Heightened Scrutiny

Heightened Scrutiny 💖, dir. Sam Feder, 2025, USA, 85 min.
Thursday, June 20, 2025, 7:00pm ACT Toni Rembe Theater
also available in the Digital Screening Room (within California only)

Update: on June 18, the Supreme Court 🤬 upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors in the Skrmetti case.

Heightened Scrutiny

In December 2024, Chase Strangio became the first openly trans attorney to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, fighting to overturn Tennessee’s outright ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth. The case, United States v. Skrmetti, is still awaiting a ruling, expected some time this month, before the Court’s summer recess.

In Heightened Scrutiny, we see Chase develop his legal strategy, beginning by arguing against Idaho’s ban on gender-affirming care at the Ninth Circuit (Poe v. Labrador), and we also get interviews with familiar faces including Jelani Cobb and Laverne Cox. Elliott Page makes a cameo appearance, although he doesn’t speak on camera. We see clips of various media, including the pipeline of Fox News to judicial rulings. In the Idaho case, one of the original sponsors of the bill went on a podcast, openly declaring his goal of ending all gender-affirming care for everyone, including adults.

Trans people, and especially trans youth, have become the perverse obsession of the right wing and MAGA, with unprecedented assaults on their safety and on their very existence. Chase Strangio is fighting to preserve some sanity in our legal system, but he does it with a sense of humor, and finds joy even in the darkest moments. The other people interviewed for this documentary provide important context and perspective, giving us a well-rounded view of the case and the stakes involved.

Heightened Scrutiny is definitely a must see, although you may well have the benefit of knowing the outcome of Skrmetti.

• IMDb • trailer • official website • Bluesky: @HeightenedScrutiny.BSky.Social • Instagram: @HeightenedScrutiny •

Waves of Love (QWOCFF Centerpiece)

“Waves of Love” shorts program (QWOCFF 2024 Saturday Centerpiece Screening)

Saturday, June 15, 2024, 7:00 PM, Presidio; total run time: 90 minutes

all films are fully open captioned in English, with audio description available

⚠️Content Warning: several of the films have content warnings; see below

• Rachel and Raha by Nedda Sarshar, 2023 Canada, 16 min., in Spanish, Farsi and English 👏
• La Lectura by Nova Duarte Martinez, 2023 USA, 10 min., in English and Spanish 👏
• w(HO) by Candace Ho, 2021 USA, 5 min. 👏
• Would You Be Down to Study Sometime? by Sofia Fabio Mendieta, 2024 USA, 4 min., no dialogue 💖
• Nice to See You by Caitlin Barlow, 2024 USA, 4 min. 🫤
• Criss Cross by Zahira C., 2024 USA, 6 min. 💖
• Falling in Love with the Feeling of Drowning by Freddie Segura Glavey, 2024 USA, 6 min. 🫤
• Lucid by Tierra Frost, 2023 USA, 5 min. 👏
• Love’s Lyric by Maria Celia Garcia, 2024 USA, 5 min. 💖
• Handle with Care by Kelsey Dang, 2024 USA, 4 min., no dialogue 🙂
• F**ked by Sara Harrak, 2023 United Kingdom, 6 min. 💖
• Kiss + Tell by Jazleen “JLEAN” Senshi, 2023 USA, 2 min. 👏
• Can I Have Her Number? by Keely Liles, 2023 USA, 4 min. 💖
• Prendas Delicadas (Delicate Clothes) by Ana Lucia Ramirez Mateus, 2023 Argentina/Chile/Colombia, 14 min., in Spanish 💖

Queer Black Currents (QWOCFF Centerpiece)

“Queer Black Currents” shorts program, QWOCFF 2024 Saturday Centerpiece

Saturday, June 15, 2024, 1:00 PM, Presidio, total run time 92 minutes

all films are fully open captioned in English with audio description available

⚠️Content Warning: several films have content warnings; see below

• Emergency Contact by Yvonne Onakeme Etaghene, 2024 USA, 10 min., in Ijaw, Urhobo, Nigerian Pidgin English, English, and French 💖
• Line of Reverence by Ashante J. Ford, 2024 USA, 5 min. 🫤
• Omwan’ekhui: Person of Dark Skin by Asari Aibangbee, 2022 USA, 13 min. 👏
• You Don’t Have to Like Me by Safiyah Chiniere, 2023 USA, 10 min., in English and Jamaican 💖
• Heavy is the Head by Juniper Johnson, 2023 USA, 6 min. 💖
• A Poem Called Love Jones by Linda Denson & Diana Khong, 2023 USA, 6 min. 💖
• Black Rainbow Love by Angela Harvey, 2022 USA, 42 min. 💖

