Frameline50 (2026)

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Frameline50’s Closing Night film is so epic that they won’t let us tell you about it yet. We’re all going to this super secret mystery movie and, if you can hack it, you should be there too. Trust us: You don’t want to miss out on a history-defining moment like this one.

Super Secret Closing Night

Curated by Jenni Olson, this block is a wild tangle of hot, hilarious, and seldom-seen rarities from Frameline’s history.

Nineties & Zeros Fucks: Sexy Frameline Shorts of the ‘90s & 2000s

Pumping high octane fuel into the ride of your life!

Impact Zone

A delicious spread of decadent delights that will keep you coming back for more.

Pussy Buffet

Amsterdam, 1986. Three gay men find friendship and love through music, desire, and fun at a local night club before more and more regulars start to vanish from Downtown. Thirty-two years later, Ronnie, Lennart, and Bas reunite for dinner and face what time takes — and what it keeps. Downtown is intimate, sensual, and utterly captivating.

Downtown

Writer-director Hayley Kiyoko adapts both her hit single and best-selling young adult novel of the same name in this charming directorial debut about Coley (Maya da Costa), the new-to-town girl who falls in love with the ever-magnetic Sonya (Myra Molloy). Sun-drenched, heartfelt, and bolstered by new music from Kiyoko, this coming-of-age story aptly captures the complicated swirl of highs and lows that come with loving someone who might not be ready to love you back.

Girls Like Girls

“I love watching time unfold.” Amy muses as she watches a caterpillar form into its chrysalis. Always with a camera, Amy has been documenting time unfolding as her transgender child, Adam, grows up – even more so over the last eight years while the two have been filming this documentary together. This beautifully intimate film is the story of three characters: a trans kid, a mother, and the ever-present march forward of time.

Adam’s Apple

For his latest deep dive into our shared queer history, award-winning documentarian Jeffrey Schwarz explores not only the controversy surrounding William Friedkin’s lurid thriller Cruising (1980) and its legacy, but the shocking murder that inspired Friedkin to make it. Neither a salacious true crime doc nor a breezy bit of gay nostalgia, Mineshaft offers a compelling, nuanced take on a complicated subject.

Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders

Legend. Icon. Game-changer. Billie Jean King is synonymous with these descriptors not only for her tennis career, but an unrelenting pursuit of equality for all women in sports – no matter what the personal cost. With charismatic narration from the legend herself, Give Me the Ball! is an unflinching and intimate story of Kings’s fight to win for herself and those that followed — on and off the court.

Give Me the Ball!

An age-gap romance, a road trip that ends in a rain-soaked kiss, and desert vistas scored by Patsy Cline and Ella Fitzgerald hits — Donna Deitch’s landmark 1985 romantic drama has it all. Desert Hearts, a perennial Festival favorite, returns to Frameline in celebration of the film’s recent 40th anniversary. When uptight, soon-to-be-divorced Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver) meets the free-spirited, ever-charming Cay Rivvers (Patricia Charbonneau), one of cinema’s most iconic romances unfolds in this lesbian classic.

Desert Hearts

Fleur arrives late for the recital, brushing past Julian, fleeting contact that inflames passions between the women in this moving, true-life drama of queer activism and everlasting devotion. Their white-hot affair inevitably leads to an engagement, and inspires a plan to tie the knot 22 times in each of the countries where same-sex marriage is legal as a way to draw attention to limited LGBTQ+ marriage rights.

Julian

Oscar-winning filmmaker Dustin Lance Black dives into the hidden queer history, influences, and subtext thrumming beneath the surface of the rock, heavy metal, and punk music genres. Alongside queer icons like Elton John, David Bowie, Little Richard, Rob Halford, and Freddie Mercury, backstage figures are brought out front-and-center — some for the very first time — to show that the entire history of rock ‘n’ roll is filled with unsung LGBTQ+ heroes.

Rock Out

This laugh-out-loud shorts package has it all: dysfunctional families, Horny Hell, and Chucky (yes, that Chucky).

Fun in Shorts

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” This line from a poem by Mary Oliver continues to resonate across generations — and lies at the heart of this intimate and illuminating portrait. This film weaves Oliver’s own words through rare archival materials and candid reflections from those who knew and admired her, including John Waters, Stephen Colbert, and Oprah Winfrey.

Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World

Lining up a perfectly paired funny/sad comedy duo in Rachel Dratch and Jack Plotnick, writer/director Jason Laurits re-imagines Stephen King's Misery as a much gayer and much funnier tale of deranged fandom. When a washed-up TV personality is rescued from a car crash by his biggest (and only) fan, he thinks he’s been kidnapped, but maybe a kidnapping scandal is just the publicity he needs to get back on the map.

Loves Company

Accustomed to enjoying the debaucherous queer enclave of Maspalomas, 76-year-old Vicente (José Ramón Soroiz) finds himself at a crossroads when he must trade the intoxicating pleasures of his Canary Islands retreat for a conservative retirement community. Anchored by a strong central performance, Maspalomas is a life-affirming, tender portrait of what it means to stand firm in your identity — no matter your circumstances.

Maspalomas

Art, activism, and female-powered performance explode onto the scene in 1970s Los Angeles. Centered around the Woman’s Building, a tight-knit community of artists including the director Cheri Gaulke — alongside voices like Lily Tomlin — forged bold, groundbreaking work that reshapes the art world and echoes across generations.

Acting Like Women

Kenny Starling is about to open the first ever drag and queer theater company in the small, conservative town of Rock Springs, Wyoming with a shadow cast performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show during a time where the community is systemically under attack. Time Warp is a reminder that a fifty-year old piece of media can still be at the forefront of change and cultural revolution.

Time Warp

In this incisive French romantic drama about a truly modern queer family, Céline sets out to collect a series of letters of support as the final administrative hurdle before she is allowed to adopt her soon-to-be-born child. As she navigates her relationship with her wife, the birthing parent, Céline confronts her own estranged mother and reevaluates her feelings about becoming a mom.

Love Letters

Fresh off of winning the Audience Award at Frameline49 with Castration Movie Anthology i. Traps, Louise Weard returns to the Festival with the latest chapter in her epic-in-the-making anthology film series, putting her own spin on the most timeless (and tiresome) of trans film stories: the coming out story.

Castration Movie Chapter iii. Junior Ghosts—Premorphic Drift; a fragmentary passage

Suddenly dumped by his boyfriend and totally broke, Nate crawls to the only people that will take him, his sweet, offbeat grandparents, played by Academy Award winner F. Murray Abraham and Caroline Aaron who welcome him to their lovely Jewish old folk’s home. Fueled by amusing energy, colorful characters and unique setting, the film digs deeper with big questions about identity and belonging.

Bookends

The debut feature by Lilly and Lana Wachowski follows a butch handywoman (Gina Gershon) and femme fatale (Jennifer Tilly) as they plan to build a new life for themselves by stealing from a money-launderer for the mob (Joey Pantoliano). Thirty years on, this remarkable film continues to inspire for its dazzling neo-noir visuals and story, and its burning-hot exploration of lesbian love and sex.

Bound

Rodina Singh effortlessly blends the visual styles of impressionistic horror and the pages of Blueboy magazine to create a bold fever dream of trans sexuality and desire, and their power to sustain life. Young trans woman Diwa escapes the drudgery of her day job and transphobia of any aspect of daily life with her favorite audio erotica content creator: Dreamboi. When she stumbles upon him having sex with a stranger, fantasy and reality start to blur.

Dreamboi

A poetic supernatural horror film from Two-Spirit director Bretten Hannam filled with ominous dread and ambitious narrative time leaps, At the Place of Ghosts follows two estranged Mi’kmaq brothers who venture into the wilderness to exorcise a demon that is stalking them and to mend a division between the siblings from years ago.

At the Place of Ghosts

A unique duet, separated by time and transformation, performs on stage to a full crowd. Dylan stands at the mic hitting the lower notes, while Lots, his name before he transitioned, sings through the speakers, hitting the higher notes. This moment was unthinkable a few years before, when Dylan Holloway, a UK pop star, was faced with the terrifying decision to live authentically or lose his livelihood.

Tomorrow’s Too Late

“I was born a good story,” announces Henry Cyril Paget, the next Marquess of Anglesey, as the opening credits roll in this fizzy historical biopic. Director Celyn Jones makes good on that promise in this drama starring Callum Scott Howells as the real-life figure whose flamboyance and determination to be his extravagant self creates a stir when he takes over his father’s Welsh estate.

