docs
The Same Difference
Scrum
DIR Nneka Onuroah 2014 USA 67 min
DIR Poppy Stockell 2015 Australia 54 min
King Kellz, the hottest performer at City of Doms, New York’s premier stud/AG (Aggressives) strip club, has the full package: a deep, luxurious voice; a masculine swagger; and a long, wavy weave that she proudly installs herself. Her fellow AGs hate on her for wearing a weave, but Kellz refuses to accept that there is only one way to be masculine, remarking, “It’s not what you wear. It’s your demeanor and how your carry yourself.... Your baggy clothes don’t determine your character.” The Same Difference is a compelling documentary that broadens the definition of what it means to be a stud. Self-identified studs — and the women who love them — discuss hypocrisy in terms of gender roles and performative expectations within the stud/AG community. This film features many queer celebrities, including actress Felicia “Snoop” Pearson from the critically acclaimed HBO drama The Wire, AzMarie Livingston from America’s Next Top Model and FOX’s hit series Empire, Dee Pimpin from MTV’s Catfish, Crissle West from the popular podcast The Read, and Lea DeLaria and Danielle Brooks from Orange Is the New Black. From stud-on-stud relationships, to AGs who decide to get pregnant, to studs dressing femme for pay, director Nneka Onuroah’s engaging documentary ensures that no topic is left untouched.
Rugby is always about trying to advance the ball forward, but director Poppy Stockell’s steamy, pulsating, gritty documentary concerns players seeking acceptance and baring their very souls (and plenty more) on the field. Scrum might technically refer to restarting a play in order to gain control of the ball, but it’s really about a group of guys packing close together in one place — in this case, gay rugby’s 7th Annual Bingham Cup in Sydney, with 1,000 participants from 15 countries. The documentary zeroes in on three determined gay athletes vying for a spot on the elite Sydney Convicts team: Aki, the Japanese outsider who worked tirelessly for two years so he could travel to Sydney; Brennan, a hunky Canadian jock who was built for contact sports but rejected by his former, straight teammates after they discovered he was gay; and Pearse, the Irish backpacker bullied in school, tired of being continually put down. Scrum pulls the viewer right into the sweaty, grueling Bingham Cup, becoming not only a dramatic competition film, but also a film that finds the heart of the sport’s universal themes: acceptance, teamwork, and mud-soaked male camaraderie.
— TAYLOR HODGES
PRECEDED BY:
Heft dir
Alexandria Wright 2014 USA 10 min
Set in the East Bay, Heft is about the daily encounters between a large queer black woman and the suitors and scoundrels who vie for her attention.
— BRIAN BROMBERGER PRECEDED BY:
Camouflage dirs Stephan Kämpf & Andreas Kessler 2014 Germany 8 min In German with English subtitles
During a military exercise in the woods, two soldiers cover each other’s faces in camouflage paint, as every trembling of their fingers carries the weight of the intimate moment. Monday, June 22, 7:00 pm · Victoria
Tuesday, June 23, 7:00 pm · Roxie $10 members, $12 general · SAME23R
SPlTLIGHT SPORTS
Seed Money: The Chuck Holmes Story DIR Michael Stabile 2014 USA 70 min
It’s an only-in-San-Francisco story: closeted Indiana boy heads for the gay mecca, comes out in the fabulous 1970s, builds an adult-entertainment empire, befriends David Geffen and Bill Clinton, helps found the Human Rights Campaign, donates millions to community causes, succumbs to AIDS, and is honored as the namesake of the SF LGBT Center — all while indulging his obsession with hairless bubble butts in visionary porn epics. This bio, by turns salacious, poignant, and inspiring, belongs to infamous provocateur and philanthropist Chuck Holmes, the subject of the (a)rousing documentary Seed Money. As the founder of Falcon Studios, Holmes created hardcore extravaganzas like The Other Side of Aspen for the VHS-and-cocaine era and parlayed his success into activism. Though LGBT groups were happy to have his moolah, they sometimes shunned their benefactor because of his background in the jizz biz. Today, Holmes is rightfully recognized as a hero both for liberating a generation’s libido and for supporting its members through their darkest days. Director Michael Stabile (Smut Capital of America, Frameline35) celebrates Holmes via interviews with porn icons Chi Chi LaRue and Jeff Stryker, politicos Mark Leno and Carole Migden, and Holmes’s longtime partner, Hot House honcho Steven Scarborough. — STEVEN JENKINS PRECEDED BY:
Health Class dir
Brad McDermott 2014 Canada 8 min
Trevor confronts his high school sex ed teacher with re-imagined, more explicit materials.
$10 members, $12 general · SCRU22V
These films contain sexually explicit material.
Friday, June 26, 11:00 am · Castro
Sunday, June 21, 9:15 pm · Castro
sponsored by
sponsored by
$8 members, $10 general · SCRU26C
$10 members, $12 general · SEED21C
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