A wonderful blend of camp, melodrama, and earnest coming-of-age fable, this is the charmingly wild tale of young Potato, a sensitive, closeted kid in the splintering Soviet Union whose only joy is watching pirated Hollywood movies on a black-and-white TV. Struggling to survive and fed up with her work as a prison doctor, his single mother Lena decides to become a mail-order bride. When an eccentric suitor proposes, Lena and Potato set sail for America on a strange new adventure.

Expanding on his award-winning short documentary Little Potato (Frameline41), Potato Dreams of America is based on writer-director Wes Hurley’s own unbelievable childhood. He strikes a wonderfully flamboyant, hyper-stylized tone as he utilizes sitcom tropes and brashly displays the influence of queer directors like Gregg Araki, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Derek Jarman. The casting is equally as colorful: Mean Girls’ Jonathan Bennett appears as a fey Jesus Christ, while Lea DeLaria portrays Potato’s brassy grandmother and Dan Lauria (The Wonder Years) is Lena’s secretive husband.