Frameline48 (2024)

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November 18, 2024. The one and only Julia Roberts will introduce this special exclusive screening of Queer, with director Luca Guadagnino and star Daniel Craig in attendance!

Queer

October 29, 2024: We're proud to partner with The James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center to present a free encore screening of the Frameline48 smash hit Sally!

Sally! Free Encore Screening

September 20, 2024. Join us for a special screening of this doc — which screened at Sundance, Telluride, and TIFF — followed by a special Q&amp;A with director Josh Greenbaum and film participants Will Ferrell &amp; Harper Steele.

Will & Harper

November 2, 2024. Twenty-six years after it served as Frameline22’s Opening Night Feature, we’re so thrilled to be able to invite you to revisit Lisa Cholodenko’s stunning directorial debut, High Art, in a brand new 4K digital restoration. Starring Ally Sheedy, Radha Mitchell, and Patricia Clarkson, High Art is just as potent and striking as ever.

High Art

At a rural Vermont dive bar called BABES, Cribbage tournaments overlap afternoons of karaoke and nights of raucous queer dance parties. When the aging conservative townsfolk and the younger queer leftists begin sharing the same watering hole, a delicate allegiance flourishes.

One Night at Babes

An ode to the love of movies, Una película barata (literally A Cheap Film) is a beguiling dramedy about a gay man in the middle of an existential crisis who meets a wild card friend from his childhood who will shape the course of his summer. With dashes of forgotten Meg Ryan movies of the 90s, classic Pedro Almodóvar humor, and Mondays in the Sun, Una película barata is a wildly inventive feature debut from Spanish director Osama Chami.

Una película barata

Join us for our first-ever Juneteenth screening and block party to open Frameline48 featuring drag performances from Reparations, curated by Nicki Jizz, followed by a free outdoor screening of Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero. Bring your blankets &amp; comfy chairs!

Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero

A true-crime trans podcaster returns to her conservative hometown, just as a masked killer in a Santa suit begins paying grisly homage to the town’s own haunted legend, The Toymaker. In her fifth feature, trailblazing trans director Alice Maio Mackay establishes herself as a horror auteur to keep your eyes on.

Carnage for Christmas

The film follows the trajectory of Naikee, a black transwoman activist, in her quest for identity and freedom. By re-interpreting Botticelli's painting &quot;The Birth of Venus,&quot; Naikee asserts her right to exist differently.

The Birth of Naikee

An intimate slideshow chronicling how two transmasculine artists fall madly in love. From their initial meeting to traveling across continents, viewers witness their intimate moments, long-distance relationship, and transformative top surgery. A sweet and steamy celebration of T4T love with life and art all tangled up.

You can’t get what you want but you can get me

Long before Love Lies Bleeding, there was Pumping Iron II: The Women. This little-seen sequel to the film that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a superstar follows a group of four women bodybuilders as they prepare and compete in the 1983 Caesars World Cup in Las Vegas.

Pumping Iron II: The Women

A chance encounter at a lesbian bar brings two women of a certain age living strikingly different lives together in this winning romantic comedy. Named after Irene Cara’s classic anthem from Flashdance, What a Feeling blends heart with a lack of self-consciousness, telling a poignant story of new love amongst two women in the “sandwich generation” while also never taking itself too seriously.

What a Feeling

Transfixed by the smell of his victims, a stalker takes his obsession to the limit.

Stink

From the sensual to the sweet, this perfect date showcase will leave you in a lavender haze. How do a mattress sale, an abortion road trip, a soccer match, the sprawling Juhu Beach in Mumbai, salsa music, The Strokes, and Erin Brockovich lead to queer romance? Come find out.

Come to My Window: Date Night Shorts

When competitive tension turns to romantic tension and passion, two Filipina highschool athletes must come to terms with their conflicting emotions. The perfect film for fans of the WLW genre, the latest film from director Samantha Lee is a sapphic romance with balls — volleyballs and basketballs, that is.