Madfabulous

Cybill Shepherd lends her voice as the narrator for this insightful documentary, which tells the story of acclaimed screenwriter and director Colin Higgins — the man behind classics like 9 to 5, Harold and Maude, and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. With wit and warmth, the film’s star-studded cast, including Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, Gene Wilder, and Goldie Hawn, share their memories of one of Hollywood’s sharpest comedic talents.

Celebrating Laughter: The Life and Films of Colin Higgins

With arresting cinematography, 10s Across the Borders delivers a long-overdue snapshot of ballroom culture in Southeast Asia through the art and work of three trailblazing performers. Not so much a companion piece to Paris Is Burning, Chan Sze-Wei’s exhilarating documentary is like the beautiful offspring of Jennie Livingston’s landmark film.

10s Across the Borders

Small-town dreamer Eddie (Brock Yurich) pursues his ambition of physical perfection and a career in bodybuilding, channeling his emotional burdens into devotion to his body. But his focus is broken in a moment of unexpected queer awakening in this sexy and visceral character study of body and spirit.

Test

An assortment of classic Frameline trailers and short films from key moments in the Festival’s five-decade history that highlight the evolution of the world’s longest-running LGBTQ+ film exhibition.

Frameline From the Beginning: It’s All Coming Back to Me Now

When Hein returns after 14 years to his tiny village on a remote North Sea island, he is met with suspicion and outright hostility, even by his own family, prompting a community trial to determine if he is an impostor. Told with the power and simplicity of a timeless parable, _Trial of Hein _is suffused with the longing to belong and the pain of ostracism, a worthy winner of Frameline’s Out in the Silence Award.

Trial of Hein

When a grieving young woman is sent to a camp for troubled youth, she is welcomed by the outcasts and screw-ups into their literal coven. With their help, Emily discovers the dark and light, ominous and ecstatic magic that her grief can create. This sophomore feature by Avalon Fast (frequent collaborator of Alice Maio Mackay and Louise Weard) is an operatic and landmark new work of queer horror.

CAMP

Widely recognized for featuring one of the earliest known onscreen kisses between two Black women, Dreams of Passion is an exploration of desire set in a dance studio that marked a critical moment.

Dreams of Passion

Attention all Heated Rivalry devotées! Shot over the last five years, The Hockey Player follows Canadian-born defenseman Luke Prokop as he decides to become the first — and still only — professional player under an NHL contract to come out as gay.

The Hockey Player

If you’ve ever pined over a what-could-have-been relationship, this sapphic charmer is a must-watch masterclass in yearning. On one of her last nights in Shanghai, twentysomething Asher asks Tori to meet up for one last meandering adventure through the city. Measured, tender, and unafraid to sit with its characters, writer/director Shan Jiang’s queer romance echoes the most achingly satisfying elements of Richard Linklater’s beloved Before trilogy.

Ephemera

When bored and sexually frustrated Gen Zer, Elliot (Cooper Hoffman), lands his first real job assisting anti-woke art star Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde), it isn't long before &quot;erotic muse&quot; and &quot;sex slave&quot; are added to his job description in legendary auteur Gregg Araki’s irreverent and entertaining sex comedy.

I Want Your Sex

Written by and starring The Comeback and Hacks’ Dan Bucatinsky and featuring a rich ensemble cast that includes Richard Ruccolo, Sasha Alexander, Adam Goldberg, Christina Ricci, Andrea Martin, Doris Roberts, and Lisa Kudrow, All Over the Guy is a hilarious rom-com about a mismatched pair of gay men set up on a blind date by their mutual straight friends. Come revisit the Closing Night film of Frameline25 on the big screen again!

All Over the Guy

World-renowned gospel singer and choir director Maestro Raymond Anthony Miles was a charismatic, impeccably dressed, and artistically singular figure in the New Orleans musical landscape. Featuring interviews with the likes of Big Freedia, Cyril Neville, Mahalia Jackson, and other friends and peers, A Taste of Heaven documents Miles’ soul-catching music and complex personal life full of struggles as unique and human as Miles himself.

A Taste of Heaven: The Ecstatic Song & Gospel of Maestro Raymond Anthony Myles

Heavily censored in the Philippines upon its initial release, this scandalous classic returns to the big screen in a brand new 4K restoration. Small town hustler Pol (Allan Paule) moves to big city Manilla to find a new living performing in male strip shows, only to be thrust into the shadowy underworld of sexual exploitation that lies just beneath the glitz and glitter (and soap suds)

Macho Dancer

Pioneering lesbian filmmaker, former San Franciscan, and Frameline Award winner Barbara Hammer takes center stage in Brydie O’Connor’s Teddy Award-winning film. Bolstered by exquisitely edited archival footage, this doc assembles a lyrical portrait of the ambitious visual poet behind Nitrate Kisses and other groundbreaking experimental queer works, illuminating how Hammer’s legacy continues to inspire artists and preserve our shared histories.

