STREAM QUEEN

SIX PICKS FOR NEW QUEER FLICKS

BENEDICTION

Here’s a new film from world-class auteur Terence Davies, writer and director of A Quiet Passion, the Emily Dickinson biopic. Benediction explores the turbulent life of World War I poet Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden). The writer and soldier was a complex man who survived the horrors of fighting in WW1. He was decorated for his bravery, but when he returned from service, he became a vocal critic of the government’s continuation of the war. His poetry was inspired by his experiences on the Western Front, and he became one of the leading war poets of the era. Adored by members of the aristocracy as well as stars of London’s literary and stage world, he embarked on affairs with several men as he attempted to come to terms with his homosexuality. At the same time, broken by the horror of war, he made his life’s journey a quest for salvation, trying to find it within the conformity of marriage and religion. benedictionmovie.com

THE FASHION LOVER

Directed by Marco Pollini, this Italian coming-of-age drama The Fashion Lover will be released on VOD this month by Ariztical Entertainment. Giovannino (Pino Ammendola) is a boy who dreams of working in the fashion industry. Against the will of his shepherd father, he attends a fashion technical college in Sardinia. His father, Antonio, is a violent man; his mother, Alice, is a depressed woman who decides to leave her husband and her family after the continuous cheating of Antonio. It’s June and school is ending. The boy must take care of his 8-year-old sister, Stella; and his father forces him to look after the animals. During a fashion show organized by his school, Giovannino’s creation, a dress, is worn by a famous model and luckily, he is rewarded. He then understands that he is capable of doing great things with fashion and starts trying to find a way to leave his father and go chase his dream. ariztical.com

WORKHORSE QUEEN

Through a tender mix of touching moments and wise-cracking humor, Workhouse Queen is an intimate exploration of the complexities of reality television’s impact on queer performance culture. It arrives on DVD and VOD this month, followed closely by the network premiere on Starz on June 1 for Pride month.

Told from the perspective of the overlooked yet beloved drag queen Mrs. Kasha Davis, Workhorse Queen focuses on the growing divide between a small-town drag community members — those who have been on television and those who have not. “In this cultural moment where drag queens are most visible in the competitive space of reality television, it’s important to remember that there are communities of drag queens doing meaningful, subversive, healing, and celebratory work in smaller towns — and that every drag queen who makes it to the television stage is a part of a longer lineage of queer activists and artists who paved the way for them,” director Angela Washko said. “This film celebrates generations of queer performers who have created space for drag in places that may have been otherwise unwelcoming to LGBTQ+ people. I am thankful that through distribution, the film will get to circulate widely — to the people in those small towns.” Washko’s directorial debut follows Mrs. Kasha Davis as she navigates the exciting highs and devastating lows of pursuing the fame promised by a reality-TV platform. With one foot inching toward Hollywood’s doorstep and the other cemented firmly within her beloved Rochester community, Mrs. Kasha Davis finds a surprising new audience at home. She works toward becoming the queer role model for children that Ed didn’t have and desperately wanted growing up. “It has been an incredible journey documenting she Popil/Mrs. Kasha Davis,” Washko said. “He stood out to me because it felt like there was so much more to his story and he represented a larger community of drag queens who don’t quite fit the mold of what reality television wants from its participants.” The film also includes the voices and perspectives of drag queen celebrities who have been on RuPaul’s Drag Race, such as superstar Bianca Del Rio, Darienne Lake, Tatianna and Pandora Boxx. Also seen are leaders of subversive performance communities around the world, including drag queens who reject or have been rejected by the reality-TV platform. bgpics.com/movies/workhorse-queen

ANAÏS IN LOVE

A buoyant French comedy from director

Charline Bourgeois-

Tacquet, Anaïs In Love follows spirited and romantic thirtysomething Anaïs (Anaïs Demoustier) in her manic search for stability. Behind on her rent, contemplating breaking up with her boyfriend, and struggling to complete her thesis, Anaïs searches for inspiration while hurtling through lovers with abandon. However, when her affair with an older book publisher, Daniel (Denis Podalydès), leads to her falling for his live-in partner Emilie (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), a brilliant and luminescent novelist, things get incredibly messy. This effervescent, cliché-shattering feature debut weaves a tale of self-discovery as literate and delightful as it is unexpected, keeping both Anaïs and viewers off-balance until the very last moment.

“I didn’t want to make a ‘niche’ film,” Bourgeois-Tacquet said. “My movie isn’t about a young woman’s discovery of her homosexuality. Even if this new desire troubles Anaïs, she never questions her sexual orientation. And it is important to me that this shouldn’t be an issue here, in a time period when people are finally allowing themselves to love differently. It is purely a matter of desire which shatters all boundaries meaning social codes, genres assigned by society and age differences. Anaïs and Emilie’s story is the narrative of an extremely powerful encounter between two subjectivities. A story of love and desire that also encompasses the mind and intelligence.”

magpictures.com/anaisinlove

KAMIKAZE HEARTS

A newly restored lesbian classic by Juliet Bashore, this quasi-documentary plunges into the 1980s porn industry and takes an unsparing look at issues of misogyny, drug abuse and exploitation via the story of two women. The naïve newcomer Tigr and her partner, the magnetic, imperious porn veteran Sharon Mitchell are caught in a toxic romance. By turns mesmerizing and unsettling, Kamikaze Hearts is both a fascinating record of pre-gentrification San Francisco’s X-rated underground and an intense, searing love story.

Kamikaze Hearts is based on the lives of Tigr Mennett and her lover, porn superstar Sharon Mitchell, set at the peak of San Francisco’s so-called Golden Age of porn. In 1982 Bashore met Mennett while working a day job with a local film crew on The Nurses of the 407th, a mega-budget pornographic parody of the M*A*S*H* TV series. Together with Mennett and producer Heinz Legler, Bashore raised money for a straight documentary on “the business.” When director Charles Webb (aka Charles DeSantos) withdrew his consent for their crew to film on his set, Bashore and Mennett used their production resources to finance an alternative production, the fictional porno operetta “Carmen” as a vehicle for Tigr’s porn-star lover, Mitchell. Bashore, Mennett and a handful of others knew that the film being shot was a dummy and would never be released as porn. The result was not only a free-wheeling portrait of porn’s liminal, outlaw space where queerness and transgression thrive, but of the porn world itself as a caricature of Hollywood.

STRICTLY FOR THE BIRDS

Breaking Glass Pictures will release this intimate, endearing look at one woman’s life, when she finally claims her identity and finds love at the tender age of 65. Based on the profoundly personal In Between memoir, Strictly for the Birds is a transgender biopic coming-of-age story, taking place in the autumn of the protagonist’s life. Unique for its enduring measure of self-discovery and resolve, the film takes the viewer into the life of Dan Birdsall, lived on behalf of her true self Kate Birdsall. Strictly for the Birds is the story of a son who becomes a husband and a father, then a mother and a wife. Kate Birdsall finds strength, pride and contentment, proving that it’s never too late to be true to who you are or to find the love you’ve always longed for. “I hope that, in telling my story, I can help others,” Birdsall said. “Being born transgender is just one aspect of the human experience. We are not stamped out in a factory but come into the world in amazing variety. With love and the kindness of others, each of us can grow into who we were meant to be.” Strictly for the Birds focuses on Kate, who was born transgender decades before the word existed and who struggled to make sense of it all. Through many relocations and many jobs, including a career in the Coast Guard, Kate was able to claim herself at age 65 and find the love of her life, Andrea Drury. Their journey to “rightness” as individuals and as a couple has grown into a beautiful, blended family, including Kate’s daughter and grandson. bgpics.com