While the opening night of the CinemaQ Film Festival, presented by Denver Film and the Sie Film Center, had a lot to love including vegan food, vegan cake, and Aubrey Plaza, that was just the beginning. There was still a whole weekend of wonderful queer films for us to check out. OUT FRONT Magazine sent our movie critic and writer, Julie River, to watch as many movies as she could, but there are only so many films that one writer can catch on her own. Because of that, OUT FRONT intern Eden Heffron-Hanson was also sent to catch the Queer Shorts Program on Sunday. So check out the best that CinemaQ had to offer this year.
The Teaches of Peaches
Review by Julie River
I’ll be honest: The sum total of all the knowledge I had about Peaches before watching this movie was “There’s a song called ‘Fuck the Pain Away’ by someone called Peaches.’” I knew nothing more about the Canadian indie pop artist or her 2000 debut album under the Peaches name called The Teaches of Peaches. The documentary Teaches of Peaches chronicles Peaches’ 2022 belated 20th anniversary tour (delayed due to obvious reasons) for Teaches of Peaches and looks back on her rise to underground stardom and the very different person she’s become over the past two decades.
This movie was a fascinating portrait of a really fascinating artist. Peaches is a likable personality and a fierce feminist premise and, while it’s clear that the Peaches of 2022 is a very different person than the Peaches of 2000 (they don’t even look like the same person), her unique “fuck it” brand of feminism endures to this day. Known for showing off her camel toe and untrimmed public hair on stage, Peaches is a reminder to everyone that life is so much more fun when you don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks about you.
Rating: 87/100
S/he is Still Her/e: The Official Genesis P.-Orridge Documentary
Review by Julie River
The strange life of experimental music artist Genesis P.-Orridge, known for h/er work in the bands Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, is documented in this film from h/er childhood as a sickly asthmatic to h/er death in 2020. Along the way we become acquainted with h/er out of body experiences, anarchistic beliefs, and a bizarre cult that s/he was basically the leader of.
By the end of this movie, I came to the conclusion that, while I liked the movie, I didn’t like Genesis P.-Orridge. As much of an anarchist as I am, some of P.-Orridge’s bizarre beliefs are a bridge too far even for me. Add to that the fact that, about halfway through the movie, the filmmakers were forced to put up on the screen the fact that one of P.-Orridge’s early partners, Cosey Fanni Tutti, accused P.-Orridge of aggressive and controlling behavior later in her life, which s/he has since denied. That didn’t give me the most sympathetic view of h/er for the rest of the movie.
But beyond that was the incredibly strange “pandrogyne” project where s/he and h/er second wife, Jacqueline Breyer (a.k.a. Lady Jaye), became so obsessed with each other that they embarked on an “artistic” project in which the two of them sought to look more and more like each other, even going so far as to have extensive plastic surgeries to make them look like each other. That level of obsession, while certainly fascinating to watch from the outside, seems definitively unhealthy and made me kind of creeped out. Like I said, I enjoyed the movie, but I don’t think I would have wanted to be acquainted with P.-Orridge while s/he was alive.
Rating: 80/100
Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story
Review by Julie River
This groundbreaking documentary tells the forgotten story of Jackie Shane, an out, transgender soul singer who rose to a certain level of fame in the 1960s. While she passed up the opportunity for larger fame and fortune by refusing invitations to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show and American Bandstand, both refusals were due to moral reasons, which just makes her story an even more fascinating one to follow. Shane disappeared from the music scene suddenly in 1971, resurfacing in 2017 to be recognized for her achievements late in life.
The filmmakers here were presented with a very difficult task because only one moving clip of film footage even exists of Jackie Shane. Everything else that remains is either an audio recording or a still photograph. But, with a little ingenuity, some luck, and a lot of imagination, they manage to string together a spellbinding narrative using the low-quality audio of the final interview of Shane’s life, stories from friends and family, and unique animation that looks like an impressionist painting come alive.
I was absolutely stunned to learn of this trailblazing trans woman who took on the prejudice of the world at a time when transgender wasn’t even a word and trans rights were not even a consideration, much less a mainstream political issue. Even more amazing is that this openly queer woman managed to live to the ripe old age of 78, living through eras where queer and trans life expectancies were much lower than that. Shane’s is a miraculous story of survival, perseverance, and shocking bravery that’s an inspiration to any trans or queer person today, and a heartwarming reminder that trans people have always been here.
Rating: 97/100
The Judgment
Review by Julie River
In this queer Egyptian-American film, Mo (Junes Zahdi) and Hisham (Freddy Shahin) are a gay couple who are both Egyptian and living in America. But when the couple has to go visit Hisham’s family in Egypt, the pair are forced back into the closet. While in Egypt, Mo tries to settle things with his mother who has disowned him for being gay, and comes to discover that his mother has used witchcraft to place a curse on him in which, if he engages in gay sex, he will be haunted and hunted by the ghost of a demon child which may ultimately kill him.
This movie was genuinely terrifying, with a fair number of really good jump scares. But I was really worried about how it was going to end, because the Mo and Hisham not surviving would seem to leave us in a place where it almost implies that Mo’s mother was in the right. Instead, it had a complex ending that made a scathing commentary about the state of religion and gay rights in Egypt.
