Week of Dec 1
This week marks two years of Queer Film LA! We've been thrilled to bring you over a thousand Queer film events over the last two years, and look forward to many more. Thank you for supporting us, and all the great Queer film programming in LA.
This week's pick is the LA Restoration Premiere of Bye Bye Love, a Queer independent Japanese film from 1974 that was thought lost until a print was found in 2018. Check out this Criterion article about the restoration and go see the film Thursday night.
Bye Bye Love
Dec 04, 7:00 PM @ Now Instant Image Hall
This Japanese lovers-on-the-run film, shot on 16mm and following a young man and his gender-fluid lover, was long thought lost until a print was found in a film lab in 2018.
And speaking of long-lost international Queer films that were recently discovered and restored... well, it's not a super long list, but 1971 Indian bisexual love triangle Badnam Basti screens at the Academy Museum, December 21.
Badnam Basti
Dec 21, 6:30 PM @ Academy Museum
Perhaps the first Queer film from India, this story of a young man in a bisexual love triangle was heavily censored on release and believed lost until a print was found in 2019.
And for a taste of contemporary Queer cinema from India, be sure to check out Sundance favorite Cactus Pears in a limited run thanks to Laemmle Theaters.
Cactus Pears
Screens through Dec 4 @ Laemmle Royal
Nov 28 & 29, 7:10 PM @ Laemmle Royal
Writer/director Rohan Kanawade in person
A thirty-year-old city-dweller compelled to spend ten-day mourning of his father in the rugged countryside of Western India tenderly bonds with a local farmer struggling to stay unmarried. As the mourning ends, forcing his return, he must decide the fate of his relationship born under duress.
Spotlight on Gus Van Sant
Brain Dead Studios' December spotlight falls on gay auteur Gus Van Sant, who will join in person for a screening of his new film Dead Man's Wire on Wednesday. Also check out other Van Sant films this month, including My Own Private Idaho, Mala Noche, Milk, and more.
Brain Dead Studios December Schedule
Also This Week
FREE: Dust Bunny
Dec 01, 2:00 PM @ University of Southern California
Writer/Director Bryan Fuller in person
An eight-year-old girl asks her scheming neighbor for help in killing the monster under her bed that she thinks ate her family.
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Dec 01, 7:00 PM @ Culver Theater
If Saltburn left you feeling a need for more homoerotic social-climbing thrillers, check out the unavoidable comparison--based on the novel by lesbian icon Patricia Highsmith (whose other novels became Carol, Strangers on a Train, and more).
SOLD OUT: The Handmaiden
Dec 05, 10:00 PM @ Los Feliz 3
Oldboy director Park Chan-Wook adapted the Victorian lesbian con artist psychological thriller Fingersmith into 2016's critically acclaimed The Handmaiden, moving the setting to Japanese-occupied Korea as our main characters set out to seduce and rob a Japanese heiress.
Tickets from American Cinematheque
Last of England
Dec 06, 6:30 PM @ Brain Dead Studios
Derek Jarman’s personal commentary on the decline of his country in a language closer to poetry than prose. A dark meditation on London under Thatcher.
Tickets from Brain Dead Studios
Blood for Dracula
Dec 06, 9:45 PM @ Vidiots Eagle Theater
The film debut of the late Udo Kier, a prolific gay actor who passed this last week.
Paul Morrissey wasn't queer, but he was a frequent collaborator of Andy Warhol's, and his underground films featured trans breakouts like Holly Woodlawn, bisexual leading man Joe Dallesandro, and more Don't miss this X-rated sexploitation horror tribute.
Female Trouble
Dec 06, 11:59 PM @ New Beverly Cinema
The life and times of Dawn Davenport, showing her progression from bratty schoolgirl to crazed mass murderer - all of which stems from her parents' refusal to buy her cha-cha heels for Christmas.
News from Home
Dec 07, 2:00 PM @ Egyptian Theatre
Out director Chantal Ackerman directs this minimalist meditation on isolation and homesickness, featuring letters written by her own mother when she lives in New York.
Tickets from American Cinematheque
A Room With a View
Dec 07, 2:00 PM @ University of Southern California
A landmark (but not gay) film from gay power-couple James Ivory and Ismail Merchant, based on the classic novel by gay author E. M. Forster, this lush period piece stars young Helena Bonham Carter as a young woman torn between two suitors in 1900s Italy and England.
Next Week
L.A.: A Queer History
Dec 14, 7:00 PM @ Philosophical Research Society
Filmmaker Gregorio Davila in person
Most consider the NY Stonewall Riots of 1969 to be the birth of the Gay civil rights movement. But there have been activists, artists and innovators in L.A. since the turn of the 20th century. L.A. A Queer History is an educational, exciting and emotional epic saga spanning nearly a century featuring artists, scholars and first hand accounts from LGBTQ elders who lived it.
Andy Warhol's Women in Revolt
Dec 08, 8:00 PM @ 2220 Arts + Archives
Candy is an aloof heiress caught in an unhappy relationship with her brother. Jackie is a virginal intellectual who believes women are oppressed in contemporary American society. And Holly is a nymphomaniac who has come to loathe men, despite her attraction to them. Together, they join a militant feminist group, P.I.G. (Politically Involved Girls), but their newfound liberation doesn’t make them any happier.
Tickets from Hollywood Entertainment
Showgirls
Dec 12, 2:00 PM @ New Beverly Cinema
A clumsy depiction of female bisexuality would normally not be enough to make Showgirls count as queer--but the film's cult classic status is sustained in large part by loyal Queer fans. Watch it, then go see documentary "You Don't Nomi" by Jeffrey McHale.
Carol
Dec 12, 7:20 PM @ Alamo Drafthouse DTLA
In 1950s New York, a department-store clerk who dreams of a better life falls for an older, married woman.
Tokyo Godfathers
Dec 13, 3:45 PM @ Vidiots Eagle Theater
On Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo discover a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents.
In New York Short Films / Hotel Monterey
Dec 13, 4:00 PM @ Los Feliz 3
Three films by Chantal Akerman: Hanging out in Yonkers, 1972; Untitled Film, 1970; Hotel Monterey, 1972.
Tickets from American Cinematheque
My Own Private Idaho
Dec 13, 6:00 PM @ Brain Dead Studios
In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV,” Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike’s estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.
Tickets from Brain Dead Studios
Disobedience
Dec 14, 7:00 PM @ Vidiots Eagle Theater
A photographer (Rachel Weisz) returns to the community that shunned her decades earlier for an attraction to a childhood friend (Rachel McAdams). Passions reignite as they explore the boundaries of faith and sexuality.
