If you’ve seen films at Frameline (aka the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival) before, you know that half the fun is the audience.
You may have other chances to see horror films like “Leviticus,” and you’ve probably seen “Bound” and maybe even “Cruising.”
But a scary film with gay characters hits differently in a theater full of other gays working out their multi-generational trauma from watching queers get murdered in every almost damn movie.
You will also likely have other chances to see the documentary “Barbara Forever,” about Barbara Hammer, the experimental filmmaker (and SF State alum) who, in the 1970s, made some of the earliest films by an out lesbian.
But, as Hammer put it: “I was prolific in work and sex,” and you will never have such a high probability of seeing her story told in a venue filled with so many of Hammer’s ex-girlfriends.
This year’s Frameline lineup in particular is full of local film nerd deep cuts, like “.99 Cent Queer Video Club,” a shout-out to the Tuesday smorgasbords of underground queer shorts and bootleg film and TV clips that used to play at Paula’s Clubhouse at 3160 16th St. (now the Kilowatt).
Mission Local recently sat down with Allegra Madsen (Frameline’s executive director) and Kate Bove (associate director of programs) to talk about the 50th anniversary of Frameline. Here’s how they turned thousands of film submissions into ten days of live moviegoing experiences for a complicated city.
This interview has been edited for length and flow.
Mission Local: This is Frameline’s 50th year, so I was wondering, how does a film festival get born, and what makes it stick around for 50 years?
Kate Bove: I think what’s unique about Frameline is that it was very community-focused in the beginning — like, truly, films projected on a bed sheet, and folks just wanting to see their stories because they weren’t getting that representation elsewhere.
Allegra Madsen: People in the Bay Area take film as a serious art form. The Bay does that with all of its culture: We’re critical, while still having fun. I can’t even begin to count how many film festivals we have here — and they have audiences.
KB: We have a strong indie art scene. But then the proximity to Hollywood and LA — there are just a lot of filmmakers. There’s a pollination of mainstream Hollywood film and indie filmmaking. It all coalesces here.
ML: How did you put together this year’s slate of films? Are there certain types of films that you absolutely need to have? Certain genres you see every year?
AM: We are trying to do something that I secretly think is maybe impossible, but that’s not going to keep me from trying to do it. We want to try to be a reflection of the queer conversation that’s happening in the world right now. It’s got to be representative of as wide of a cross-section of humanity and queer humanity as we can get our hands on.
But every year, you do start seeing a variation on a theme. There are certain films that will always be out in the world. There will always be a queer slasher. There will always be a slow-burn lesbian romance. There will always be a young gay guy moving to the city.
ML: I have noticed that I don’t see many films in Frameline that feature gay people explaining themselves to straight people.
AM: In the programming team we ask the question, “Who is this really for?” And if it doesn’t immediately strike us as for people inside the queer community, we kind of put it to the side.
ML: What are two can’t-miss movies from this year’s lineup as far as you’re concerned?
KB: Definitely “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.” And my other would be “At the Place of Ghosts,” which is a great queer indigenous horror film. When I say “horror,” I feel like that conjures very particular things, but it’s more atmospheric. It plays with time in an interesting way.
I don’t want to say too much about it, but I just really, really loved it and would love people to check it out.
AM: I, too, would say “Teenage Sex and Death.” I love that it’s our final screening, because it says a lot about this moment that we’re living through. It asks the quintessential queer person question: “Can you ever really be recognized if you can’t be completely truthful about yourself?” and does it in a new way.
And then the other one that I would pick — I’m just gonna go out on a limb, but “Test,” which is set in the world of competitive body-building. I just loved this exploration of the performance of gender inside this seemingly very hyper-masculine world. It’s just a sweet melodrama too.
KB: I’m excited for people to see “Public Access.” Some folks may have missed watching public access television [in the 1980s], but it really is this forerunner to social media, where the ability to make content and get it out in the world was democratized, and led to great and unique and weird representation, and also terrible hate speech all at once.