Barbara Forever

A group of tangentially-connected gay teenagers in the remote coastal town of Geraldton encounter the thrills and devastations of first love and sexual discovery set against the backdrop of Australia voting to legalize same-sex marriage in 2017. Catch the first 5 episodes of your next gay TV obsession — a YA limited series chock-full of hot sex, high drama, and plenty of Aussie charm.

Invisible Boys: Episodes 1-5

Carole Pope, legendary frontwoman of Rough Trade, shaped Canada’s punk and new wave scene in the 1970s and ’80s. Bold, unapologetic, and openly queer, she electrified audiences with hits like “High School Confidential.” Antidiva celebrates Carole, now in her 70s, as a trailblazing LGTBQ+ icon who continues to make music her own way.

Antidiva: The Carole Pope Confessions

Caught between a magical upbringing with his grandmother, Dilma, and an uncertain future, 11-year-old Gugu plays soccer fabulously — glitter and all. But when Dilma’s Alzheimer’s disease worsens, Gugu tries to hide signs of Dilma’s illness from the disapproving outside world in this award-winning feature from Brazil.

Gugu’s World

Star student Luthando’s world is turned upside down when the charismatic Aydana arrives at her elite all-girls boarding school in this delightfully inventive coming-of-age debut feature from director Sandulela Asanda. Able to bring its protagonist’s comic book-loving inner world to life, this comedy portrays girlhood and first love in all their awkward sweetness.

Black Burns Fast

Start your day off right with this tantalizing collection of steamy films.

Afternoon Delight

Join us for a conversation with Emmy-winning actor, filmmaker, and playwright Colman Domingo and Variety’s Jazz Tangcay, as they discuss Domingo’s illustrious career, Bay Area connections, and today’s queer media landscape.

A Conversation with Colman Domingo

A neon-lit snapshot of queer life in contemporary Japan, Tiger centers on a 35-year-old erotic masseur named Taiga (the equally sensitive and sensual Takashi Kawaguchi). Taiga is attempting to parlay his skills into on-camera sex work while trying to revive his unsatisfying love life and navigate complicated family dynamics and inheritance disputes after his father falls ill.

Tiger

In an unassuming apartment in São Paulo, a random Grindr hookup multiplies into a frenzied orgy, spurring an exploration into the thorny gay subculture of chemsex. As Matias and his new lovers connect over drugs, fucking, and classic literature, he confides openly in them about his past and his visions for the future in a fast-changing, post-pandemic world.

The Passion According to G.H.B.

This shorts block centers on queer folks grappling with life-altering decisions, both big and small.

Meet Me at the Crossroads

A collaborative effort between some of queer cinema’s juggernauts — including future Oscar winner Rob Epstein, Frances Reid, Greta Schiller, Lucy Winer, Jan Oxenberg, and Barbara Hammer — captures the first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979.

Greetings from Washington, D.C.

Decades before influencers, content creators, and YouTubers came to rule our screens and dictate trends, one of America’s greatest free-speech experiments was born: public-access television. A counterpoint to commercial mainstream media, public-access television allowed the general public to create programming free from censorship. This timely documentary traces the evolution of Manhattan Cable Television and how its pioneering, community-made programming reshaped local pop culture, music, art, and depictions of LGBTQ+ people on screen — and sparked heated First Amendment debates.

Public Access

For ruggedly handsome Jack (Barry Ward), life as a married fisherman on the coast of Wales is as constant as the churning of the ocean. Enter Daniel (Lorne Macfayden), a seasonal worker with a don’t-fuck-with me attitude. Living a life as free as Jack’s is frozen, Daniel turns out to be the chance Jack can’t afford not to take. Fans of God’s Own Country will find much to love in this stormy, sexy, working-class romance.

On the Sea

Elvira bets her husband Jack that she can bed her new friend Betsy by midnight or else Jack can make it with Betsy's husband Eddie in filmmaker Radley Metzger and screenwriter Jerry Douglas's classic sex comedy that puts the X in bisexual.

