Movies
Cinema St. Louis Presents the 14th Annual QFest St. Louis – Running Virtually April 16th – 25th
The 14th Annual QFest St. Louis — presented by Cinema St. Louis (CSL) — will take place from April 16-25. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, CSL will offer all programs virtually, protecting the health of patrons. Programs can be streamed at any time during the festival’s dates. Recorded introductions and Q&As will be available for most film programs.
The St. Louis-based LGBTQ film festival, QFest will present an eclectic array of 24 films (14 shorts, six narrative features, and four documentary features). The participating filmmakers represent a wide variety of voices in contemporary queer world cinema. The mission of the film festival is to use the art of contemporary gay cinema to spotlight the lives of LGBTQ people and to celebrate queer culture.
The fest is especially pleased to host the St. Louis premiere of new works by internationally acclaimed filmmakers Agnieszka Holland (“Charlatan”) and François Ozon (“Summer of 85”). Another QFest highlight is this year’s Q Classic, the 50th anniversary of the trippy, experimental 1971 film “Pink Narcissus.”
Thanks to several generous sponsors, CSL is able to make the festival more accessible to all by offering both shorts programs free for the duration of the event.
For the full schedule of screenings, including trailers and descriptions of the films, visit the festival website at www.cinemastlouis.org/qfest. Advance digital screeners of the features and some of the shorts are available for press review on request. Please inquire with QFest St. Louis artistic director Chris Clark.
The 2021QFest St. Louis begins on Friday, April 16, and runs through Sunday, April 25. Tickets go on sale March 24. Tickets are $14 general, $10 for Cinema St. Louis members and students with valid and current IDs. Passes are also available: Five-Film Passes are $60, and All-Access Passes are $115. All screenings will be held virtually for residents of Missouri and Illinois via Eventive, CSL’s online presentation partner. Direct ticket links are available on the QFest website.
QFest St. Louis is sponsored by AARP Missouri, Arts & Education Council, CheapTRX, Grizzell & Co., Missouri Arts Council, Bob Pohrer & Donnie Engle, Crafted., Just John Nightclub, Matt Kerns, Regional Arts Commission, Deb Salls, St. Louis Public Radio, Cindy Walker, and Webster U. Film Series.
Social media: Facebook: @QFestSTL | Twitter: @QFestSTL | Instagram: @QFestSTL
FILM PROGRAMS
The Carnivores
Caleb Michael Johnson, U.S., 2020, 77 min., narrative
One of the oddest and darkest films screened at QFest to date, “The Carnivores” features a young lesbian couple, Alice and Bret, whose dog, Harvie, is slowly dying. The vet bills are adding up fast, Alice is quietly panicking, and high-strung Bret dotes on the dog and ignores the reality of the situation. When poor, innocent Harvie goes missing, the fragile status quo is finally shattered, and both women go off the deep end in their own way. What had been a bright and happy little family unit is undone by self-doubt, suspicion, and a disturbing amount of ground beef. The Hollywood Reporter writes: “(Director) Caleb Michael Johnson employs a dreamlike, David Lynchian aesthetic to the proceedings throughout the film. If you are a fan of abstract, surreal storytelling supported by strong central performances and a fascinating relationship dynamic, then ‘The Carnivores’ has more than enough meat for you to chew.”
Charlatan
Agnieszka Holland, Czech Republic, 2020, 118 min., Czech & German, narrative
In this richly drawn portrait, celebrated Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland (“Europa, Europa,” “Spoor”) explores the riveting life and work of Czech herbalist and faith healer Jan Mikolášek, a deeply closeted homosexual who cured hundreds with natural remedies. Magnanimous with his abilities, he treated the poor and wealthy alike, never turning away a patient, whether a representative of the occupying Nazis forces or the president of the country. In fact, it was this last relationship that led to Mikolášek’s downfall, as he was prosecuted for charlatanism by the subsequent Communist government. In yet another incisive historical tale, Holland shines a light on a singular, extraordinary figure and reveals the complexity of — and human susceptibility to — the political machinations of the times. Calling “Charlatan” a “handsome, intelligently questioning” biopic, Variety writes: “Caught between a respectful tribute to Mikolášek’s medical achievements and a more salacious examination of his moral transgressions — with a tender if speculative gay romance propped somewhere in between — it’s an ambitious portrait of human imperfection.”
Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story
Posy Dixon, U.S., 2019, 63 min., documentary
As a sci-fi-obsessed woman living in near isolation, Beverly Glenn-Copeland wrote and self-released the album “Keyboard Fantasies” in Huntsville, Ontario, in 1986. Recorded in an Atari-powered home studio, the cassette featured seven tracks of a curious folk-electronica hybrid, a sound realized far before its time. Three decades on, the musician — now Glenn Copeland — began to receive emails from people across the world, thanking him for the music they’d recently discovered. Courtesy of a rare-record collector in Japan, a reissue of “Keyboard Fantasies,” with support by such electronic musicians as Four Tet and Caribou, had finally found its audience two generations down the line. “Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story” tells an intimate coming-of-age story that transmutes the pain and suffering of prejudice into rhythm, hope, and joy. Half audiovisual history and half DIY tour video, the film provides a vehicle for this newly appointed queer elder to connect with youth across the globe and serves as a timely lullaby to soothe those souls struggling to make sense of the world.
Little Girl
Sébastien Lifshitz, France, 2020, 90 min., French, documentary
“Little Girl” offers a touching portrait of 8-year-old Sasha, who insistently questions her gender, often eliciting disturbing reactions from those who remain invested in traditional definitions of who qualifies as a boy or a girl. Although born a boy, Sasha has always known she was a little girl, but society fails to acknowledge her as such: At school, for example, she’s forced to wear gender-specific boys’ clothes. Sasha’s supportive family engages in a constant battle to make her difference understood and accepted, and the film depicts the family’s tireless struggle against a hostile environment while chronicling their everyday lives. The Guardian writes: “In his tender observational documentary, filmmaker Sébastien Lifshitz (‘Les Invisibles,’ ‘Bambi,’ ‘Adolescentes’) spends a year following Sasha and her family as they struggle to navigate her gender dysphoria in their provincial French hometown. Cinematographer Paul Guilhaume captures Sasha in widescreen, his camera watchful as she pads delicately across the room in ballet class, growing in confidence and expressiveness with each purposeful step. Her teacher is less generous.”
Ma Belle, My Beauty
Marion Hill, France/U.S., 2021, 93 min., English & French, narrative
In “Ma Belle, My Beauty” — which premiered at Sundance — newlywed musicians Bertie and Fred are adjusting to their new life in the beautiful countryside of France. It’s an easy transition for Fred, the son of French and Spanish parents, but New Orleans native Bertie grapples with a nagging depression that is affecting her singing. When Lane — the quirky ex who disappeared from their three-way relationship years ago — shows up for a surprise visit, she brings both new energy and baggage of her own. A tipsy, moody dive into polyamory from first-time feature filmmaker Marion Hill, “Ma Belle, My Beauty” maintains the buoyant atmosphere of a summer adventure — replete with wine-drenched candlelit dinners, firelit vineyard parties, and sunny creekside hikes — as its principals grapple with their desires, passions, and life ambitions. The Hollywood Reporter writes: “Lauren Guiteras’ sun-dappled cinematography has a jazzy ease that complements the film’s overall laid-back vibe. And composer Mahmoud Chouki shows great versatility, blending French, Latin, New Orleans and North African rhythms into a musical melting pot that reflects how all these different characters are trying to come together in harmony.”
P.S. Burn This Letter Please
Michael Seligman & Jennifer Tiexiera, U.S., 2020, 101 min., documentary
A box of letters, held in secret for nearly 60 years, ignites a five-year exploration into a part of LGBTQ history that has never been told. The letters, written in the 1950s by a group of New York City drag queens, open a window into a forgotten world where being yourself meant breaking the law and where the penalties for “masquerading” as a woman were swift and severe. Using original interviews, never-before-seen archival footage and photographs, and stylized re-creations, “P.S. Burn This Letter Please” reconstructs this pre-Stonewall era as former drag queens now in their 80s and 90s — including James Bidgood, director of this year’s Q Classic, “Pink Narcissus” — reveal how they survived and somehow flourished at a time when drag queens were both revered and reviled, even within the gay community. The government sought to destroy them and history tried to erase them, but now they get to tell their story for the first time. The Queer Review writes: “‘P.S. Burn This Letter Please’ is a moving and uplifting tribute to the beauty, bravery and defiant self-expression of these truly fierce, trailblazing queens.”