Looking at that arc of history and where we are in the present moment — with censorship, with making art, with the consolidation of the industry — reflecting on these early modes of getting stories out is really fascinating.
ML: What are your top two all-time favorite queer films?
AM:. I’m trying so hard not to say “Desert Hearts” right now.
ML: It’s wild to think that that movie got made. It is almost like queer film regressed after that movie. [ Note: “Desert Hearts” was made in 1985 and yet, somehow — SPOILER ALERT — none of the gay characters die horribly.]
AM: Cay is such an amazing character and I’m like — ”How did this happen?” I really, I really love it. I can’t wait to watch it at the Castro with Donna Deitch. Every year at the festival, I think I may have just leveled up a little bit on my gay scale, and think that will be my moment this year.
KB: “Carol” is on my all-time favorites, for sure — similar to “Portrait of A Lady on Fire,” every frame is like a painting.
But we do have this joke that I would put “Babe” — the George Miller film — in because Babe has this outsider jock storyline that is kind of gay. He just wants to be a herding dog, and he’s a pig, and he has to just find his way with the sheep … I like looking back at these films that made their mark on us and thinking, “Why is that?”
ML: So many movies that feel like gayest movies ever made are actually made for a straight audience.
AM: I was asking people, “What movies made you gay?” and without hesitation, Alice Wu said, “It’s gonna be Tank Girl.”
ML: Did you notice a theme in the submissions this year?
AM: I do think people are wrestling and reckoning with how much media we have grown up consuming, and how that shapes who you are and how you process the world.
KB: We’re at this moment with censorship and the consolidation of the industry where people are taking their stories into their own hands in a way that feels really reinvigorating.
AM: I would love to just shout out “Our Effed Up World,” and Alice Maio McKay. I think she is incredibly representative of that drive, of l “Well, I’m going to figure out how to get this made, and I’m going to make it, and there’s just not anyone that can stop me.”
She’s like 21 years old and she’s made a million films [Note: Seven! Still impressive!] and this most recent one we’re playing in the Castro. It’s really smart and very funny.
ML: What is your path to this very interesting job? Is curating Frameline something that you train for?
KB: My background is in creative writing. I moved out here for grad school and was working in museums, and knew that I liked this idea of working in a space where you could see art connecting with people, but I never really studied or worked in film.
I was doing some freelance writing and was laid off because of AI — which is wild, because this was quite a few years ago now — and I happened to get a seasonal role with SF Film, and from there fell into the festival world.
I love the seasonality of it, all coming together for this huge moment. Being able to connect folks with stories they want to see, or maybe don’t realize they need to see, is really cool. It was not the journey I expected, but I’m so glad that I found it.
AM: I also came to San Francisco for grad school. I went to [California College of the Arts] — I was in their curatorial practice program.
It was very much about curating contemporary art, and I was very interested in social practice — how people could use art to connect with other people and create interesting moments. I kind of built that into doing weird events all over the Bay.
I was working in the Bayview, and you name it, I was doing it, in the name of gathering people in public space. I built a mini-golf course. I put on a circus. Anything. I think we’re in danger of losing all of our public spaces if we don’t really use them. I always had film programming. There’s no movie theater out there [in the Bayview]. There’s no art house theater anywhere nearby.
I think of film as the gateway art form. Everybody understands film — or they understand how to go to the movies. “The lights are down, I eat my popcorn, the movie comes on.” People understand what to do, so you can confront people with big ideas that way, when they feel comfortable and ready to engage.
ML: I do feel like in your time as director of Frameline, you bring a fun that isn’t always there at a film festival. You’re coming from a baseline of “We should be enjoying ourselves.”
AM: I find it funny that you aren’t the first person to say that. Yes, we should be enjoying ourselves. If we’re not gonna have a good time, what are we doing?
Note: Several of the films discussed in this interview have no more advance tickets; you can join the last-minute Rush Line for them, or see if tickets have become available at noon on the day of the screening. Read more about that here.
