Frameline 41 Festival Preview

The 41st Frameline Film Festival starts his week, running June 15-25 at the Castro, Roxie & Victoria Theatres, as well the Elmwood in Berkeley & the Piedmond in Oakland. Last month, I attended the festival's convivial launch party, as a friend's plus-one. Frances Wallace, Executive Director, announced that this year's festival has 147 films, 40% of them by women directors. Ms. Wallace & programmers Peter Stein, Des Buford, Harry Vaughn & Kevin Schaub were joyful as they presented a quick run-through of some festival highlights.

Opening night is the new documentary The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin, with Mr. Maupin in attendance. Closing night is the drama After Louie, starring Alan Cumming, who will be present to receive the festival's Frameline Award. The centerpiece film in world cinema is I Dream in Another Language (Sueño en Otrea Idioma), an art film about a linguist who tracks down the last 2 speakers of a dying language, only to find that they won't talk to each other. I was intrigued by mention of Apricot Groves, a film in Armenian & Farsi, about a young Armenian-Iranian man, raised in the US, who travels to Armenia to make a marriage proposal.

One of the programmers was genuinely enthusiastic about My Friend Dahmer, a movie portrait of the teenage Jeffrey Dahmer. Ross Lynch, who portrays Dahmer, is expected to attend the screening. The programmers also touted the festival's Episodic category, comprising multi-part series originally intended for on-line or TV viewing.

The event attendees were a friendly crowd, & I enjoyed learning about Gay Days at Disneyland & chatting briefly with one of the programmers, who discussed the trickiness of making selections for a San Francisco audience.

§ Frameline 41 Festival Launch Party 
Tuesday, May 23, 5:30PM
The Oasis

§ Frameline 41
San Francisco International
LGBTQ Film Festival
June 15-25, 2017
Castro Theatre, Roxie Theater, Victoria Theatre
Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, Landmark Theatres Piedmond