Rookie

Heartbroken, listening to Enya, and making Mickey Mouse pancakes in his underwear, the last thing thirtysomething Brooklynite Troy wants to do is welcome new neighbors... that is until he sees Abel’s captivating smile, pushing his hope for a rekindled romance with his ex-boyfriend Chance to the back burner.

Best Years

Having documented each of her romantic partners on film since her late teens, Chloé Barreau embarks on a bold experiment to flesh out an autobiographical project. She invites each of her exes — both male and female — to divulge their side of the story, filmed by a neutral party to allow for candid reflections of Barreau and their time together.

Fragments of a Life Loved

On the Catalonian coast, American exchange student Sophie joins bleach-blonde local Gloria for friendly game of futbol. And just as friendly rivalries morph into summertime crushes, someone has to go and break their arm.

Ripe!

With cameos by Dolly Parton, Christina Aguilera, and Brandi Carlile, this portrait of Linda Perry (best known as the frontwoman for 4 Non Blondes) celebrates her as one of pop music's most influential forces. Afterwards, join us at Oasis for a live performance from Perry at our Pride Kickoff party.

Linda Perry: Let it Die Here

Behold this exclusive, streaming-only shorts package which collects several of the bold, edgy, exciting short films screening before features at Frameline48 into a wickedly queer adventure.

Cruel Summer Streaming Shorts

“Fear to the side, power to the front” is Valencia’s motto when it comes to queer ecology activists fighting the climate crisis in Florida, a state shaped by water, wind, and political storms. Estimates say 60% of Miami will be underwater by 2060 in this “don’t say gay” state. Follow queer and trans activists and learn about the passionate work being done to combat these crises.

Can’t Stop Change: Queer Climate Stories from the Florida Frontlines

Lillah Halla’s punky and electrifying debut follows Sofia, a 17-year-old volleyball star in São Paulo who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. While seeking a solution in a country where abortion is illegal, she becomes the target of the radical conservative community. But these far-right, anti-choice zealots are no match for the incendiary spark of solidarity ignited by her ferociously queer teammates.

Power Alley

As the fight for trans rights in sports continues, this unconventional documentary uses archival Olympic footage, eye-opening historical facts, conversations with gender nonconforming athletes ⎯ and a little bit of time travel ⎯ to recognize forgotten trailblazers, reject violent structures of oppression, and examine the shared experiences of those on the margins: queer, intersex, and Black women athletes.

Life Is Not a Competition, But I’m Winning

Now in their 60s, Thom and Henri are a married couple living an outwardly sweet existence at their quaint home in Brussels with their pet turtles Topsy and Turvy, but after Henri retires, his newfound lack of purpose clashes against Thom’s attempts to rekindle their passion. Turtles likens Thom and Henri to a classic Tracy and Hepburn duo as they spar the way only people who truly know one another can.

Turtles

Luke and Simon always go for burgers together after tennis. But this time, Luke wants to tell Simon how he really feels about him. How will Simon react? Luke's vivid imagination leads us into some intense scenarios, only to reveal a surprising truth.

Dream Burger

What makes a lesbian? To those inspired by Sappho to gather on the island of Lesvos in the 1970s, women-loving-women is a crucial component. To local Lesvians, however, the answer differs. Lesvia artfully explores what happened when international lesbians and native Lesvians strove to build and preserve community in the same small town.

Lesvia

It's been thirty years since Joan &amp; Susie stood before their closest friends to celebrate at a small wedding, decades before their union would become legally recognized. Now, in front of children and chosen family, they cross a different threshold.

Threshold

Believing himself to be one of the last survivors left in the wake of human extinction, an ex-war soldier finds unexpected comfort with the arrival of a weary traveler.

Burrow

Our queerness demands to be seen, heard, and appreciated. This program presents the spaces that make us who we are — past, present, and future — that unleash us and unify our community. Co-presented with <a href="https://www.drunkenfilmfest.com">Drunken Film Festival</a> and showing at the newly reopened STUD Bar on Folsom Street as well as the Roxie.

Queer Places, Spaces, & Shorts

Sixteen-year-old Grace prepares for her baptism in the rural 1950s South. When she learns she must repent before the ritual, Grace contemplates her romantic feelings toward her best friend Louise.