My biggest complaint about this film is that it clearly wanted us to root for both members of the couple and, while I sympathized with Mo, Hisham was a genuinely bad partner. He doesn’t respect his partner’s wishes and, when Mo is being terrorized by a demon, Hisham dismisses his partner’s fears as illegitimate. There’s even a scene that could be interpreted as Hisham sexually assaulting his partner, as Hisham initiates sex while Mo is saying “No” and manages to bring himself to a climax. That seems like assault to me, and it made it really hard to root for the couple to stay together as the film clearly wanted its audience to do.
Rating: 87/100
I’m Your Venus
Review by Julie River
This documentary serves as a follow-up to Jennie Livingston’s classic 1990 queer documentary Paris is Burning about the ballroom scene in New York City. At the end of that film, it’s announced that one of the breakout stars of the ballroom scene and of the documentary itself, Venus Xtravaganza, had been strangled to death, and we see her house mother Angie Xtravaganza react to the news. Now, in I’m Your Venus, it’s 30 years later and House Xtravaganza may have a lot of new faces, but it’s still standing proud and tall. Venus’ biological brothers, the Pellagatti brothers, want to honor their sister’s memory, so they team up with her house family to try and re-open Venus’ murder investigation, get her name posthumously changed so they can alter her gravestone, and get her apartment enshrined as a historical landmark. Along the way, the very macho Pellagatti brothers have to come to terms with the ways they failed their sister as they grow to understand her better.
I meant to rewatch Paris is Burning before I got to this film in the festival, but never got around to it. This meant that I went into this film having not seen Paris is Burning since I watched it for a college class, and literally the only thing I remembered about that movie was a drag queen shouting “It buttons on the right!” Thankfully, I’m Your Venus refreshes your memory as best as it can about Venus’ role in Paris is Burning, and I didn’t feel like I was missing much by not having seen the original film in a long time.
A lot of movies at CinemaQ this year had me crying by the end of them, but I’m Your Venus was the only one that had me crying from the beginning. The Pellagatti brothers are extremely masculine in very traditional ways and you can tell that this isn’t a family that would easily accept a transgender sister. But now it’s 30 years later, they’ve had a long time to consider how they acted towards her, and they may struggle to accept that they didn’t always accept their sister like they could have, but they find ways to take accountability and to try to make it up to her posthumously. By the end of the film, they’re honored guests at a ballroom competition, and there’s something so beautiful about these traditionally macho guys learning about a culture that’s obviously foreign to them and realizing they don’t have to fully understand gender divergence, they just have to accept it. Long live the memory Venus Pelagatti Xtravaganza!
Rating: 99/100
Carnage for Christmas
Review by Julie River
In this Australian slasher flick, Lola (Jeremy Moineau) is a true crime podcaster who got her start when she accidentally solved part of the mystery of a murderer in her hometown known as The Toymaker. She returns to her hometown for the first time since beginning her gender transition to visit her sister Danielle (Dominique Booth) for Christmas, but someone claiming to be The Toymaker has started killing again, giving Lola a new, real-life mystery to uncover.
This was a movie that was campy as hell, and had some wooden performances, but that was hardly the point because this movie was a whole lot of fun. The fifth feature film from 19-year-old director Alice Maio Mackay, it’s quite clear that this is an amazing wunderkind who has a bright future ahead of her. It also features editing and VFX by Vera Drew, the director who brought us The People’s Joker, and you can see Drew’s style is a distinct part of this wild and fun movie.
One minor programming note, but maybe this movie could have been placed somewhere else in the program other than right after I’m Your Venus, because it took a bit of effort to shift gears between those two films. The first movie featured the tragic murder of a trans woman, and then the second film wants you to take murder a lot more lightly, with a trans woman as the central target of a serial killer. That’s a hard transition to make with just over an hour between films.
Rating: 91/100
Young Hearts
Review by Julie River
In this poignant Belgian film, Elias is a 14-year-old boy, Elias (Lou Goossens) is a 14-year-old boy whose father, Luk (Geert VanRampelberg) is a rising pop star and who has a girlfriend named Valerie (Saar Rogiers) who he doesn’t seem that interested in. But then, one day, a new neighbor his age named Alexander (Marius De Saeger) moves in and Elias starts to develop feelings for Alexander that he isn’t ready to deal with.
This was a delicate coming-of-age film that hit every emotional note that it needed to. It tugs at the heartstrings in just the right way, and leave you really rooting for the young boys. Lou Goossens and Marius de Saeger have outstanding chemistry with each other, and it’s really easy to root for them to end up together and to overcome their fears. Even the moment when Valerie tells her now-ex-boyfriend to go for it with Alexander perfectly hits you right in the heart.
This isn’t about the movie, but more of a commentary on Belgian culture: the film seemed to imply that, in Belgium, it’s actually quite common for children as young as 14 to have their boyfriend or girlfriend or other significant other sleep over their house, in the same bed no less, with their parents permission. This was really confusing to me at first, coming from a culture that is not that permissive and coming from a family that would have been outraged at me even suggesting such a thing when I was 14. I suppose maybe that level of trust in your kids is healthy, but it’s certainly a culture shock.
