When Doves Cry (2022 shorts)

“When Doves Cry” (2022 shorts program)

Friday, June 24, 2022, 3:45pm Castro

+Streaming

• Monsieur le Butch 👍
• My Mother’s Girlfriend (Mazhya Aaichi Girlfriend/‌‌माझ्या आईची Girlfriend) 👍
• Neuzeit (Boom and Bloom) 👍
• Blunt 💝
• Rosa 💝
• 無地自容 (无地自容) (Wúdìzìróng) (Frozen Out) 🫤

Homegrown: Perfect Day (2022 shorts program)

Homegrown: Perfect Day (2022 shorts program)

Tuesday, June 21, 2022, 8:30pm New Parkway

+Streaming

• From X to Z 👍
• Rex Ray: A Portrait 😀
• Edvard Takes a Lover 😑
• Chaac and Yum 🙂
• I Just Wanna Dance 🙂
• Pete 👍
• Prittyboy 👍
• Inside the Beauty Bubble 💖
• Holding Moses (not reviewed)

Så jävla easy going (So Damn Easy Going)

Så jävla easy going (So Damn Easy Going), dir. Christoffer Sandler, 2022, Sweden/Norway, 91m., in Swedish with full English subtitles

Thursday, June 23, 2022, 6:00pm New Parkway

+Streaming

Joanna’s life is a non-stop tightrope walk. She has severe ADHD, feeling like lights are flashing in her head. Her pills have run out, but the pharmacy won’t give her a refill because she still owes for a previous order. Her mother is gone and her father has such crippling depres­sion that he sits and watches TV game shows all day and can’t even keep the light bill paid. The only way that Joanna can clear her mind is by swimming, the pool acting as her own private little world.

That’s all pretty heavy stuff, ripe with potential for drama, but surprisingly enough, this is a comedy. Astoundingly, it all kinds of works. Joanna is in a bad place when she meets the new girl at school, Audrey, but now we have the makings of a proper coming-of-age comedy. Through twists and turns, some dramatic and others comedic, Joanna comes to grip with herself so that she can connect with Audrey. We get to feel almost (but mercifully not quite) like we’re inside Joanna’s head as she pushes through, and we laugh with Joanna, not at her. Well done, highly recom­mended. 

• IMDb page • Official website • Trailer •

Uýra - A Retomada da Floresta (Uýra: The Rising Forest)

Uýra - A Retomada da Floresta (Uýra: The Rising Forest), dir. Juliana Curi, 2022, Brazil/USA, 63m., in Portuguese with full English subtitles 🙂

Wednesday, June 22, 2022, 8:30pm New Parkway World premiere

Winner: Amazon Audience Award, Best Documentary

Self-described non-binary LGBT performance artist Emerson, descendant of both colonial miners and the indigenous people they displaced, has created an alter-ego, Uýra Sodoma, an indigenous, queer, trans person living on the outskirts of Manaus, in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. Uýra travels throughout the Amazon, visiting indigenous villages to share ancestral knowledge of both nature and culture, in the midst of a horrible political situation under the Trumpian presi­dent Jair Bolsonaro, whose government is utterly dismissive of both indigenous cultures and ecological concerns, with policy guided by the economic bottom line.

Unfortunately, the documentary often lags, most notably in the last 15 minutes of the film, which are almost entirely closing credits, which is a lot for a film that’s under an hour. Uýra is a look into a corner of the forest that refuses to be forgotten, but I found it only intermittently engaging. Recommended.

• IMDb page • Official website • Trailer •

Black as U R

Black as U R, dir. Michael Rice, 2022, USA, 84m.

Sunday, June 19, 2022, 6:15pm Castro 💝

+Streaming

Winner: Out in the Silence Award

Black LGBTQ+ people still face racism in the LGBTQ+ com­munity, and they still face homo­pho­bia and trans­pho­bia in the Black com­munity, but there are many people who are, nevertheless, both Black and LGBTQ+. In this documentary, a gay Black filmmaker brings his personal perspective, historical information about figures like James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin, interviews with preachers and professors, and a deep dive with several Black trans youth.

I can’t speak for how this documentary is, will be, or should be received in the Black community, nor in the Black LGBTQ+ community, but as a white cis-male who grew up on the outskirts of a Southern city (technically within the city limits, but cul­tur­al­ly very much in the suburbs), it’s an important reminder of how much work remains to be done before we are all free and equal in this country. Definitely a must see.

• IMDb page • Official website • Trailer •

note: the streaming version is mostly not closed-captioned

Les meilleures (Besties)

Les meilleures (Besties), dir. Marion Desseigne Ravel, 2021, France, 80m., in French with full English subtitles 👍

Sunday, June 19, 2022, 6:00pm Kabuki

I’ll wager that I’m the only person in the audience who thought of a mobile phone company when one of the characters started yelling, “Nedjma!” (Nedjma was the first mobile phone network in Algeria, where the main character’s family came from, but I’m sure she wasn’t named for a cellphone, besides which Nedjma was rebranded as Ooredoo in 2013.)

Nedjma is a teenage Algerian-French girl, living in an apartment block in Paris with lots of other immigrant families. The girls have formed squads, which is to say gangs, defending their turf and their honor against the smallest perceived slight. A new girl, Zina, moves into the building, but of course her cousin is in the rival squad. What do you do when “the wrong side of the tracks” is just down the hall? Nedjma and Zina are drawn to one another, but their squads are determined to keep them apart. How will Nedjma and Zina balance the irreconcilable tensions between love and loyalty?

The acting performances are excellent, with a unique cultural flavor added to a story as old as time. The tension between the factions is palpable, sometimes uncomfor­tably so. Highly recommended.

• IMDb page • Trailer •

Fun in Shorts: Tutti Frutti (2022)

Fun in Shorts: Tutti Frutti (shorts program)

Saturday, June 18, 2022, 11:00am Castro

Sunday, June 26, 2022, 11:00am Castro

+Streaming

(note: the shorts are listed here in the order they were presented at the June 18 screening, which may vary from the order on June 26 or on the streaming platform)

• 桶妝仙女 (Tǒng zhuāng xiānnǚ • Tank Fairy) 💖
• The Syed Family Xmas Eve Game Night 😒
• Unicorn 😑
• Grindr Baby 🙂
• BRUTAL 😊
• Fernanda 🙂
• Tell Me Something I Don’t Know 👎
• F^¢k ’Em R!ght B@¢k 👏