50th San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival (Frameline50) Lineup: John Early’s ‘Maddie’s Plan,’ Gregg Araki’s ‘I Want Your Sex’ and More

Today, queer media nonprofit Frameline announced the full lineup for the landmark 50th San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival (Frameline50) — the largest, longest-running, and most widely recognized queer film exhibition in the world. Taking place June 17–27, Frameline50’s 11 days of programming feature over 140 films from 35 countries.

Main narrative feature highlights include Gregg Araki’s irreverent sex comedy I Want Your Sex, starring Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman; Hayley Kiyoko’s directorial debut, Girls Like Girls; Adrian Chiarella’s debut feature and queer horror standout Leviticus; director/writer/star John Early’s Maddie’s Secret; the West Coast Premiere of Xiaodan He’s slow-burn sapphic romance Montreal, My Beautiful, starring San Francisco’s own Joan Chen; the World Premiere of Alice Maio Mackay’s Our Effed Up World, featuring Jack Haven, Brandon Flynn, Annapurna Sriram, and produced by Jane Schoenbrun; Castration Movie Chapter Iii. Junior Ghosts — Premorphic Drift, the follow-up to Louise Weard’s Frameline49 Audience Award-winning film, and the World Premiere of Gary Jaffe’s Before I Do, starring Cole Doman.

“It is an unbelievable privilege to lead this organization during our landmark 50th festival. The lead up to this anniversary has happened alongside this looming, all-pervading sense that a revolution — both political and moral — is mounting. Now, the 50th is here. And so is the revolution. Our rights are being taken away now. Attacks on our bodies and identities are happening now. And it is precisely this moment that 50 years of queer cinema matters most,” said Allegra Madsen, Frameline’s Executive Director. “The legacy we are celebrating now is our living inheritance and the filmmakers we are showcasing this year are expanding it, dreaming of queer futures we haven’t thought to imagine, and documenting the revolution as it happens. Frameline50 is where the two generations meet: The community that built this festival built it for this moment. This is our moment to use it.”

Previously announced, Frameline50 — the first LGBTQ+ film festival in the world to reach this five-decade milestone — will open on June 17 at The Castro Theatre with D’Arcy Drollinger’s Lady Champagne. Other “Big Nights” include Byrdie O’Connor’s Barbara Forever, the Festival’s Centerpiece film, and Jennifer M. Kroot’s Hunky Jesus, the Pride Kickoff Film. All three films reiterate San Francisco’s enduring legacy of fostering queer cinema and art. The Frameline50 Closing Night Film, which will make its West Coast Premiere at The Castro Theatre on June 27, will be revealed on May 14, in conjunction with the announcement of the Frameline Queer Lens Award for Filmmaking.

Building on the Festival’s annual Juneteenth programming, Frameline will present Emmy-winning actor Colman Domingo with the The Variety Creative Conscience Award on Friday, June 19, followed by a conversation with Domingo and Variety’s Jazz Tangcay. On Saturday, June 20, the Festival will screen Alexandria Stapleton’s The Brittney Griner Story, a Sundance standout that chronicles WNBA star and Olympian Brittney Griner’s harrowing time as an international political prisoner and the pay inequities in professional women’s sports that led to it.

Frameline’s annual Out in the Silence Award, which is generously underwritten by Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson, honors an outstanding film that highlights brave acts of LGBTQ+ visibility. This year’s recipient is Kai Stänicke’s Trial of Hein — a narrative that sees Hein (Paul Boche) returning to his home on a North Sea Island after 14 years away only to realize the tight-knit community doesn’t recognize him.

Documentary highlights include David Shadrack Smith’s Public Access; Give Me the Ball!, Liz Garbus and Elizabeth Wolff’s riveting look at queer sports icon Billie Jean King; Jeffrey Schwarz’s Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders; Michelle Mama’s Antidiva: The Carole Pope Confessions; Amy Jenkins’ Adam’s Apple; Sasha Waters’ Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World; Oscar-winning filmmaker Dustin Lance Black’s Rock Out; and the World Premiere of The Hockey Player by Jacqueline Doorey, which centers on openly gay professional athlete Luke Prokop.

Alongside all of the new entries into the queer cinema canon, several retro films that had historic moments at past Frameline iterations will also screen at the Festival’s 50th outing, including Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski’s Bound, starring Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly; Julie Davis’ All Over the Guy, starring Dan Bucatinsky (The Comeback); Donna Deitch’s iconic lesbian romance Desert Hearts; William Friedkin’s Cruising, starring Al Pacino; Kortney Ryan Ziegler’s Still Black: A Portrait of Black Transmen; Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning, now celebrating its 35th anniversary; Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio, featuring Tilda Swinton; and Lino Brocka’s newly restored Macho Dancer.

“In our Centerpiece film, pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer says her work doesn’t follow a traditional arc, that ‘it’s going to mix up life, opening the space for queerness to be there.’ For five decades Frameline has given audiences opportunities to see those spaces — our stories and selves,” said Kate Bove, Frameline’s Associate Director of Programs. “At a time when art is being censored, controlled, and consolidated, we’re proud to uplift LGBTQ+ films from all over the world that showcase a queering of convention, form, and narrative in bold and authentic ways.”

In addition to celebrating San Francisco on screen, Frameline will be opening a Festival Hub on May 14 at the iconic Hamburger Mary’s in the city’s Castro district, underscoring the Festival’s return to the historic gay neighborhood. “For many queer people worldwide, the Castro holds a special significance — a first visit to the neighborhood is a right of passage in some ways — so it’s incredibly meaningful for Frameline to be rooted here for our fiftieth,” Madsen added. The Frameline50 Box Office will be open at Hamburger Mary’s from May 14–June 14, Thursday through Sunday ONLY; the Festival Hub will be open at the same location from June 18–26 during select hours.

Tickets for all programs go on sale at frameline.org on May 13. Frameline50 will run June 17–27 in venues in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland, including The Castro Theatre, the Roxie Theater, the Vogue Theatre, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), and The New Parkway Theater.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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