2023 Film Line-up

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This film documents the history and impact of lesbian fiction from the 1920s through the 1990s. Narrator Lillian Faderman recounts the impact key world events had on LGBTQ history throughout the decades. With interviews from numerous trailblazing lesbian authors, including Ann Bannon, Rita Mae Brown, Jewel Gomez and Sarah Waters, we learn how these world events helped shape their stories and to what extent the stories were reflections of the authors’ own lives as they looked for affirmation and their place in the world.

By Lisa Marie Evan & Marianne K. Martin

1:39:44               USA

A scientist accidentally shrinks her comedian girlfriend to the size of a Brussels sprout.

By Nicole de Meneses

7:10              USA

“ALL WIGGED OUT” offers insights for caregivers, family, and friends of cancer patients and others with severe illness. What was at stake for Marcy was her entire livelihood as a musician, stopped in its tracks by neuropathy caused by chemotherapy. What was never at stake was the deep love between Marcy and Cathy, whose own livelihood might well be affected by this diagnosis. And in the end, they triumph together.
Marcy Marxer is a GRAMMY winning singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist.

By Tracy Walsh, Marcy Marxer & Cathy Fink

58:00             USA

It’s Christmas Eve morning in Kentucky. Eighteen year-old Michelle arrives to help her old school country grandma get ready for the night’s big family dinner. To Michelle’s exasperation, Mamaw drags them on an impromptu trip to the cemetery where they meet a grieving new widow. Mamaw consoles the woman by introducing her to her own family who are buried nearby. Mamaw tells her her husband will never be alone. He’s got company! Mamaw teaches Michelle a powerful lesson - never let anyone sit alone in their grief, especially if it’s one you know. Once the living leave, the ghosts of the husbands appear and take part in their own heavenly Christmas dinner.

ByJulia Maddox

11:50            USA

Alex has wanted to have a baby almost as long as she can remember. But how is a trans/butch lesbian supposed to get sperm? When she considers asking Mateo, a close gay friend of hers, Alex is forced to investigate what she really values.

By Karleen Pendleton Jiménez & Barb Taylor

6:11        Toronto, Ontario, Canada

When two men are denied a marriage license in their hometown, the town attempts to erase the incident from public record.

Over the course of a year, the couple's supporters fight for justice and an accurate narrative of events.

By  Julie Casper Roth

26:46           USA

A 15-year-old girl, Lin, who stays home pretending to be sick, lost her best friend because of a sketch, which also exposed her unrequited love under the summer sunlight.

By Shuyin Zheng

10:14         China

This documentary gives voice to the four lesbians who founded the collective Amazones d'Hier, Lesbiennes d'Aujourd'hui in Montreal in 1979. Forty years later, through archival documents and interesting mise en abyme, they look back on their pioneering achievement: a video about lesbians of the time. They situate their activism within the young international lesbian movement that emerged in the wake of the feminist movement. They bear witness to their journey and their vision of lesbianism, at a specific moment in Quebec history, at the turn of the 1980s. At the center of this team is activist Johanne Coulombe, who will suddenly be swept away a few weeks after the filming of the film. Her death, like that of Danielle Charest ten years earlier, poignantly illustrates the importance of this work of memory in which the film undeniably participates.

By Dominique Bourque, Johanne Coulombe, Julie Vaillancourt

56:36            Canada

What Kind of Help? follows a women in lockdown in her apartment. We see her living her isolated days over and over while trying to cope with the pressure of a pandemic lockdown on a extrovert. As we watch her move about her new confining life, we hear her calling for help, but what kind of help.

By amanda kindzierski

6:45           Canada

An inside look at The Prospect Park Women’s Softball League which was formed in 1981 with a radical vision to welcome all women to play regardless of prior experience. It remains a place where women meet across differences of race, economic class, sexual orientation, education, religion, and gender identity to play softball.

By Melanie Hope 

20:38     Brooklyn, NY, USA

A kid tells what it's like to have two moms.

By Elena Pendleton

8:05          Canada

This film documents the history of the Italians in the U.S., and specifically in Oakland, California. It includes the vibrant story of the Italian social clubs dating back to 1920 in North Oakland and extending to the year 2022. It's told from a personal point of view, tracing the journey of one woman, the filmmaker, whose grandparents came to New York a century ago as immigrants from southern Italy and what happened when they arrived in America. She weaves her own family story with the story of the Italian immigrants to the U.S. She also includes her own personal story as an Italian American lesbian, seeking to live in a large gay community in California, which has meant leaving behind her ethnic hub in New York and the complex feelings that have resulted from this decision. She asks the crucial question: How do you hold onto your culture in a new land? It's a question every granddaughter of immigrants faces.

By Giovanna S Capone

1:41:41             USA

When she was a sophomore in college, Olivia Muse endured an emotionally abusive relationship with her first girlfriend. Four years later, Olivia still can’t help but wonder: “Did that happen to me because I’m a bad lesbian?” Since when did abuse happen in the queer community? And why isn’t anyone talking about this?

Now, Olivia is tired of the silence. Through documenting her own recovery, Olivia challenges the narrative of abuse, empowers other survivors, and tries to motivate change in a community from within.

By Ava Palmo, Madeline Johnson, Olivia Muse

33:42     USA

Womontown tells the story of a group of women in Kansas City who banded together to defy gender norms, transforming 12 city blocks in the Longfellow neighborhood into a revolutionary community by and for women. Drea Nedelsky and her girlfriend, Mary Ann Hopper, two lesbians who found themselves facing threats of violence, homophobia and misogyny, had a vision. They imagined a neighborhood where they could be themselves without fear, a place where women could walk hand-in-hand down the street without the judgments and criticisms normally encountered in the “straight world.”

By Brydie O'Connor & Emily Woodring 

30:00    USA

College student, Ricara, makes every attempt to smoke a blunt and get a free meal before midterms, but after her friend, LaTonya, sends a tactless breakup text to their mutual friend, this sticky-icky Saturday proves more icky than any of them expected.

By Black LGBT+ Plays

17:02       USA

The love of God comes at no cost to those who seek him with a humble, open heart. Religion teaches this, but not every church teaches the same unconditional love God is supposed to represent. Tamar has been called to become a minister, and for most, this would be an honorable moment, but for Tamar, it is the worst thing that could have happened. Tamar is the middle lesbian daughter of Deacon Jessup “Jessie” Arthur, and Evangelist Allison Arthur. Tamar has been taught that her desires are not that of God, so she has suppressed them for the last 16 years and has never dated a woman despite it being what she truly wants.  It’s only when she meets Pastor Monica Smith that things are put into perspective, and she can return to the church with a new mindset, space, and objective: to teach love and understanding through her own faith walk.

By B. Danielle Watkins

1:47:00       USA

The children of a newly single lesbian co-conspire with their neighborhood friend. Together they plot an exorcism to remove "The gay" from their mother. Unfortunately, what they conjure up is far more menacing than expected.

By Sarah Woodward 

10:38          USA