CHASING INCLUSION

Denver’s only LGBTQ film festival returns

BY MICHAEL J. CASEY

From Aug. 10-13, the CinemaQ Film Festival — Denver’s only LGBTQ movie event — returns to the Sie Film Center for four days of screenings, discussion panels, drag parties and special guests. If you’ve felt that this has been a rather bland and rote summer at the Cineplex, then, reader, you are in for a treat.

Some titles to note: Bottoms (7 p.m. Aug. 10) reteams Shiva Baby actor Rachel Sennott and director Emma Seligman for another round of cringe comedy. The incomparable Udo Kier pays Denver a visit with two restorations from the Warhol Factory, Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula, plus a conversation with Kier and Scream Screen programmer and host Theresa Mercado (6 p.m. Aug. 12). And writer-director-star Julio Torres closes out CinemaQ with Problemista, his surrealistic debut feature co-starring Tilda Swinton (5 p.m. Aug. 13). All are worth your time. Just make sure you clear your schedule for Chasing Chasing Amy (2:30 p.m. Aug. 13).

For those who don’t recognize the title within the title, Chasing Amy is a queer rom-com written and directed by Kevin Smith about a straight guy (Ben Affleck) falling for a gay gal (Joey Lauren Adams). Released by Miramax in 1997 to a fair amount of commercial and critical success, Chasing Amy quickly became a cult classic for the indie crowd but has since been dismissed as “problematic” — partly because of Smith’s perspective as a straight, cisgender man, and partly because of the depictions of queerness on screen.

Not that any of that mattered to 12-year-old Sav Rodgers. Not yet out, Chasing Amy was literally a life- saving discovery for the filmmaker. At one point, Rodgers watched Amy once a day every day for an entire month. As one of the film’s interviewees says, “Problematic can still be significant in your development.”

That makes Chasing Chasing Amy a fascinating work of film criticism and personal discovery. Rodgers’ infatuation with Amy, with Smith, with the actors, even with the film’s New Jersey locations runs so deep you know some reconciliation with Chasing Amy is in order if Rodgers is going to move beyond this obsession. And for that, the filmmaker weaves a second story into the documentary — one of becoming — that could not be if Amy did not exist. “It’s not the movie I set out to make,” Rodgers admits in the final moments.

“But it’s the movie we have.”

There’s a lot to unpack in Chasing Chasing Amy, particularly the Adams interview — which provides a very different perspective than Rodgers expected — but those discoveries are best left to the documentary. Rodgers will be on hand following CinemaQ’s screening for a Q&A, which is bound to be as lively, funny and personal as the movie.

ON SCREEN: 2023

CinemaQ Film Festival.

Aug. 10-13, Denver Film Center, 2510 E. Colfax Ave., Denver. Pricing and schedule at denverfilm.org