Score

Gamechangers follows the journey of two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion Harris. Sharing her triumphs and defeats both on and off the soccer field, Ashlyn bares all, leaving viewers heartbroken at times and inspired at others.

Gamechangers: The Ashlyn Harris Story

Starring, written, and directed by San Francisco’s own D’Arcy Drollinger, this riotous sequel to Shit &amp; Champagne sees its titular dancing queen framed for her husband’s murder, leading to even more madcap hijinks — and now she’s back for the Opening Night of Frameline50!

Lady Champagne

Still as provocative and controversial as it was when it hit theatres in 1980, William Friedkin's lurid thriller stars Al Pacino in one of his most iconic roles as a rookie cop who goes undercover in New York City's gay leather scene to hunt a serial killer lurking in the shadows of fetish bars in the Meatpacking District and haunting the public sex hot spots of the city.

Cruising

This queer coming-of-age horror film is what happens when the star-crossed passion of Heated Rivalry and the unsettling atmosphere of It Follows collide. In Adrian Chiarella’s haunting-yet-sensual debut feature, teenagers Naim and Ryan live in an isolated and conservative small town that tries to “cure” them of their queerness. Forced to go on the run, the boys are stalked by a violent entity that takes the form of the person its victims desire most.

Leviticus

It’s a dingy bar bathroom and a cis guy with huge muscles is fucking you doggy style against the sink… Or maybe not… In Al’s cartoons, anything is possible, even if it's the furthest thing from reality. In truth, he’s an awkward trans guy who is completely in love with his oblivious best friend, Jesse, who happens to be his roommate at queer cartoonist camp.

Something You Should Know About Me

Bless us, Sisters, for we are in need of joy — and perhaps a loincloth or two! Thank hunky Jesus, this documentary blends the activism, radical resistance, and hilarity of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from their beginnings to present day. With all the glitz and heart you’d expect, Hunky Jesus gives rise to the artistry, compassion, and fire that fuels the Sisters’ impact on the community.

Hunky Jesus

At the epicenter of San Francisco’s Tenderloin District, amidst the tenacious problem of queer and trans homelessness, stands the supportive community of Glide Memorial Church. This compassionate, eye-opening documentary takes us inside the lives of four San Franciscans who intersect at Glide, showing us the resilience and dignity glimmering below one neighborhood’s turbulent surface.

Fire Within

When a young drifter hitches a ride with a lonesome trucker, an unexpected, carnal bond emerges along the dusty, desolate highways of northern Mexico. But the deeper they get into the dangerous, drug-fueled, hyper-masculine world of long-haul truckers, the greater the threat of their troubled pasts catching up with them becomes.

On the Road

In this passionate and sexually-charged romance between two newly-arrived refugees, Moroccan immigrant Saad fears his Iranian lover Reza will be denied asylum in Canada and face deportation. Desperate, he begins a relationship with an immigration minister who may offer the only chance to save his lover’s life.

We’ll Find Happiness

When Angelica Ruffier returns to her childhood home after the death of her father, she rediscovers her teenage diaries and, in them, her secret, all-consuming infatuation with her history teacher, Mademoiselle B. Surrounded by her father’s belongings and her re-animated memory, Ruffier starts to long once more to find her. A sensuous and dreamy meditation on young love and fantasy, La belle année will leave you in tears.

La belle année

Tony Powell, a shaggy-haired star of 1970s UK futbol, disappeared 40 years ago amid a swirl of rumors. Filmmakers Ramiel Petros and Nicholas Freeman found him in a West Hollywood motel, a gay man with a story to tell (once he has a drink or three). The Last Guest of the Holloway Motel is an edgy documentary with a dark sense of humor — and an unexpectedly emotional story of family reconciliation.

The Last Guest of the Holloway Motel

To the world, Roy Blakey is a pioneering gay photographer who amassed the world's largest collection of figure skating memorabilia. But to award-winning filmmaker Keri Pickett, he's beloved Uncle Roy. She reconstructs his extraordinary life through vivid archival footage and interviews, but as his memory begins to fade the film becomes a way of recounting his legacy back to him — and sharing it with us.

Uncle Roy

Abandoned in the woods after rejecting her boyfriend’s proposal, Alex finds refuge with an alluring off-grid couple. Drawn to Kianna, she’s seduced by their freedom — until buried secrets emerge. A Safe Distance is a sapphic psychological thriller about desire, control, and the dangerous allure of starting over.