Theater Camp

Theater Camp, dir. Molly Gordon & Nick Lieberman, 2023, USA, 94 min. 💖

Wednesday, June 21, 6:00 pm, Castro • not streaming • coming to theaters

Theater Camp

Amy Sedaris has a brief but pivotal role as the founder of Adirond Acts, a summer theater camp in upstate New York. When she is suddenly unable to run the camp, her clueless son steps in, having no idea what he’s getting into, either in terms of the business side or the theater side of the camp — but the show must go on. I lost count of how many musical theater, coming-of-age, and general summer camp tropes got skewered, but I also lost count of how many times I laughed out loud. Indeed, it was the rare film that had me laughing so hard it literally brought tears to my eyes. Definitely, definitely a MUST SEE, even if (like me) you never even acted in a class play and contribute to the world of music mostly by not singing in public.

 

Note: the printed festival guide shows Theater Camp as available in the streaming encore, but the Frameline website says it is not. However, it will be coming to theaters July 14, 2023.

• IMDb page • Official website • trailer •

Who I Am Not

Who I Am Not, dir. Tünde Skovrán, 2023, Romania/‌Canada/‌South Africa/‌Germany/‌USA, 105 min., in English, Sepedi, Xhosa, Setswana, and isiZulu, with subtitles 💖
Wednesday, June 21, 3:00 pm, Castro + streaming encore
Winner: best documentary feature (Frameline47 audience award)

Who I Am Not

This documentary gets up close and personal with two intersex people in South Africa as they wrestle with who they are (and who they are not), their place in the world, the medical interventions that were made when they were newborns, and the way forward for them, coming to terms with their own situation and hoping to improve life for intersex people being born today. It’s a powerful moment of visibility for a part of the community that often gets left out even from the acronym LGBTQ. Definitely a MUST SEE.

• IMDb page • Variety article • trailer • Facebook: @WhoIAmNotDocumetary [note spelling] • Instagram: @WhoIAmNotDocumentary •

Sisi und Ich (Sisi & I)

Sisi und Ich (Sisi & I), dir. Frauke Finsterwalder, 2023, Germany/‌Austria/‌Switzerland, 132 min., in German and French with English subtitles and in English without subtitles 👎

Tuesday, June 20, 6:00 pm, Castro • not streaming

Sisi & Ich

Based on the true story of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Susanne Wolff, pictured left), known as Sisi, the wife of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph I, who was a bit of an eccentric. Indeed, she was so far beyond eccentric that my thesaurus doesn’t have any adequate word for it. Outré is perhaps the closest, and, due to her position, hardly anyone could constrain her impulses. Franz built her a villa on the island of Corfu to keep her mostly out of the eye of the courtiers in Vienna and Budapest. She had a series of female playthings, including Countess Irma (Sandra Hüller, pictured back­ground), whose mother has given up on her ever getting married.

If you love lesbian period dramas, then this is certainly a well-crafted example. However, Sisi is such a trainwreck that I repeatedly found myself drawn out of the film. I didn’t find her weirdness appealing or interesting or the tiniest bit relatable. It’s not a horrible film, but neither is it one I would recommend to any but the most ardent devotees of the genre.

• IMDb page • Official website [de/en] • trailer •

Cora Bora

Cora Bora, dir. Hannah Pearl Utt, 2023, USA, 92 min. 💩

Saturday, June 17, 6:00 pm, New Parkway (Oakland)

Sunday, June 18, 6:30 pm, Castro • not streaming

Cora Bora and Taco

Cora Bora is apparently a musician, although her perfor­mance at an open mic displays little sign of talent. From there, we see that — for abundantly clear good reasons — no one likes her. A couple of characters take pity on her, but she is lost in her own little universe of delusion, deciding on a whim to return from Los Angeles to her home town of Portland in the hopes of resolidifying her “open relationship” with the girlfriend she left behind in Portland.

The problem is, Cora is just annoying, not funny. There is a little bit of partial redemption at the very end, but it was definitely not worth the wait. I can’t fault Megan Stalter (Cora), who seems to have played the character as written and directed, but it was a story not worth telling. Enthusiastically NOT RECOMMENDED. I would rather watch paint dry than sit through this film a second time.

• IMDb page • Official website • promo clip • Instagram: @CoraBoraCora •