48th Frameline LGBTQ+ Film Festival Awards: Luke Gilford’s ‘National Anthem’ Wins Best First Feature

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Frameline, the arts nonprofit behind the world’s largest and longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival, presented four juried awards, including the Outstanding First Feature Award, which went to Luke Gilford’s National Anthem, and Outstanding Documentary Feature, which went to Chloé Barreau’s Fragments of a Life Loved.

The 48th edition of the festival concluded on Saturday, June 29 with a screening of director Brian J. Smith’s A House Is Not a Disco. The documentary feature about Fire Island Pines, the East Coast’s ​​gay fantasyland, was preceded by the Festival’s annual Award Ceremony, which also included audience awards for Ray Yeung’s All Shall Be Well (從今以後) and The World According to Allee Willis, directed by Alexis Spraic. Both came with a $1,500 prize among the over $40K handed out.

This year, the 11-day Festival ran from June 19–29, 2024, with events held in theaters across the Bay Area, including the historic Herbst Theatre and Palace of Fine Arts Theatre; iconic neighborhood haunts like the Vogue Theatre and Oakland’s New Parkway Theater; and the beloved Roxie Theater, Frameline’s longest-running partner venue. With a slate of 120 in-person screenings and programs, Frameline48 hosted international LGBTQ+ filmmakers and Bay Area artists alike, all while welcoming film teams and attendees from around the globe. This year, 40 Frameline48 screenings were at-rush, reiterating the positive impact Bay Area film festivals have on neighborhood theaters and the culture of in-person movie-going.

The Festival’s 48th iteration kicked off with the Castro’s first-ever celebration of Juneteenth — a block party that featured the official re-lighting of the Castro Theatre’s iconic neon blade sign and marquee, performances from the all-Black drag collective, Reparations, including Drag Queen of the Year Pageant winner Nicki Jizz, and a special outdoor screening of Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero. Nearly 2,000 people turned out for Frameline48’s community-focused celebration of Blackness and queerness.

Other Frameline48 highlights included a special 30th anniversary screening of the 4K restoration of Go Fish, attended by Rose Troche and Guinevere Turner; the “Queer Premiere” of Anthony Schatteman’s Young Hearts; the US premiere of Juan Pablo Di Pace and Andrés P. Estrada’s Duino; the world premieres of Deborah Craig’s Sally! (co-directed by Jörg Fockele and Ondine Rarey) and Osama Chami’s Una película barata; and sold-out screenings of Harrison Xu, Ivan Leung, and Katherine Dudas’s Extremely Unique Dynamic, Marco Berger’s The Astronaut Lovers (Los amantes astronautas), and Luke Willis’ Lady Like, which saw the director and Lady Camden, the film’s subject and San Francisco icon, in attendance.

“Every year, Frameline is marking new ‘firsts,’ and 2024 was no exception. Frameline48 began with an unprecedented community celebration of Blackness and queerness, which set the stage for the entire festival to be a celebration of all of our intersecting queer identities,” said Allegra Madsen, Frameline’s Executive Director. “As both the leader of this dynamic, community-centered film organization and a long-time programmer, I couldn’t be prouder of Frameline48’s success. But the success isn’t just Frameline’s — the success belongs to the filmmakers, storytellers, and audiences who came together to celebrate the power queer cinema has to change the world and shape the cultural narrative.”

On Saturday, June 29, ahead of Frameline48’s final screening, Executive Director Allegra Madsen and Publications & Programming Manager Joe Bowman announced the winners of the Festival’s four juried awards, which include the Outstanding First Feature Award, Outstanding Documentary Feature, Outstanding Narrative Short Award, and Outstanding Documentary Short Award.

For over 20 years, Frameline has presented the annual juried Outstanding First Feature Award to a notable narrative feature from an emerging voice in LGBTQ+ cinema. Since 2020, Frameline has been proud to partner with the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle to jury the award.

Here is the complete list of awards recipients.

OUTSTANDING FIRST FEATURE ($2,500)

National Anthem, directed by Luke Gilford

“Jurors serving on this year’s Best Feature Award panel admit to having a tough time narrowing it down to one selection this year. But they did it, lassoing one that impressed the panel from the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle the most: Luke Gilford’s National Anthem. The group praises it for being an atmospheric, romantic, and beautifully crafted celebration of LGBTQ+ experiences and gender diversity. The panel was particularly impressed with Gilford’s humane storytelling, graceful steerage, engagingly down-to-earth tone, and life-embracing characters. The group also came up with two honorable mentions: for the beautiful and tender Young Hearts and the poignant and moving In the Summers.”

HONORABLE MENTIONS FOR FIRST FEATURE

In the Summers, directed by Alessandra Lacorazza 

Young Hearts, directed by Anthony Schatteman

OUTSTANDING DOCUMENTARY FEATURE ($2,500)

Fragments of a Life Loved (Frammenti di un percorso amoroso), directed by Chloé Barreau

OUTSTANDING NARRATIVE SHORT AWARD ($750)

Paradise Europe (Du Bist so Wunderbar), directed by Leandro Goddinho & Paulo Menezes

HONORABLE MENTIONS FOR OUTSTANDING NARRATIVE SHORT

If I’m Here It Is by Mystery (Se Eu Tô Aqui é Por Mistério), directed by Clari Ribeiro 

Ripe!, directed by Tusk 

OUTSTANDING DOCUMENTARY SHORT AWARD ($750) 

Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr, directed by Kimberly Reed

HONORABLE MENTIONS FOR OUTSTANDING DOCUMENTARY SHORT

Wouldn’t Make It Any Other Way, directed by Hao Zhou 

You can’t get what you want but you can get me, directed by Samira Elagoz & Z Walsh 

FRAMELINE48 COMCAST AUDIENCE AWARDS
Finally, Frameline48 audience members voted on the winners of the Comcast Audience Awards. The 2024 winners are as follows:

COMCAST AUDIENCE AWARD FOR NARRATIVE FEATURE ($1,500)

All Shall Be Well (從今以後), directed by Ray Yeung

COMCAST AUDIENCE AWARD FOR DOCUMENTARY FEATURE ($1,500) 

The World According to Allee Willis, directed by Alexis Spraic

FRAMELINE48 FILMMAKER GRANTS + AWARDS 2024 COLIN HIGGINS YOUTH FOUNDATION GRANT RECIPIENTS

As previously announced, the recipients of the 2024 Colin Higgins Youth Foundation Grant are filmmakers Farah Jabir (Kasbi) and Leaf Lieber (Burrow). Both Jabir and Lieber will each receive $15,000 to support their future film projects. The grants, which uplift LGBTQ+ youth filmmakers, are generously underwritten by the Colin Higgins Foundation — an organization that is named after the acclaimed screenwriter and director Colin Higgins (Harold and Maude, 9 to 5).

2024 OUT IN THE SILENCE AWARD

Frameline’s Out in the Silence Award is an annual honor conferred on an outstanding film project that highlights brave acts of visibility, especially in places where such acts are rare and unexpected because of the dominant systems that make it difficult for LGBTQ+ people to live authentic lives. Generously underwritten by longtime film community members Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson, the 2024 Out in Silence Award was awarded to the feature-length documentary film Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story by directors Michael Mabbott and Lucah Rosenberg-Lee. The award was presented to the recipients following a screening of the film at the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre on Sunday, June 23.