Grace

Having built a colorful queer life in an American prairie town, an aspiring costume designer visits their island homeland of Guam to make costumes for a children’s theatre and reconnect with distanced parents.

Wouldn’t Make It Any Other Way

Largely unseen since 1972, this madcap movie musical extravaganza stars transgender Warhol icon Holly Woodlawn as a small-town girl who tries to make it big (or at least find a roommate) in NYC. She gets tangled up with everyone from wrestlers to crunchy granola lesbians on her quest to find secure housing.

Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers

What is the quality of the breath that allows you to express, resist, persist? This question permeates the genre-defying Meanwhile, a poetic, non-linear journey that explores the impact of white supremacy on connection, relationships, and life. Through art, dance, archival footage, and lyrical narration, director Catherine Gund creates a meditation on how the effects of racism shape our shared experience.

Meanwhile

A multidisciplinary artist and scene queen in a variety of different circles from the beautiful elite to the queer punks of LA in the 90s, Sean DeLear broke the mold when it came to being Black and gay in the art world and in the music scene. Friends and peers piece together DeLear's video archives and writings into a fun, enlightening tribute, honoring the counterculture spirit and light of this one-of-a-kind American artist.

The Life of Sean DeLear

A self-proclaimed “genre fluid” film, Underground Orange captures a rare kind of honesty — one that’s both deeply intimate and wildly universal. In director/star Michael Taylor Jackson’s debut feature, a wayward Californian becomes part of a polyamorous relationship within a group of eccentric young actors while backpacking around Argentina. By blending tones, mashing up genre beats, and infusing the everyday with imagination, the film balances thoughtfulness and humor.

Underground Orange

When a chance encounter between a sexy go-go boy and a charming nursing student blossoms into a passionate affair, two young men must learn to carve out their own fate in bustling Mexico City. Director Julián Hernández's new film is a sensual, absorbing portrait of burgeoning love in a hostile world.

Demons at Dawn

The phrase “opposites attract” has rarely rung so true as in Helen and the Bear, a cinéma vérité portrait of a vibrant, queer woman and her most unusual marriage. This clear-eyed, affectionate documentary finds the couple at a critical junction in their 40-year union.

Helen and the Bear

Through visual metaphors and circumstantial installations, Chella Man explores his cyborg identity and personal relationship to the freedom and constraints cochlear implants created.

The Device That Turned Me Into a Cyborg Was Born the Same Year I Was

This shorts program reveals stories of secrets and lies transitioning to the love and trust that unites us all. With appearances from Lux Pascal, Cole Doman, and Star Amerasu, this program contains queer highlights from Sundance, SXSW, and Tribeca.

Love Lies Scheming Shorts

Queer maximalist meets drag meets trans power in Shawna Virago's latest music video. Themes of split consciousness and proliferating doubles set against Virago's glitter twang snarl.

The Barman’s Daughter

Dust off your VHS camcorder and your punk audio cassettes, and come along for the ride with The New Normals, a young queer Canadian indie band from the early Aughts, as they escape their small town for the excitement and promise of Toronto. The lead singer, Evan, is a trans guy with a gift for songwriting and a desire to live life to the fullest, but can a love triangle and the band survive success?

We Forgot to Break Up

November 2, 2024. Announcing the return of Frameline's beloved BLOWOUT Party at CODE Salon, following the screening of the new digital restoration of Lisa Cholodenko's High Art!

High Art BLOWOUT Party

Travel back in time to a steamy gay bathhouse in the ‘80s and deep dive into transmasculine desire for cisgender gay men in this sexy doc-fiction hybrid by Jules Rosskam. Cutting frank interviews between fictional storylines, this Sundance NEXT Special Jury Award winner celebrates following your authentic desire.

Desire Lines

This streaming-only package of exceptional short films groups 6 films screening before features into a bingeable program to enjoy at home. This wild combination of titles includes several world and US premieres, crossing multiple genres and themes.