A Safe Distance

Thirty-five years ago in the early days of New Queer Cinema, THE spot to gather and watch cutting-edge queer shorts was a run-down Mission district bar that hosted .99 Cent Queer Video Fest. Let the original curator (and bartender!) Jeffrey Winter of The Film Collaborative take you back!

.99 Cent Queer Video Fest

16-year-old Enzo rejects a sun-drenched summer in his family’s villa and joins a construction crew, defying his father’s loftier expectations and bringing him into the magnetic presence of Vlad, a handsome Ukrainian fleeing his country’s battlefront. Enzo must confront the complex realities of class, exile, war, and what courage really looks like, in this insightful coming-of-age film by the director of BPM (Beats Per Minute).

Enzo

A poetic cinematic envisioning of the legendary queer 1970s manifesto, The Faggots &amp; Their Friends Between Revolutions, this visual meditation constrasts nature’s quiet strength with the rigid architecture of power. In a world where the faggots and their friends are made of flowers, trees and softness, will they survive against the men of concrete and steel? A story of otherness not as weakness, but as enduring, blooming power.

The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions

In a Spanish greenhouse, Hadoum, a cis woman, and Iván, a trans man, fall for each other amid grueling work and rising tension. But as a labor movement grows, personal loyalties and expectations start to test their budding romance. Winner of the Teddy Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, Iván &amp; Hadoum is a moving love story shaped by class and identity.

Iván & Hadoum

Seamlessly blending comedy and melodrama, writer/director John Early stars as Maddie Ralph, a dishwasher at an L.A. food content studio with dreams of being a chef and recipe creator despite her secret struggle with an eating disorder. Backed by alt-comedy mainstays Vanessa Bayer, Conner O’Malley, Kate Berlant, and more, Early’s portrayal of Maddie is as full of love as it is moving.

Maddie’s Secret

Androgynous teen Malou lives in a small town and idolizes her older brother, Max — though things all start to change when she develops a crush on Nouria, Max’s girlfriend. Although initially invigorating, this secret relationship stirs up a complex swirl of emotions for both teens. While Nouria struggles with the weight of betraying Max, Malou navigates newly unearthed feelings of gender dysphoria in this striking, beautifully acted coming-of-age film.

Skiff

Meet Mickey Squires, legendary porn star and notorious alter ego to Richard Bernstein. Diving into the colorful history of gay adult cinema, this intimate documentary portrait from the team behind Raw! Uncut! Video! traces Richard’s evolution from a lanky high school nerd to fantasy dream daddy Mickey, charting the joys and tribulations along the way.

Mickey & Richard

Sometimes there’s nothing better — or more cathartic — than films that hit you in the feels.

A Good Long Cry

Beneath the hypermasculine world of central Mexico’s rodeos lies a hidden queer subculture that both defies and celebrates Michoacán’s beloved cowboy mythology. This extraordinary and artistically striking motion picture reveals the surprising dual personality of the jaripeo; guided by co-director Efraín Mojica, acting as both subject and interlocutor, Jaripeo intertwines documentary and dreamlike personal journey into a ravishing reflection on machismo.

Jaripeo

This shorts block centers on the emerging generation of filmmakers who are redefining both the medium and viewers' experiences with what's on screen.

Trans New Weird Shorts

This experimental documentary challenges traditional notions of Black masculinity and identity through illuminating conversations with an ensemble of preachers, poets, students, activists, husbands, and fathers. Through overexposed black-and-white imagery, a visceral film grain, and an original trip-hop score personalized to each participant, Still Black gives us all (no matter our background) a chance to learn about the inherent beauty and power of Blackness and transness.

Still Black: A Portrait of Black Transmen

Featuring Jack Smith’s Flaming Creatures, Jean Genet’s Un chant d'amour, and a rarely seen classic from recent Frameline guest Todd Haynes, this is a must-see lineup for queer cinephiles.

Objectionable Content: Banned Retro Shorts

When Lilia returns to Tunisia following the sudden death of her uncle, the unanswered questions surrounding his passing — and the quiet truth of his hidden sexuality — begin to unravel the echoing silences holding her family together. As grief gives way to suspicion, Lilia is forced to confront her own fears about living openly. Hiam Abbass stars in Tunisian filmmaker Leyla Bouzid’s elegant meditation on family, secrecy, and queer identity.

