Newsletter

This week at USC, meet the filmmakers behind festival hit Row of Life, the story of out athlete Angela Madsen as she attempts a solo row from Los Angeles to Hawaii.

The queer art of Body modification took center stage in 1989 when Fakir Musafar’s “Modern Primitives” movement hit alternative cultures around the globe via the punk subcultural magazine Re/Search. A photographer, performance artist, and ritualist, Musafar’s work mobilized an entire generation of artists, thinkers, and seekers. Through oral histories, photographic meditation, and filmic abstraction, A Body To Live In introduces this riveting “Gender Flex” icon, and the rich history of western body modification's controversial intersections with sexuality and spiritual practices.

Rare screening alert! Patrick Ian Polk is probably best known for Noah's Arc, the groundbreaking two-season 2005 LOGO Tv show that was followed by a 2008 feature Jumping the Broom, and then resurrected for 2020's The 'Rona Chronicles and 2025's Noah's Arc: The Movie.

Luchino Visconti was a fascinating filmmaker, evolving from the gritty early Italian neorealism of Rocco and his Brothers to lavish historical epics like The Leopard. He was also openly gay later in life and directed queer films like Death In Venice and Ludwig. He had a complicated relationship with his lover and mentee (and 70s sex symbol) Helmut Berger, and Berger starred with Burt Lancaster in 1974's Conversation Piece, which is believed to be a telling of the relationship between Berger and Visconti.

Black Cat Cinema Series returns this week with their first screening of the year -- including a Q&A with the creative team behind 2013 festival favorite G.B.F.

It's a quiet week this week, and a great time to catch American Cinematheque's retrospective of the great Chantal Akerman -- this week with 1978's The Meetings of Anna.

Happy New Year, Queer film lovers! We ring in the new year with a week of amazing Queer films with Queer women filmmakers in person.

Trailblazing German director Rosa von Praunheim (1942-2025) died this week, leaving a massive body of work and an impressive legacy as a director and activist.

Your early Christmas present this year is a special film program Happy Holidays from George Kuchar presented by Lightstruck. George was a groundbreaking and prolific gay underground filmmaker active from the 1950s until his death in 2011, and was an inspiration to John Water and countless other Queer auteurs.