Wild Combination Streaming Shorts

OUTCRY: Alchemists of Rage follows activist-artist Whitney Bradshaw as she travels the post-Roe United States with OUTCRY, a participatory art project in which she leads women in group scream sessions, photographing them mid-scream to create a collective portrait of resistance, motivate political action, and build feminist solidarity through radical empathy.

OUTCRY: Alchemists of Rage

Harnessing the talent of local filmmakers, Homegrown Shorts is a unique showcase of the stories that make our city great. Featuring drag artists of all shapes and sizes, the rebirth of the elusive lesbian bar, and activism through art.

Homegrown Shorts

Queer Muslim grad student Azra returns to her native Pakistan after her father unexpectedly dies. Though distance and ideology have driven Azra and her mother apart, they forge a new connection at the busy intersection of East and West, past and present.

The Queen of My Dreams

Transpiring over a languid summer by the sea in Argentina, Marco Berger's new film is a breezy comedy about openly gay Pedro (Javier Orán) and nominally &quot;straight&quot; Maxi (Lautaro Bettoni), childhood friends reunited years later as young men. Things kick up a notch when Maxi tries to make his ex-girlfriend jealous by saying Pedro is his boyfriend.

The Astronaut Lovers

In a post-apocalyptic future, an intergalactic explorer lands at an abandoned museum on a quest to find traces of his long-lost ancestors, and ends up being teleported to the dance floor of a Brazilian queer nightclub in the 1990s.

Vollúpya

In the 1970s and 1980s, the small Pennsylvania town of New Hope was among a few safe havens outside of major cities for gay men to find community. Over 30 years later, the town’s legacy remained, but now for a different community: transgender women.

Trans Heaven, Pennsylvania

Three trans women meet in a country house to plan a robbery. The trick of the heist is that, in order to create a false trail, they disguise themselves as men.

The Robbers

Cole Doman and Brian J. Smith star in this atmospheric, darkly sexy thriller about a journalist’s quest for answers to the deaths of eight gay men at his hometown’s psychiatric hospital. Now abandoned and intentionally forgotten by the town's people, the looming structure haunts Joe in his quest for the truth.

Haze

The sudden death of Ruth's beloved hamster reveals a decaying marriage with her curmudgeon wife, Connie. Ruth can either accept the death of things or keep spinning the wheel.

Goodbye Tango

Sam brings Olivia back to their place during the heated extension of a first date gone *very* well. After a few stumbling blocks getting into the rhythm, the two find their way back after confronting something that could make or break a burgeoning queer romance… comfort in your own body.

Euphoric

The pages of Drag Race queen Lady Camden's fairytale story are filled with growth, discovery, and a true passion for performance. Journey along with Camden as she revisits the ballet stages of her youth in the UK, finds drag and chosen family in the Bay Area, and captures fame and confidence on reality TV and across the world.

Lady Like

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Directing Award in the U.S. Dramatic competition at Sundance, this delicately powerful ode to fractured fatherhood and sibling solidarity follows two sisters over the course of the most formative years of their lives, with their adoring but tempestuous father.

In the Summers

Bay Area multihyphenate Brontez Purnell made his directorial debut with this semi-autobiographical &quot;video mixtape,&quot; centering on DeShawn (played by Purnell), an HIV-positive homo whose boyfriend no longer wants to have sex, and his romantic/sexual misadventures around SF.

100 Boyfriends Mixtape

A late-night encounter and a summer romance merge when a small-town teenager named Smith sneaks out to meet a man in his twenties.

Like You

Devoted partners Pat and Angie have shared a life, a love, and their Hong Kong apartment for decades — until Pat’s family starts to intervene, in this moving portrait of an older queer couple navigating society’s lingering biases. Writer/director Ray Yeung’s new feature won the 2024 Teddy Award for Best Feature.

All Shall Be Well

A must-see on the big screen, this exquisitely cinematic debut feature from celebrated photographer Luke Gilford observes a young man’s blossoming among a community of queer rodeo performers in the American west. Taking an odd job outside of town, 21-year-old Dylan finds himself welcomed into the idyllic ranch family, while falling for champion barrel rider Sky.