In a Whisper

Gay chaos ensues when groom-to-be John Michael (Cole Doman) reunites with his best man and old flame Alex (Michael Hsu Rosen) at a lakeside bachelor party weekend that draws the whole wedding party into the drama. Joined by mischievous duo, Luís and Simon, and hunky, bisexual Kit, this quartet of college pals have a time, stir up some mayhem, and find true love in this cheeky rom-com.

Before I Do

A group of tangentially-connected gay teenagers in the remote coastal town of Geraldton encounter the thrills and devastations of first love and sexual discovery set against the backdrop of Australia voting to legalize same-sex marriage in 2017. Catch episodes 6 through 10 of your next gay TV obsession — a YA limited series chock-full of hot sex, high drama, and plenty of Aussie charm.

Invisible Boys: Episodes 6-10

He/they underground filmmaker Henry Hanson presents a pair of bite-size features — Dog Movie and Puppygirl — exposing two of the greatest scourges facing trans people today: housing drama and puppygirls. Good girls and bad dogs only.

A Tale of Two Dogs: A Henry Hanson Double Feature

Following our Opening Night screening of Lady Champagne, keep the good times rolling at Frameline50’s Opening Night Party at The Foundry SF! Party-only tickets are available to purchase here.

Lady Champagne – Opening Night Party

From awkward first encounters to loves that last beyond a lifetime, these shorts are perfect for sparking date night conversations.

We Belong Together (Except When We Don’t)

Like an uncanny fairy tale — by turns thrilling, mysterious, and erotic — Strange River casts a marvelous spell as it unfolds a transformational week in the life of a 15-year-old boy on a family camping trip in Germany. Disturbed by strange dreams (or are they apparitions?) of a beautiful boy water nymph, the teen’s river journey promises both the wonder and fear of sexual awakening.

Strange River

Joan Chen delivers a powerful performance as Feng Xia in this romantic drama about a woman exploring her queer desire later in life. As she falls in love with a free-spirited younger Québécoise woman, Feng Xia grapples with the terrifying-yet-beautiful freedom of finally putting herself before others. A coming-of-age-at-any-age story rife with slow-burn sapphic yearning and complicated family dynamics, Xiaodan He’s sophomore feature is a showcase for Chen.

Montreal, My Beautiful

Long unavailable, this newly restored period drama by writer/director Srđan Karanović — made during the outbreak of the Yugoslavian civil war in June 1991 — depicts the travails of a girl raised as a boy in early 19th-century Serbia.

Virgina

One fateful morning, Brittney Griner’s everyday life went from easy dunks and admiring crowds as a WNBA star, to unrelenting fear, malnourishment, and dangerous work conditions in a freezing cold Russian penal colony. With less than a gram of cannabis oil found in her luggage, a careless oversight led to immense repercussions that rocked nations, became a wedge political issue, and would be used as a cudgel against “wokeness.”

The Brittney Griner Story

For even longer than Frameline has been around, queer filmmakers have been depicting Bay Area life on their own terms and telling their own fabulous stories, blissfully far from the mainstream. Join Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker and longtime Frameline programmer Peter L. Stein for a unique clip-filled journey through a highly unofficial archive of local queer self-reflection.

San Francisco on the Queer Screen: 50+ Years of Gay by the Bay

“Space is big and freaky and full of dangerous shit.” Even with a dad who studies the stars for a living, Sheri has always been afraid of the cosmos — and meteors in particular. After she begins to have strange dreams that coincide with a meteor shower and a string of local disappearances, Sheri uncovers an otherworldly evil that dates all the way back to her father’s youth.

Our Effed Up World

A murder aboard an Arctic cargo ship unfolds in reverse, casting suspicion on Alupa, an Inuit mechanic. As conflicting testimonies surface, he must confront hidden truths about his relationship with the victim. This tense thriller blends striking visuals with a powerful exploration of race, class, and identity.

Labrador — Autopsy of Silence

Argentine auteur Lucio Castro explores four chapters in the life of handsome art student Adnan (Laith Khalifeh), each depicting his intimate encounters at the height of summer with a stunning dose of magical realism. Trysts with delivery boys, moonlit cruising, and the awakening of new sexual desires transpire over a cat-sitting stint in New York City.

Drunken Noodles

Including docs and narratives, this collection celebrates the works of queer filmmakers rooted in the Bay Area and Frameline herstory.

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