gen_ [note the underscore at the end] ๐, 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
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| 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 lรคchelst) ๐, 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
๐ North American premiere
๐ Winner: 2025 Berlinale, Teddy Award (jury) and CICAE Art Cinema Award (Forum section) — among other honors
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| If You Are Afraid… Wenn du Angst hast… |
Trans Memoria ๐, 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
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| Trans Memoria |
Only Good Things (Apenas Coisas Boas) ๐ฉ,
dir. Daniel Nolasco, 2025, Brazil, 104 min., in Portuguese with English subtitles
Friday, July 27, 2025, 8:15 pm, Roxie Theater
๐บ๐ธ U.S. premiere
⚠️๐ content advisory: violence, brief explicit sex
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| Only Good Things (Apenas Coisas Boas) |
TL;dr: Don’t waste your time. Note: the rest of this review may contain spoilers.
Some Nights I Feel Like Walking ๐, 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
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| Some Nights I Feel Like Walking |
Lucky, Apartment (๋ญํค, ์ํํธ) (also known as Leogki, apateu) ๐,
dir. Kangyu Garam (๊ฐ์ ๊ฐ๋), 2024, South Korea, 96 min., in Korean with subtitles
Thursday, June 26, 2025, 1:00 pm, Roxie Theater
๐บ๐ธ U.S. premiere
⚠️ content advisory: homophobic language
๐ honorable mention: 2025 Frameline Best First Narrative Feature jury award
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| Lucky, Apartment (๋ญํค, ์ํํธ) |
Perro Perro ๐ dir. Marco Berger, 2025, Argentina,
101 min., in Spanish with English subtitles
Tuesday, June 24, 2025, 5:45 pm, Vogue Theatre
๐ World premiere
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| Perro perro |
Sandbag Dam (Zeฤji nasip) ๐,
dir. ฤejen ฤerniฤ ฤanak, 2025, Croatia/Lithuania/Slovenia,
88 min., in Croatian with subtitles
Saturday, June 21, 2025, 3:30 pm, Vogue Theatre
⚠️ content advisory: homophobic language
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| Sandbag Dam (Zeฤji nasip) |
To Live, to Die, to Live Again (Vivre, mourir, renaรฎtre) ๐,
dir. Gaรซl Morel, 2024, France, 104 min., in French with subtitles
Sunday, June 22, 2025, 3:30 pm, Vogue Theatre
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To Live, to Die, to Live Again (Vivre, mourir, renaรฎtre) photo ©2024 ARPSelection |
We are Faheem and Karun,
๐ dir. Onir, written by Fawzia Mirza & Onir, 2024, India, 75 min.,
in Kashmiri, Hindi, Urdu, English, and Malayalam, with full open captions for the hearing impaired
Wednesday, June 25, 2025, 6:00 pm, Vogue Theatre
๐ North American premiere
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| We are Faheem and Karun |
Thesis on a Domestication (Tesis sobre una domesticaciรณn)
๐ฉ๐๐ฅฑ๐,
dir. Javier van de Couter, 2024, Argentina/Mexico, 113 min.,
in Spanish with English subtitles
Saturday, June 21, 2025, 8:30 pm, Roxie Theater
⚠️ content advisory: transphobia, explicit sex
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|
Thesis on a Domestication (Tesis sobre una domesticaciรณn) |
Silent Sparks (ๆไฝๆญน) ๐, 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
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| Silent Sparks (ๆไฝๆญน) |
Note: the short film Like What Would Sorrow Look (ๆไฝ็) precedes the in-person screening, but is not available in the Digital Screening Room and was not available for advance review.
Carpobrotus ๐, 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
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| Carpobrotus |
Queerpanorama (็พ็็ธ) ๐, dir. Jun Li, 2025, Hong Kong/USA/China, 87 min., in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Persian/Farsi, and Thai, with subtitles only for the Mandarin dialogue
Sunday, June 22, 2025, 6:00 pm, Vogue Theatre
(preceded by the short film Carpobrotus; see separate review)
⚠️ content advisory: sexually explicit content ๐
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| Queerpanorama |
“Think Global, Act Local” (shorts program)
Saturday, June 14, 2025, 12:00 noon, Presidio Theater, 99 Moraga Ave., SF
⚠️ content advisories: (see individual listings below)
๐
Can’t Stop Change: Queer Climate Stories from the Florida Frontlines
(No se para el cambio: Historias climรกticas queer desde la primera lรญnea de Florida),
dir. Vanessa Raditz, Natalia Villarรกn-Quiรฑones, and Yarrow Koning, 2024 USA,
in English and Spanish with open captions in both languages throughout, 97 min.
Sunday, June 15, 2025, 3:00 pm, Presidio Theater, 99 Moraga Ave., SF
(This film screened in Frameline48. Here is my review from that screening.)