National Anthem

Both emotionally potent and cinematically striking, After the Snowmelt is a dazzling and unconventional documentary where a filmmaker explores their first experience of great loss after her best friends Chun and Yueh go missing.

After the Snowmelt

Unemployed and down on her luck, Siobhan (the hilarious Meg Stalter) is presented with a life changing job opportunity. Unfortunately, she can't get her foot out of her mouth long enough to get her foot in the door.

ILY, BYE

Celebrate the film Young Hearts and Frameline48 at our First Friday Gala, held at Terra Gallery. Party-only tickets are available to purchase here.

Young Hearts – First Friday Gala

In celebration of the film’s 30th anniversary — it was one of the two opening night films at Frameline18 back in 1994 — we can’t think of a better way to honor Rose Troche’s seminal lesbian classic Go Fish starring Guinevere Turner than by playing it for the fourth time at the Festival in a brand-new 4K restoration (which was co-funded by Frameline).

Go Fish

Like the Spice Girls' song, this streaming-only program combines two of the Frameline48 in-person shorts packages into one.

Come to My Window + Love Lies Streaming Shorts

A sublime and smoldering tale of love in mid-air, moving pictures speak a thousand words in Veit Helmer’s whimsical charmer. Chauffeuring gondolas that travel between altitude-defying villages in Caucasus mountains of Georgia, two female conductors court one another without words while trying to avoid the disapprobation of their bilious boss.

Gondola

In San Francisco, a city known for its queer community and bustling gay nightlife, there hasn't been a lesbian bar for almost a decade. Driven by nostalgia for a time when queer women had spaces, self-identified dyke Malia Spanyol sets out to build one for the next generation of women and femmes.

Mother

From coming out for the first time to cruising in the woods, Fun in Shorts is a hilarious adventure into the highs and lows of being queer af! Look out for trans werewolves, Drag Race comedy queens, newly out seniors, and Meg Stalter in our annual comedy shorts package.

Fun in Shorts

When a disgruntled music journalist accuses a global pop star of queerbaiting, the singer’s devoted fans descend on his remote cabin to wreak havoc and seek retribution.

RAT!

A compelling portrait of Alok, acclaimed non-binary author, poet, comedian, and public speaker. Executive produced by Jodie Foster, Alok is directed by Alex Hedison (The L Word) and features appearances from fellow queer influencers Dylan Mulvaney and Chani Nicholas.

Alok

This year's Teddy Award for Best Documentary offers a playful, all-encompassing syllabus for the 20 years of diddling our skittles and fucking the pain away to The Teaches of Peaches. Featuring interviews from collaborators, admirers, and lovers alike — including Leslie Feist, Chilly Gonzalez, and Shirley Manson — this rousing portrait follows musical artist Peaches as she prepares for the anniversary tour of her breakthrough LP, The Teaches of Peaches.

Teaches of Peaches

The Callers combines anonymous testimony with imagined creative scenes to tell the story of those who have called the oldest queer support line in the UK. Since 1974, listening volunteers at LGBT Switchboard have been taking anonymous calls and messages from queers across Britain.

The Callers

Alley of the Tranny Boys is a groundbreaking film directed by SF activist/director Christopher Lee, which re-imagines sexual liberation for today’s outlaws, claiming an erotic space for transmasculine individuals.

Alley of the Tranny Boys

From homosexual penguins to sex-transitioning fish, contemporary scientists have been zealously studying animal behavior and anatomy and exposing the myth of the gender binary. Turns out the natural world is way more diverse and complex than Darwin led us to believe! Director Drew Denny takes the nature documentary to a whole new level in this eye-opening and entertaining expedition.

Second Nature

Recipient of this year’s Out in the Silence Award, this affecting portrait reconstructs the fascinating life and immense talent of transgender singer Jackie Shane. The film investigates why the soul singer disappeared from the spotlight just as she was at the precipice of fame and success.

Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story

Writer/director Janis Pugh’s Chuck Chuck Baby is a singular combination of a classic lesbian romance and an unconventional jukebox musical set in a Welsh chicken factory. Bolstered by the women she works with and the cathartic music she loves, Helen rekindles a romance that never was with Joanne.

