I’m about to head out to the last in-person screening of Frameline49, but we don’t have to say goodbye just yet. The Digital Screening Room has a very limited selection of the films from the in-person festival. The choices are few, but they chose quite well — most of them I rate “must see.”
Note that Frameline added two streaming-only compilation shorts programs, “Wild Combination” and ”Queer Quartet,” with shorts from various in-person programs.
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 |
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 |
If You Are Afraid You Put Your Heart Into Your Mouth and Smile (Wenn du Angst hast nimmst du dein Herz in den Mund und lächelst) 💖, dir. Marie Luise Lehner, 2025, Austria, 87 min., in German, German Sign Language, and English, with full open captions in English
Friday, June 27, 2025, 3:30 pm, Roxie Theater
🌎 North American premiere
🏆 Winner: 2025 Berlinale, Teddy Award (jury) and CICAE Art Cinema Award (Forum section) — among other honors
 |
| If You Are Afraid… Wenn du Angst hast… |
Some Nights I Feel Like Walking 👏, dir. Petersen Vargas, 2024,
Philippines/Singapore/Italy, 103 min., in Tagalog with English subtitles
Thursday, June 26, 2025, 8:30 pm, Roxie Theater
available in the Digital Screening Room, June 23 to 30, 2025
⚠️ content advisory: graphic drug misuse, disturbing themes
 |
| Some Nights I Feel Like Walking |
Skinny Love (Einskonar ást) 👏, dir. Sigurður Anton, 2024, Iceland, 92 min., in Icelandic with English subtitles, but large portions in English without subtitles
Monday, June 23, 2025, 6:00 pm, Vogue Theatre
🌎 North American premiere
also available in the Digital Screening Room, June 23 to 30, 2025
 |
| Skinny Love |
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 💖, 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 |
Silent Sparks (愛作歹) 👍, dir. Ping Chu, 2024, Taiwan, 79 min., in Mandarin and Min Nan with English subtitles
Friday, June 20, 2025, 6:00 pm, Roxie Theater
available in the Digital Screening Room, June 23 – June 30, 2025
 |
| Silent Sparks (愛作歹) |
Note: the short film Like What Would Sorrow Look (愁何狀) precedes the in-person screening, but is not available in the Digital Screening Room and was not available for advance review.
“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:
Mahu: A Trans-Pacific Love Letter
Valencia 🫤, dir. Aubree Bernier-Clarke, Silas Howard, Cheryl Dunye, et al.,
2013, USA, 106 min.
Sunday, June 22, 2025, 3:30 pm, Roxie Theater
followed by a walking tour with Michelle Tea herself, hence the program title “(Return to) Valencia”
film available in the Digital Screening Room, June 23 to 30, 2025
 |
| Valencia |
Carpobrotus 👏, dir. Simon Frenay, 2024, France, 22 min., in French with English subtitles
screens before Queerpanorama, Sunday, June 22, 2025, 6:00 pm, Vogue
part of the “Wild Combination” shorts program in the Digital Screening Room
 |
| Carpobrotus |
“Wild Combination” (shorts program)
available in the Digital Screening Room only
(each short screens in person, but not together as a group)
For each film, the first link is to the Frameline page for that specific short. The second link is to the Film Queen Review entry containing my full review.
Come See Me in the Good Light ❓, dir. Ryan White, 2025, USA, 104 min.
Saturday, June 21, 2025, 6:00 pm, New Parkway, Oakland
Friday, June 27, 2025, 3:00 pm, Vogue Theatre
 |
| Come See Me in the Good Light |
After receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis, Gibson and their partner, fellow poet Megan Falley, unearth a profound sense of resilience in small, everyday joys. Life’s moments can be both tough and tender, holding grief and humor, and ache and elation, in equal measure. Backed by Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach and executive produced by Sara Bareilles and Brandi Carlile, this Sundance Festival Favorite Award-winning meditation on mortality illuminates, with exquisite tenderness, what it means to really live.
• IMDb • interview with the director and producer Tig Notaro • official website • coming to AppleTV+ fall 2025 •
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 •
Māhū: A Trans-Pacific Love Letter 💖, dir. Lisette Marie Flanary, 2025, USA, 60 min., in English and Hawaiian
Thursday, June 19, 2025, 5:30 pm, KQED Headquarters, 2601 Mariposa St., SF
and in the “Queer Quartet Streaming Shorts” program in the Digital Screening Room
 |
| Mahu |
“Māhū” can be an epithet hurled at drag queens and transgender people and anyone else who doesn’t properly perform their assigned binary gender, but it is being reclaimed as a point of pride, and was chosen as the name for a multimedia stage performance of Hawai’ian music and dance with an overarching theme of embracing traditional Native Hawai’ian concepts of gender fluidity. This documentary weaves clips from the stage performance with interviews with the performers, giving us a taste of the acceptance and honor that were accorded to māhū people in pre-colonial Hawai’i. It’s a powerful testament, a must see.
The Frameline screening at KQED will be followed by a live performance by hula master Patrick Makuakāne.
• IMDb (filmmaker) • trailer • official website • Mahu: A Trans-Pacific Love Letter
Niñxs 💖💝, Ninxs dir. Kani Lapuerta, 2025, Mexico/Germany, 84 min., in Spanish with English subtitles
Saturday, June 21, 2025, 1:30 pm Roxie
🌎 North American premiere
This program will be available in the Digital Screening Room, June 23 through June 30, 2025, anywhere in the United States.
 |
| Niñxs |
But here is where it gets really unique: in most documentaries about a living person, the filmmaker interviews the subject, but then it is the filmmaker who edits the film, constructs the narrative through line, and adds the voiceover. In Niñxs, though, Karla is involved in nearly every aspect of the process from the beginning. She provides much of the voiceover herself, and clearly had a say on the direction of the story and its visual aesthetic.
Karla’s circumstances are also exceptional. She starts in Mexico City, but the family move to Tepoztlán to get away from the air pollution that is giving Karla asthma. Karla’s parents are aging punks with their own colorful stories of adolescence, and Tepoztlán, less than an hour out of Mexico City, has a reputation as a haven for punks, hippies, and other non-conformists.
Her parents fully support their child’s exploration of gender and her decision to live as a girl. You may be quite surprised, though, at how much support the Mexican legal system gives: the Constitution prohibits discrimination of any kind, meaning that the school is obligated to refer to Karla by her chosen name and gender, allow her to use the girls’ bathroom, and respect her identity. Of course, she gets shit from some of her schoolmates and from random strangers in town, but the support from family, friends, and public officials gives her the room to thrive.
Karla herself sets the tone for the film: “I’d like [the audience] to laugh, that it isn’t a tragic film, like most of the ones we appear in.” In that respect, Niñxs is a rousing success, celebrating and empowering Karla and trans-ness in general. It is unequivocally a must see, but most especially for trans youth.
• IMDb • trailer • official website [en/es] •
Playing with Fire: An Ecosexual Emergency ❤️🔥, dir. Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens, 2025, USA, 71 min.
Friday, June 20, 2025, 11:00 am, Roxie Theater
🌐 World premiere
This program will be available in the Digital Screening Room, June 23 through June 30, 2025, anywhere in the United States.
⚠️ Warning: This film contains environmental destruction, explicit ecosexuality and performance art
 |
| Playing with Fire: An Ecosexual Emergency |
 |
| Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle |