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|
Can’t Stop Change: Queer Climate Stories |
Florida is at the epicenter of the right-wing project to reshape America. Florida and Wisconsin are the testbeds for legislation put forward by ALEC, and in his laughable pursuit of the Presidential nomination, Governor Ron DeSantis went after LGBTQ+ (especially trans people and anyone standing in the way of Development, specifically including drill, baby, drill. In the face of that onslaught, some activists are holding their ground and trying to raise awareness and hopefully at some point turn the tide. Filmmakers Vanessa Raditz, Natalia Villarรกn-Quiรฑones, and Yarrow Koning interviewed activists in North Florida, Central Florida, and South Florida, plus some who felt they had to leave Florida for their own safety. They talked particularly about the intersection of climate change activism with communities marginalized by the white heteropatriarchy.
The result is a call to action and a beacon of hope, and draws clear connections between issues we often think of separately. For example, climate change has brought devastation to many parts of Florida in the form of stronger hurricanes, but the burden of that devastation has fallen disproportionately on Black and brown people, poor people, immigrants, and other people just trying to hang on. Climate is a “threat multiplier,” magnifying existing injustices. It’s a necessary film, and one that everyone should watch, definitely a MUST SEE, but unfortunately, the people who most need to see it will tune out pretty early on when they hear the radicals talk. They’re not exactly fiddling while Rome burns, but they’re playing ๐๐๐ even as experts predict that as much as 60% of the land area of the city of Miami could be underwater by 2060.
• IMDb • trailer • Official website • Instagram: @Queers4ClimateJustice • Facebook: @QueerEcoProject • other • Historias climaticas queer desde la primera linea de Florida Natalian Villaran-Quinones
Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day (Lijepa veฤer, lijep dan) ๐,
dir. Ivona Juka, 2024 Croatia/Bosnia and Herzegovina/Canada/Cyprus/Poland, 137 min.,
in Croatian with English subtitles
⚠️ content advisory: graphic homophobic violence, sexual violence
Lijepa vecer, lijep dan
Friday, June 27, 2025, 8:30 pm, Herbst Theatre
๐บ๐ณ International premiere
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|
Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day |
Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day starts in Nazi-occupied Croatia in 1941, showing some of the students who went on to join the partisans, a highly effective resistance movement. One of the leaders of that movement was Tito, who eventually became the totalitarian dictator of the Socialist Federated Republic of Yugoslavia. Most of the story takes place in 1957, when Tito was both President and Prime Minister of Yugoslavia. In Tito’s Yugoslavia, you were free to do and say whatever the government wanted you to do and say. Anyone in your life, your co-worker, your neighbor, even your flatmate, could be an informant for the UDBA (secret police). Any slight deviation from official dogma could result in interrogation or worse.
Lovro and Nenad were partisans who became lovers and then partners in film-making, but their talents were assigned to AGITPROP, the department for Agitation and Propaganda. They were joined by a couple of their gay friends from the partisan days of World War II. Within their small circle of family and friends, they are safe and could live and speak freely, but government censors grow increasingly intrusive, and finally UDBA tasks Emir, a party loyalist, with sabotaging the group. Ultimately, the filmmakers are resisting the full weight of the authoritarian state, fighting for the freedom to be, to speak, and to love as they pleased.
It’s a bleak story, with a palpable sense of the oppression they were living under, with all its ubiquitous tentacles in every facet of life. The moments when the men find an opportunity for a sexual connection are manic, making rabbits look calm and sedate by comparison. The walls inexorably close in on them until it all comes to a head. All but the last three minutes or so of the film is in black and white, echoing the colorlessness of life in Tito’s Yugoslavia.
It’s exquisitely well done, but not by any means a light, upbeat film. The protagonists are resisting the relentless and all-encompassing state, with little hope of escape. Highly recommended.
Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day was selected as Croatia’s entry for Best International Feature in the 2025 Academy Awards.
• IMDb • trailer • official website •
Drone ๐, dir. Simon Bouisson, 2024, France, 110 min., in French with English subtitles
⚠️ content advisory: Sexual violence
Saturday, June 21, 2025, 8:30 pm Vogue Theatre
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| Drone outside รmilie‘s window, altered to show detail |
รmilie is studying architecture, but to pay the bills she is also a camgirl. One night, she notices a drone hovering outside her apartment window (photo enhanced to show detail), but it gradually becomes more invasive and more ominous, especially because it is not at all clear who is controlling it. It’s not a commercially available off-the-shelf model, but apparently a much more sophisticated custom unit. Her stalker remains stubbornly hidden, despite sending her money on her phone, but also becomes more persistent and more sinister. The tension builds to a crescendo, but you’ll have to see it to find out the ending.
The drone clearly is a stand-in for “the male gaze” in its ickiest form, intruding into every aspect of รmilie’s life. Drone is a taut thriller, too, besides a pointed social commentary. Definitely a must see, especially if you like thrillers.
Drone is not included in this year’s Digital Screening Room, but the credits include “avec la participation de Disney+” so you just might get to see it screening some day soon.
• IMDb • trailer • official website [fr] • Emilie