Rating: 91/100
Queer Shorts Program
Review by Eden Heffron-Hanson
Tears, fears, and a healthy dose of discourse in the day time shorts:
So You Wanna Vogue Huh? a visually exciting essay on the living state of ballroom featuring black trans femmes (Mother Lasseindra Ninja, Mother Naimah ex Milan, Princess Gaby Vineyard, and butch queen Dutch Prince Perry Ninja), albeit one that struggled to keep its energy up through the vodka-infused round table that made up its core.
Stan Behavior explored the occasionally creepy and possessive mainstreaming of drag, led by an excellent Ginger Minj performance, which stayed light despite its overtones.
Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr, a tearjerking documentary on the Montana House of Representatives censuring of Zooey Zephyr during her defense of gender-affirming health care for youth, did a good job not turning into a political ad.
The Callers, an extremely sweet profile of “Switchboard LGBT,” England’s oldest LGBTQ+ phone helpline, highlighted the soul-aching privacy and community of much of queer life.
Gillyfish followed a body-swap narrative focusing both on our desire to have another live life for us, and what director Sarah Sellman described as “healing by proxy”.
The Robbers, a German portrait of three trans women planning an enigmatic robbery, which may or may not have been about the fungibility of gender (though I was too distracted by the long shot portraits and T4T chemistry to really say).
I noted a theme of redirecting and/or funneling desires through an other. So You Wanna Vogue Huh? and Stan Behavior both dealt with the mainstreaming of drag, Stan Behavior especially dealing with the cis, white women who may not even realize they were originally being emulated. Seat 31 produced a strange dissociative mirror world where trans politicians are censured for “shaming” congress even as congress passes laws banning basic health care. The Robbers depicted trans women boymoding to appear more threatening as burglars. Avoidance of an essential vulnerability or power was a through line.
Although, of course, neither avoidance nor community are unfamiliar territory for queer writers. Moonlight and I Saw the TV Glow both come to mind as recent egg-crack movies. But, the main difference I see in these shorts from a lot of the coming out narratives that are held as canon was who was doing the avoiding. Even in the scenarios where queer protagonists made efforts to side-step the demands of their life, it was generally self-serving, not of subjecting themselves to the other (such as avoiding confrontation with a father in Gillyfish).
“(I)t’s so rare that… [movies] have us do something other than explaining ourselves,” said Seat 31 director Kimberly Reed, “it was great to see some of the stuff we saw today.”
Desire Lines
Review by Julie River
In this unique hybrid of fiction narrative and real-life documentary, we see an in-depth exploration of transmasculine sexuality, with a specific focus on gay trans men and their attraction to other men. In the fictional narrative, a gay trans man named Ahmad (Aden Hakimi) time-travels to an LGBTQ+ archive in an attempt to unravel his own sexuality. Along the way he encounters another young, gay trans man named Kieran (Theo Germaine) as they explore their sexualities in this bizarre film.
This was a weird movie, and one that could certainly be understood on an intellectual level, but wasn’t really one that was easy to connect with emotionally. In fact, one could argue that the unique style of this film was specifically designed to take you out of any emotional connection to the subject matter in order to look at it with academic distance. Yet, at the same time, as a lesbian trans woman, there was a lot in this film that I identified with from the opposite side of the spectrum.
Rating: 79/100
All Shall Be Well
Review by Julie River
Angie (Patra Au) and Pat (Maggie Li Lin Lin) are a lesbian couple in their 60s living in an apartment in Hong Kong. Angie is accepted by Pat’s relatives as a member of the family, or so she thinks. But when Pat suddenly dies in her sleep, Angie comes to realize that she has very few legal rights as the partner of the deceased in a country that still has yet to recognize gay marriage, and that Pat’s family’s acceptance of her starts to vanish after Pat’s death.
This one hit really close to home for me, because my family ended up in a similar situation when my aunt died in the 2000s, back before gay marriage was legal in the United States. My aunt had a partner who we considered family but, as soon as my aunt died and she had no legal status as a spouse to my aunt, my family started to cut my aunt’s partner out of everything. I still regret that I didn’t stand up and say anything at the time, but I had just lost my mother and aunt back-to-back and was afraid of losing even more family. I’ve since made my apologies to my aunt’s partner, but I regret to this day that I never stood up for her in the moment.
But as poignant, emotional, and beautiful as this film was, it was a big, slow-moving downer to end the festival on. Last year’s festival opened with Bottoms and closed with Problemista, both of which are comedies, and Keith Garcia stated that he liked opening and closing on comedies because it reminds us that one of the strengths of the queer community is our ability to laugh. But All Shall Be Well was as far from a comedy as you could get, and it certainly didn’t show that we had strength in laughter. If anything, it showed the ways we are legally weak in some countries, and that’s a depressing message to end on. I would have probably enjoyed this film more had it been placed somewhere else in the festival lineup.
Rating: 84/100
CinemaQ may be over, but there’s plenty of awesome programming from Denver Film year-round, including the upcoming 47th Denver Film Festival in November.