Pink Narcissus
James Bidgood (as Anonymous), U.S., 1971, 65 min., narrative
This year’s Q Classic, “Pink Narcissus” — which is celebrating its 50th anniversary — is a breathtaking and outrageous erotic poem focusing on the daydreams of a beautiful boy prostitute who, from the seclusion of his ultra-kitsch apartment, conceives a series of interlinked narcissistic fantasies populated by matadors, dancing boys, slaves, and leather-clad bikers. Amid the sumptuous pink satin, teenage beauty Bobby Kendall falls into a deep slumber of erotic reverie, entering the glorious realm of sexual fantasy — living in a dream world of fantastic colors, magnificent music, elaborate costumes, and strikingly handsome men. The film was shrouded in mystery following its 1971 release, its creator credited only as Anonymous. The film was falsely attributed to such filmmakers as Kenneth Anger and Andy Warhol before being rediscovered and revealed as the work of artist and photographer James Bidgood. It was shot in a haphazard, piecemeal fashion between 1964 and 1970 on 8mm, mainly in Bidgood’s small apartment. Its cult status endures, as does adoration for its gorgeous and enigmatic star. With its highly charged hallucinogenic quality, atmosphere of lush decadence, and explicit erotic power, “Pink Narcissus” is a true landmark of gay cinema.
Queer Japan
Graham Kolbeins, Japan/U.S., 2019, U.S., English & Japanese, 99 min., documentary
Trailblazing artists, activists, and everyday people from across the spectrum of gender and sexuality defy social norms and dare to live unconventional lives in this kaleidoscopic view of LGBTQ culture in contemporary Japan. From shiny Pride parades to playfully perverse underground parties, “Queer Japan” pictures people living brazenly unconventional lives in the sunlight, the shadows, and everywhere in between. Culled from more than 100 interviews conducted over three years in locations across the country, “Queer Japan” features dozens of individuals sharing their experiences in their own words. Among those featured: dazzling, iconoclastic drag queen Vivienne Sato; maverick manga artist Gengoroh Tagame; councilwoman Aya Kamikawa, who recounts her rocky path to becoming the first transgender elected official in Japan; and nonbinary performance artist Saeborg, who uses rubber to create a second skin at the legendary kink-positive hentai party Department H. Variety writes: “The people we meet in ‘Queer Japan’ represent a powerful cross-section of LGBTQ life, and they make a vivid case for how wrong it is to assume that members of that community are all in the same box, or five boxes, or 50 boxes. The movie is a cry for the absolute freedom of identity, one that I can imagine many non-LGBTQ people deeply relating to, since the demands for tolerance that are made here extend to the very essence of being and desire.”
Queer Shorts 1
107 minutes, Free
- Complicated
- Eleven Weeks
- A Non-Binary Story: Reencuentro
- The Pageant
- Sorry We Missed You
- Sunday Dinner
- Unlonely
Queer Shorts 2
107 minutes, Free
- 75 Cents
- God’s Daughter Dances
- in(APP)licable
- The Lonely Prince
- More of Something
- Today
- Vestirse
Summer of 85 (Été 85)
François Ozon, France, 2020 90 min., French, narrative
In the waters off a small seaside village in Normandy, a boat capsizes. Rescued from drowning, 16-year-old Alexis is subsequently seduced by his savior, the slightly older and much wilder David, who has an alluring, devil-may-care smile. David quickly becomes Alexis’ obsession — and the boyfriend of his dreams — before a dark tragedy ends their relationship. Based on the 1982 YA novel “Dance on My Grave” by Aidan Chambers, the film proceeds along two parallel time tracks, requiring the audience to piece together the puzzle of what really transpired between the two boys. Variety writes: “Not since the summer of 2003, when François Ozon unveiled Sapphic sizzler ‘Swimming Pool’ at the Cannes Film Festival, has the French director seduced audiences quite as brazenly as he does in ‘Summer of 85.’ A breezy first-love flashback to more innocent times, (the film) feels like Ozon’s response to ‘Call Me by Your Name’ — his own effervescent account of two souls who found one another for a single season, and how that shaped a young man’s sexual identity going forward.”
Tahara
Olivia Peace, U.S., 2020, 78 min., narrative
In this queer coming-of-age dramedy, two girlfriends attend a “Teen Talk-back” after the funeral service of their former Hebrew-school classmate. Although the session is designed to help them understand grief through faith, it instead leads to other discoveries, with surprising sparks igniting when one of the girls is manipulated into a romantic encounter with her best friend. The Queer Review writes: “Filmed on location at the Rochester synagogue where (screenwriter Jess) Zeidman attended Hebrew school, there’s a claustrophobic authenticity to the film’s setting. Much of the success of ‘Tahara’ relies on her well-crafted, layered screenplay and the two rich, subtle lead performances by (Madeline Grey) DeFreece and (Rachel) Sennott (also wonderful in ‘Shiva Baby’) keeping things compelling and intriguing. Refreshingly it’s a teen film that doesn’t look down on or objectify its characters, examining our shared human foibles with humor and poignancy.”
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