Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, is underway and showcasing a spate of promising new filmmakers.
Romanian writer-director Marius Olteanu‘s innovative drama Monsters., may be Frameline’s most cinematically ambitious film. A dynamic aspect ratio and a figure-it-out-yourself story structure make it clear that Oltenau is an aspirational filmmaker.
Leon Le‘s groundbreaking romance Song Lang takes us into the vivid world of cải lương, the Vietnamese folk opera, for an operatic love story. More than just “the Vietnamese Brokeback Mountain“.
The first feature for Spanish director Arantxa Echevarria, Carmen y Lola, is a sexual coming of age story set among urban Romani people in contemporary Spain.
Making Montgomery Clift, the first feature-length documentary for Robert Anderson Clift and Hilary Demmon, is an unexpectedly insightful and nuanced probe into the life of Clift’s uncle, the movie star Montgomery Clift. Demmon also masterfully edited the film.
Frameline’s closing night film, the emotionally powerful documentary, Gay Chorus Deep South, is the first film for director David Charles Rodrigues. It tracks the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus concert tour through the Deep South in the aftermath of the Trump election.
Through the Windows, the first feature for directors Petey Barma and Bret “Brook” Parker, tells the story of the famed bar Twin Peaks – the first San Francisco gay bar set up to let patrons and passers-by obdsrve each other directly. And, playing before Through the Windows, the documentary short Dressing Up Like Mrs. Doubtfire, about movie depictions of cross-dressing and the impact of the Robin Williams performance, is one of several shorts by director Will Zang, and could be developed into a future feature.
