docs
Olya’s Love DIR Kirill Sakharnov 2014 Russia, Austria 68 min
In Russian with English subtitles
DIR Michelle Boyaner 2015 77 min
Olya, an LGBTQ activist, is devoted to her girlfriend, Galya. But is the struggle against homophobia her true love? Olya is Moscow-born and more outspoken than Galya, a young lesbian from the provinces. Despite their differences, they intend to start a family and a life together. Much of their current life, however, is consumed by demonstrations against anti-homosexual propaganda in Russia. Alternately set on Moscow’s streets, capturing remarkable protest footage, and in the women’s home, the documentary judiciously explores the intersection of the idea of “freedom” in a couple’s public and personal lives. Premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam, Olya’s Love presents a powerful account of those who fight daily against persecution in Russia and — at its core — reveals a fearless woman’s search for someone to share her life and her love. — WILL GARDNER
PRECEDED BY:
Victory Day Alina Rudnitskaya 2014 Russia 29 min In Russian with English subtitles
dir
While most Russians celebrate the annual Victory Day by commemorating their country’s defeat of Nazi Germany decades ago, six gay and lesbian couples share their own stories of government-instituted oppression. In-home interviews reveal the domesticity and normalcy of these ardent pairs, juxtaposed with clips of homophobic Russians in power and the raucous celebrations just outside the windows of the subjects — the true enemy is obvious.
Saturday, June 20, 11:00 am · Roxie $8 members, $10 general · OLYA20R
Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson Part detective story, part rumination, and all celebration, this warm and vivid film unpacks a very personal history of what it meant to be an artist and a lesbian in early 20th century America. Emmy-winning writer and director Jane Anderson (Normal, Olive Kitteridge, If These Walls Could Talk 2) grew up surrounded by her great-aunt Edith’s radiant Post-Impressionist paintings, which had been discovered by her mother in a West Virginia attic. The Fauvist colors and intimate subjects of the works are astonishing, but Edith Lake Wilkinson is virtually unknown. How could this be? Anderson set out to learn why, first as a young, freshly out lesbian in late-1970s New York City, and again, forty years later, as an accomplished artist in her own right, with a wife, a grown son, and a haunting feeling that hers was the life her greataunt should have been able to live. Director Michelle Boyaner (A Finished Life: The Goodbye & No Regrets Tour, Frameline32) follows closely as Anderson retraces Edith’s story — she was committed to an insane asylum in 1924, at the peak of her career, separating her from her longtime partner Fannie and ending her art-making in the colonies of Provincetown — and combs through archives, consults experts, and even taps into the paranormal for clues about her life. Through the luminous, layered compositions of cinematographer-editor Barbara Green and under Anderson’s chatty, determined lead, Edith is revivified. Seen, she can now be known. — LUCY LAIRD
Saturday, June 27, 1:30 pm · Victoria $8 members, $10 general · PACK27V
Peace of Mind DIR Cary Cronenwett 2014 USA, Haiti 77 min
In Creole and English with English subtitles
Cary Cronenwett’s beautifully constructed documentary is at once a poetic, highly personal, and generously balanced portrait of the late trans artist Flo McGarrell. Frameline audiences will fondly remember Maggots and Men (Frameline33), a stunning collaboration in which Cronenwett helmed the cinematic shipwreck of transmasculine sailors and Flo was the film’s brilliant art director. Focusing on the final chapter of his short life, this documentary shows Flo realizing a lifelong goal by becoming director of the FOSAJ Art Center in Jacmel, Haiti, a coastal town known for its artistic culture. His tenure proves transformative as the center becomes a refuge for queer community — and identity, influence, and privilege inform the subsequent process of cultural negotiation. Cronenwett summons an experimental visual landscape alongside archival footage, evoking the utopian motivation of FOSAJ’s outsider artists. This impulse is never stronger than in the film’s creative resurrection of the duo’s unfinished film project, Kathy Goes to Haiti, based on the novel by Kathy Acker. The film also weaves interviews with local artists and intimates, including Sue Frame, who recounts Flo’s death during the devastating earthquake of 2010. Out of the still evident rubble of that overwhelming disaster, Flo’s legacy and memory nurture one small but hopeful strand of renewal. — ROBERT AVILA
PRECEDED BY:
Float dir
Sam Berliner 2015 USA 5 min
Stunningly celebratory, this artistic film is shot completely underwater featuring trans and genderqueer folks swimming naked. Saturday, June 20, 1:30 pm · Victoria $8 members, $10 general · PEAC20V
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