“Truth Be Told” (2025 documentary shorts)
Tuesday, June 24, 3:30pm, Vogue Theatre
Update: This program will be available in the Digital Screening Room, June 23 through June 30, 2025, anywhere in the United States.
Frameline description: At a time when so much of our queer culture is under attack, this program celebrates the archives and the memories of our ancestors and paves a path toward our future.
- ⚠️Dr. XYZ: A Medical Drag Transthology π, dir. El Jaunts, 2024, UK, 14 min., πΊπΈ U.S. premiere
- Everywhere I Look π, dir. November Nolan, 2025, USA, 16 min.
- Lloyd Wong, Unfinished π₯±, dir. Lesley Loksi Chan, 2025, Canada, 29 min., πΊπΈ U.S. premiere
- The Roaming Center for Magnetic Alternatives π, dir. Brydie O’Connor, 2025, USA, 20 min., π World premiere
- Shelly’s Leg π, dir. Wes Hurley, 2025, USA, 16 min.
Dr. XYZ: A Medical Drag Transthology π, dir. El Jaunts, 2024, UK, 14 min., πΊπΈU.S. premiere
⚠️ content advisory: suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, strong language
 |
| Dr. XYZ |
Frameline blurb: Dr. XYZ is a community-made trans+ healthcare training film and ethnofiction. It is an exercise in queering the public information film genre, shot in 16mm. The film weaves ethnographic healthcare accounts from Birmingham’s trans+ community with moments of drag-satire re-enactment to depict a collective vision of the UK’s healthcare system.
A group of trans+ people in Birmingham, England, made a training film for staff in the National Health Service (NHS), covering some of the “dos and don’ts” of healthcare for people in the trans+ community (many of which should be obvious, but sadly often evade medical professionals). It’s well done, and much needed. There’s enough satire to keep the tone light, but it’s clear that the points raised are from hard-earned personal experiences. There are a few points that are specific to the UK NHS system, but mostly it’s applicable anywhere.
Highly recommended for all, definitely a must see for anyone dealing with healthcare for trans+ people, from either side.
• IMDb • trailer • official website • watch for free on BFI (UK only) • watch for free on Vimeo (worldwide) •Everywhere I Look π, dir. November Nolan, 2025, USA, 16 min.
 |
| Everywhere I Look |
Frameline blurb: A young trans woman travels back to places she visited as a child with her mother, reflecting on memory, loss, and grief.
A profoundly personal journey of remembrance, revisiting the places of childhood memories and mourning the loss of the connection to family who couldn’t deal with her being trans. It was interesting, but not really compelling. Recommended.
• IMDb • trailer (YouTube) (vimeo) • official website • Instagram: @NovemberNolan •
Lloyd Wong, Unfinished π₯±, dir. Lesley Loksi Chan, 2025, Canada, 29 min., πΊπΈU.S. premiere
 |
| Lloyd Wong, Unfinished |
Frameline blurb: In the early 1990s, Lloyd Wong began to make a work based on his experiences living with AIDS in Toronto, but he died from AIDS-related illnesses before completing it. For three decades, his work-in-progress was considered "long-lost" until it resurfaced at The ArQuives. In this experimental documentary, Lesley Loksi Chan combines Lloyd Wong's footage with fragments of her research notes to reflect on what it means to inherit images from queer communities and to attempt to understand someone through multiple takes. Rough and unprocessed, this film explores the meaning of incompletion. Winner of the Teddy Award and the Golden Bear for Best Short Film at the 2025 Berlinale.
Disjointed clips with insufficient background to contextualize them into anything remotely coherent. Far too much information was conveyed with medium blue text against a lime green background, a horrible combination for reading. When we finally got past the “how to hook up an IV’ video at the beginning, we did at least hear some of Lloyd’s own words about living with AIDS as a second-generation Chinese person in Toronto, but not enough to make the trip feel worthwhile. Not recommended.
• IMDb • trailer • official website • Wikipedia •
The Roaming Center for Magnetic Alternatives π, dir. Brydie O’Connor, 2025, USA, 20 min., π World premiere
 |
| The Roaming Center |
Frameline blurb: The Roaming Center for Magnetic Alternatives follows a mobile archiving center in a cargo trailer as it crosses the Midwest to digitize the VHS tapes of LGBTQ+ folks living in Middle America. In real-time digitizing sessions, people watch their own histories as they are being preserved, and reveal a look into queer life in the Bible Belt since the 1980s. This film takes a road trip through the past into the present, and gives us a glimpse of what an ever-expanding queer archive looks like in the future.
It’s an inescapable fact: magnetic tape doesn’t last forever. Audio and video will degrade and ultimately crumble to dust in a matter of decades, even with the greatest care. A couple of people put some video and computer equipment into a trailer and took off on a road trip to find and preserve these mementos of late 20th-century Middle America while they’re still intact. There wasn’t any single clip that leapt out as pivotal for the world, but that’s not the point. There were many clips that were pivotal in the lives of individuals, and the ripples of those moments reverberated through their communities. Home video recording opened the way for ordinary LGBTQ+ people to document our own lives. This film is a worthy tribute to a worthwhile project, especially because, years from now, someone may find a clip that resonates or illustrates some connection we might not yet see. Must see.
• IMDb • trailer • filmmaker website • Instagram: @BrydieOConnor •
Shelly’s Leg π, dir. Wes Hurley, 2025, USA, 16 min.
 |
| Shelly’s Leg |
Frameline blurb: In 1970, an eccentric young stripper named Shelly Baumann loses her leg in a freak parade canon accident, then uses her settlement money to open 'Shelly's Leg' disco — one of the nation's first and most consequential openly gay spaces. Narrated by Kathleen Turner, Shelly's Leg is the latest work from Wes Hurley (Potato Dreams of America, Frameline45).
A fascinating bit of the history of gay liberation, presented unvarnished, warts and all. Shelly Baumann is shown as a complex character with many facets. For a brief moment — less than a decade — the club Shelly’s Leg lit the nights of Seattle, until it more literally π₯π lit the sky. Although the club reopened after the fire, it was never the same. Must see.
• IMDb • trailer • official website • Facebook group •
No comments:
Post a Comment