Chuck Chuck Baby

A lesbian detective duo investigating a web of ooey-gooey murders within the queer cruising scene quickly learn their killer might not be entirely human (or from this planet).

Mamántula

A wealthy politician hires lesbian detective Mélinda after receiving a mysterious porno film starring her estranged son in Paul Vecchiali’s wildly entertaining bisexual triple-X film noir. The case soon leads Mélinda directly to the Shanghai Lily, a den of iniquity populated by lusty and duplicitous femmes fatales.

Don’t Change Hands

Two trans best friends (Alexandra Gray and Marval Rex) venture into the woods on a cabin getaway vacation only to end up a part of a horny supernatural world.

Spookable

Often called “the pioneer of lesbian gaze,” iconic San Francisco photographer Honey Lee Cottrell was a student at San Francisco State University when she made this lustful, elliptical exploration of female fantasy and self-love.

Sweet Dreams

A trans girl cop with the NYPD goes undercover to make a drug bust. Starring Lux Pascal and Cole Doman, Bust had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

Bust

Joanna gets a brain implant to help her have a &quot;perfect&quot; life. Yet who's definition of perfect is it?

Happy Wife

Saturn Risin9 returns home to the Bay Area to share their journey of perseverance centering self discovery, healing and creative expansion poetically told through dance, visual narrative, performance, and documentary.

Saturn Risin9

Haunted by the past, a brilliant tech-addicted developer faces an impossible dilemma: recreate her ex-girlfriend in virtual reality or hold onto the crumbling relationship with her current one.

Chimera

Clara is reeling from a breakup and goes on a staycation with her best friend Léa. The two friends unexpectedly sleep with each other, challenging the constraints of platonic friendship and the true depths of intimacy.

My Best Friend

Set amid a lively DIY scene, Throuple finds stalled gay musician Michael drawn into the web of newly-open married couple, Georgie and Connor. Though it’s never quite clear if the husbands are looking for some NSA fun or on the hunt for a third, this new relationship pushes Michael into uncharted waters, artistically and romantically.

Throuple

A group of artists from the LGTBQ+ collective return to their hometowns aboard a pride float. A road movie that travels through the Spanish geography making visible the cultural clash with the most intransigent past.

Volver

In this gleeful buddy/stoner comedy, aspiring actors/childhood best friends Ryan and Danny have one weekend to make an indie movie about two guys making a movie… about two guys making a movie. When one of Danny’s characters in the meta plot inadvertently reveals his real-life secret, the pair must set aside the cameras to confront the deeper storyline of their friendship.

Extremely Unique Dynamic

Struggling as a young aspiring writer in London, Max (the sensational Ruaridh Mollica) forges a new identity for himself in the form of a ravenous sex worker: Sebastian. Opening himself up to a previously unexplored world, Max suddenly finds himself unburdened by expectations and invigorated by possibility — until these two worlds threaten to collide into one another.

Sebastian

When Zooey Zephyr was expelled from the Montana House of Representatives for speaking on a bill banning transgender medical care, she made a nearby bench her “office.” Director Kimberly Reed’s cameras land next to Zooey, capturing shocking, funny, and joyous events.

Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr

October 30, 2024. For the third year in a row, Frameline Fangs returns to the University of California Monterrey with a bloody fun block of queer shorts just in time for Halloween.

Bloody Fun Shorts

A turbulent couple finds themselves at opposing entrances of the Juhu beach, compelling them to walk towards each other and meet in the middle.

Halfway

A meditation on the often-fraught relationship between sexuality and growing older, director Alexis Taillant’s documentary centers a trio of queer elders as they defy prejudice, rethink aging, and delight in new and familiar experiences.

If I Die, It’ll Be of Joy

From the director of The Way He Looks, this endearing and erotic romcom centers on gay filmmaker João. Fresh off of a 10-year-long relationship and ready to dive back into the single dating scene, João begins incorporating his romantic pursuits into his latest screenplay, swiftly blurring the lines between the two.

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