2003) to the twisted fables like Criminal Lovers (Les amants criminels) (1999) to a murder/mystery/musical like 8 Women (8 femmes) (2002), Ozon adventurously explored the spectrum of film genres throughout his career. Among the director’s other films that screened at Frameline over the years, you’ll find A Summer Dress (Une robe d’été) (1996), See the Sea (Regarde la mer) (1997), Water Drops on Burning Rocks (Gouttes d’eau sur pierres brûlantes) (2000), Time to Leave (Le temps qui reste) (2005), Hideaway (Le refuge) (2009), The New Girlfriend (Une nouvelle amie) (2014), Summer of 85 (Été 85) (2020), and Peter von Kant (2022), which closed Frameline46 at the Castro Theatre.

Gregg Araki, American writer and filmmaker
One of the most vital voices of the New Queer Cinema movement, Gregg Araki delivered some of the most potent and unforgettable independent films of the 1990s. Beginning with his first feature Three Bewildered People in the Night (1987), Araki continued to take a bold, subversive look at queer life on the fringes of Los Angeles with The Living End (1992) and his Teen Apocalypse Trilogy — Totally Fucked Up (1993), The Doom Generation (1995), and Nowhere (1997). Araki made a successful “mainstream” crossover with his sensational adaptation of Scott Heim’s Mysterious Skin (2004), starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet, Michelle Tractenberg, and Elisabeth Shue, and won the first ever Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival with Kaboom (2010). Prior to Frameline29, the Frameline Award was presented to Araki alongside a screening of Mysterious Skin.

Rose Troche, American writer and filmmaker

Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato, American filmmakers and producers

Isaac Julien, British filmmaker and artist

The Festival’s Founders

Barbara Hammer (1939-2019), American filmmaker, writer, producer, and cinematographer

Stanley Kwan, Chinese filmmaker and producer from Hong Kong

Dolly Hall, American film producer

Channel Four Television, British broadcasting channel

Peter Adair (1943-1996), American filmmaker and artist

Marcus Hu, American film distributor and producer

Christine Vachon, American film producer
With nearly 150 films and TV series under her belt, Christine Vachon established her esteemed production company Killer Films in 1996, after producing some of the most notable films in American independent cinema in the 1990s, including Todd Haynes’ Poison (1991) and Safe (1995), Tom Kalin’s Swoon (1992), Rose Troche’s Go Fish (1994), Steve McLean’s Postcards from America (1994), Nigel Finch’s Stonewall (1995), and Larry Clark’s controversial Kids (1995). In addition to producing all of Todd Haynes’ features — from Velvet Goldmine (1998) and Mildred Pierce (2011) to Carol (2015) and May December (2024) — Vachon had two films receive Best Picture nominations at the Academy Awards: Celine Song’s Past Lives (2023) and Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (2024). Additional titles that screened at Frameline include: Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry (1999), John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), Rose Troche’s The Safety of Objects (2001), and Billy Porter’s Anything’s Possible (2022).

Pratibha Parmar, British writer and filmmaker

Marlon Riggs (1957-1994), American filmmaker and activist

Elfi Mikesh, Austrian cinematographer, writer, and filmmaker

Rob Epstein, American filmmaker, producer, and editor
Filmmaker Rob Epstein has amassed a slew of prestigious awards since making his directorial debut (alongside co-directors Nancy Adair and Andrew Brown) with Word Is Out (1977), including 2 Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature for The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) and Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt (1989), which he co-directed with his longtime collaborator Jeffrey Friedma; 3 Audience Awards at Frameline for The Times of Harvey Milk, The AIDS Show (1986), and Paragraph 175 (2000); 2 Teddy Awards at the Berlinale, for The Celluloid Closet (1996) and Paragraph 175; 2 Emmy Awards for The Times of Harvey Milk and The Celluloid Closet; and 1 Grammy Award for Best Music Film for Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (2019). Additional films that have screened at Frameline include Greetings from Washington, D.C. (1981), Howl (2010), The Battle of amfAR (2013), and State of Pride (2019).

Cinevista/Promovision, American film distributor

Divine (1945-1988), American actor, singer, and drag icon

Alexandra von Grote, German writer and filmmaker

Vito Russo (1946-1990), American activist, film historian, and author