A Mother Apart

A Mother Apart 💖💔❤️‍🩹💝, dir. Laurie Townshend, 2024, Canada, 89 min.
Thursday, June 26, 2025, 3:30 pm, Roxie Theater
and available in the Digital Screening Room, June 23 to 30, 2025

A Mother Apart

Row of Life

Row of Life 💖, documentary, dir. Soraya Simi, 2025, USA, 82 min.
Tuesday, June 24, 2025, 3:30 pm, Roxie Theater
also available in the Digital Screening Room, June 23 to 30, 2025

Row of Life

gen_

gen_ [note the underscore at the end] 💖, documentary, dir. Gianluca Matarrese, 2025, France/‌Italy/‌Switzerland, 104 min., in Italian and English with English subtitles (note: you must manually turn on the subtitles)
Monday, June 23, 2025, 3:30 pm, Roxie Theater
also available in the Digital Screening Room, June 23 to 30, 2025

gen_: Dr. Maurizio Bini

Trans Memoria

Trans Memoria 💖, dir. Victoria Verseau, 2024, Sweden/France, 72 min., in Swedish, French, and English, with full English subtitles throughout
Wednesday, June 25, 2025, 4:30 pm, Roxie Theater
available in the Digital Screening Room, June 23 to 30, 2025

Trans Memoria

Assembly

Assembly 💖, dir. Rashaad Newsome & Johnny Symons, 2025, USA, 98 min.
Friday, June 27, 2025, 5:45 pm, Herbst Theatre
available in the Digital Screening Room, June 23 to 30, 2025

Assembly

WICKET

WICKET 💖, dir. Lily Plotkin, 2025, USA, 75 min.
Friday, June 27, 2025, 5:45 pm, Roxie Theater
🌐 World premiere

WICKET

A Deeper Love: The Story of Miss Peppermint

A Deeper Love: The Story of Miss Peppermint 💖, dir. Oriel Pe’er, 2025, USA, 86 min.
Thursday, June 26, 2026, 8:30 pm, Herbst Theatre
🌐 World premiere

Deeper Love: The Story
of Miss Peppermint

It’s Dorothy!

It’s Dorothy! 💖, dir. Jeffrey McHale, 2025, USA, 100 min.
Thursday, June 26, 2025, 6:00 pm, Roxie Theater

It’s Dorothy!

Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau 💖, documentary, dir. Lisa Immordino Vreeland, 2024, USA, 94 min., in English and French
Thursday, June 26, 1:00 pm, Vogue Theatre

Jean Cocteau
© Boris Lipnitzki

Coming Attractions: An Orgy of Gay Erotic Movie Trailers

Coming Attractions: An Orgy of Gay Erotic Movie Trailers 🥱, dir. Elizabeth Purchell, 2025, USA, 76 min.
Tuesday, June 24, 2025, 10:00 pm, Roxie Theater
🌐 World premiere
(preceded by the short 🙂 GANGBANG; see below)
🔞⚠️ content advisory: the main feature contains abundant explicit sex

Coming Attractions: An Orgy
of Gay Erotic Movie Trailers

In the Best Interests of the Children

In the Best Interests of the Children 💖, dir. Frances Reid, Elizabeth Stevens, & Cathy Zheutlin, 1977, USA, 53 min. (newly restored)
Wednesday, June 25, 2025, 4:00 pm, Vogue Theatre
(screens with Lesbian Custody in the in-person screening only)
also available in the Digital Screening Room

In the Best Interests of the Children

Lesbian Custody

Lesbian Custody 💖, dir. Samuael Topiary & Molly Skonieczny, 2025, USA, 18 min.
Wednesday, June 25, 2025, 4:00 pm Vogue Theatre
(screens in person before 💖 In the Best Interests of the Children)
also part of “Queer Quartet Streaming Shorts” in the Digital Screening Room

Lesbian Custody

I’m Your Venus

I’m Your Venus 💖, dir. Kimberly Reed, 2024, USA, 85 min.
Sunday, June 22, 2025, 6:00 pm, Roxie Theater
🏆 winner: 2025 Frameline Best Documentary Feature jury award

I’m Your Venus
Venus Xtravaganza’s two families meet

Queer Quartet (streaming shorts)

“Queer Quartet” (streaming-only shorts program)
available in the Digital Streaming Room, June 23 to June 30, 2025
(each short also screens in person in the festival, but not together as a group)

Another compilation program of shorts for streaming only:

• Unholy 🙂, dir. Daisy Friedman, 2025, USA, 13 min., theater screening in the “Outside Voices: New Leaders in Queer Cinema Supported by Colin Higgins Foundation” shorts program, Film Queen Review
  
  
• Lesbian Custody 💖, dir. Samuael Topiary & Molly Skonieczny, 2025, USA, 18 min., theater screening with 💖 In the Best Interests of the Children
  
  
• You Don’t Have to Like Me 💖, dir. Safiyah Chiniere, 2023, USA, 10 min., theater screening in the “It’s a Family Affair” shorts program, Film Queen Review;
  (also screened at QWOCFF 2024)
  
  
• Māhū: A Trans-Pacific Love Letter 💖, dir. Lisette Marie Flanary, 2025, USA, 30 min., screened separately with a live performance, Film Queen Review

Mahu: A Trans-Pacific Love Letter

Between Goodbyes

Between Goodbyes 💖, dir. Jota Mun, 2024, USA/South Korea, 96 min., in English, and in Korean and Dutch with English subtitles
Thursday, June 19, 2025, 3:30 pm, Roxie Theater

Between Goodbyes

River of Grass

River of Grass 💖, dir. Sasha Wortzel, 2025, USA, 83 min.
Sunday, June 22, 2025, 3:30 pm, New Parkway, Oakland

River of Grass

Tessitura

Tessitura 👏, dir. Lydia Cornett & Brit Fryer, 2025, USA, 18 min.
Sunday, June 22, 2025, 1:00 pm, Vogue Theatre
(screens before the feature film Really Happy Someday)
🏆 winner: 2025 Frameline Best Documentary Short jury award

Tessitura

QWOCFF 2025 Closing Night: We’re Here, We’re Queer

“We’re Here, We’re Queer” (shorts program)
Closing Night Screening
Sunday, June 15, 2025, 7:00 pm, Presidio Theater, 99 Moraga Ave., SF
⚠️ content advisories: (see individual listings below)

(This program is a mix of short documentaries, narrative shorts, and other works.)

• I AM GLITCHING 👏, narrative, dir. Salma Parra, 2024, Germany, 7 min., no dialogue
• The Talk 👏, documentary, dir. Ella Saini, 2022, Canada, 4 min.
• Why I Give Up Perfectionism 👏, dir. Mecedes Lindsay, 2025, USA, 2 min.
• ⚠️ OMANG 💖, documentary, dir. Durvie Morake, 2023, Botswana, 30 min.
• ⚠️ HAIR: Empowering Expression 👏, documentary, dir. Bianca Langlois & Zaniyyah Johnson, 2025, USA, 6 min.
• Mother of the Closet 💖, narrative, dir. Chidera Orazulike & Yliana Roland, 2024, USA, 11 min.
• To Speedy with Love 👏, dir. Kenny Cuello, 2025, USA, 5 min.
• My Favorite Plankton 🙂, dir. Jasmine Liang, 2025, USA, 4 min.
• ⚠️ Bathroom Attendant 👏, narrative, dir. Gabriella Mykal, 2024, USA, 5 min.
• LOLO 💖, narrative, dir. Ana Gabriela Gutiérrez Salgado, 2024, Mexico, 15 min., in Spanish with English subtitles

QWOCFF 2025 Centerpiece: Unapologetic Legacies

“Unapologetic Legacies” (shorts program)
Centerpiece Screening
Sunday, June 15, 2025, 12:00 noon, Presidio Theater, 99 Moraga Ave., SF
⚠️ content advisories: (see individual listings below)

• ⚠️ Mi Ofrenda 👏, narrative, dir. Melba Martinez, 2024, USA, 5 min., in English, Spanish, and Spanglish with full English and Spanish subtitles
• The Boy Who Cheated Death 🙂, narrative, dir. Pipou Phuong Nguyen, 2025, France, 5 min., no dialogue
• Trance 🫤, dir. Bahr Tama, 2025, USA, 6 min., no dialogue
• ⚠️ Eternal 👏, narrative, dir. Lusi Wang & Lazuli Trujano, 2025, USA, 6 min.
• ⚠️ GHOST TOWN 🫤, dir. Sophia Leál, 2025, USA, 5 min.
• ⚠️ I’m Dead, Right? 💖, narrative, dir. J. Mehr Kaur, 2024, USA, 15 min.
• ⚠️ Sister Salad Days 💖, narrative, dir. Adesola Thomas, 2023, USA, 18 min.
• ⚠️ FORever feroshUS 💖, narrative, dir. Naya Ryan Rashad, 2024, USA, 13 min.
• Don’t Cry for Me, All You Drag Queens 💖, documentary, dir. Kristal Sotomayor, 2023, USA, 9 min.
• ⚠️ To Build a Monument 👏, documentary, dir. Laissa Alexis, 2024, USA, 11 min.

QWOCFF 2025 Featured Screening: Standing Above the Clouds

Standing Above the Clouds 💖, dir. Jalena Keane-Lee, 2024, USA, 82 min.
Saturday, June 14, 2025, 5:00 pm Presidio Theater, 99 Moraga Ave., SF

Standing Above the Clouds

QWOCFF blurb: Through the stories of Indigenous mothers and daughters who have sustained the largest political movement in modern Hawaiian history, this film explores intergenerational healing and the social and emotional labor of retaining ancient ceremonies in a rapidly modernizing world.

“Best social impact documentary” at hotdocs 2024; “Best made-in-Hawai‘i feature documentary” at the Hawai‘i International Film Festival 2024, “People’s choice” at the Māoriland Film Festival 2025.

Despite the presence of 13 telescopes atop Mauna Kea, each project promising to be the last one, each promising to be environmentally responsible and then releasing toxic chemicals into the soil, scientists wanted to build a massive new telescope, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), with a mirror 100 feet in diameter, housed in a building 18 stories tall. Some of the local native Hawai‘ians decided they had had enough, and began protests that successfully stalled the project until finally, just a few days ago, the National Science Foundation dropped funding for the TMT, putting the plans in indefinite suspension.

I will admit to a certain degree of split loyalties. Building a 30-meter telescope would truly advance science tremendously, increasing our understanding of the entire universe, and Mauna Kea is uniquely well suited as a location for that telescope. But at the same time, the disregard for the indigenous population over many decades, even by their own state government, is shameful. If a way can be found to move forward on the Thirty Meter Telescope, it will have to be arm in arm with the native Hawai‘ians, not over their entrenched objections.

Standing Above the Clouds is a powerful documentary about the ability of people to organize for a cause they hold dear, a cause with resonances not only throughout Hawai‘i and the Pacific islands, but for indigenous communities worldwide. It’s a must see.

• IMDb • trailer • watch the 2019 documentary short • official website •