Movies

Bowen Yang’s First Gay Film

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Bowen Yang

Bowen on Fire (Island)
He’s here, he’s queer, and now the‘SNL’ juggernaut is the lead in his very first (very gay) film
By Chris Azzopardi

Maybe Bowen Yang will just forever live the Fire Island fantasy wherever he is. Is that what happens when you make a movie in what many consider gay paradise? Who knows, but based on Yang’s attire on Zoom — a beaded, rainbow-colored flower necklace and a casual white-and-blue checkered shirt, his white undershirt exposed — the Australian-born Chinese American actor looks ready to challenge the rich, white gays known for essentially claiming the queer party town, just off the southern shore of Long Island, New York, as their own.

But not in Hulu’s “Fire Island,” a movie that can make us believe it isn’t exclusive to any group as a boatload of intersectional queers — the main friend group is refreshingly Asian American and Black — sail away to the island for more than just wild nights and romantic seashore walks. They know what they’re getting into — drugs, drinking, and all those white gays — and they’re the kind of besties who know exactly what’s on everyone’s Fire Island agenda.

For some, obviously, that’s a little more than a snuggle. For Howie, though, that _is_ a snuggle. Yang plays Howie, and his very good friend Noah (Joel Kim Booster, who wrote the script as a modern retelling of “Pride and Prejudice”) knows that Howie won’t ever be the slut he wants him to be. That, of course, doesn’t stop him from trying to whore out Howie. After all, that’s just what good friends do! “You’re cute, you’re funny, you’re consistently the least repellent of men out of all of us,” he tells Howie, earnestly.

The same could be said of Yang, who’s gained an avid following since he started writing for “Saturday Night Live” in 2018. Just a year later, when he was promoted to featured cast member, he made history as the first-ever Chinese American cast member (and third openly gay male cast member after Terry Sweeney and John Milhiser).

In a recent conversation, Yang chatted about being a leading man for the first time, not being recognized in a West Hollywood gay bar recently, and infusing his own signature queer flavor into “Saturday Night Live.”

Every time I watch a queer movie, I just wish it existed sooner.

Is that like our lot in audience life? I think we’re just gonna think that for everything. For me, and I don’t mean to undermine this thought, but even if it’s a perfectly fine-to-bad queer movie — not saying that our movie is those things — but add it to the pile!

So the whole time I was watching “Fire Island,” I wanted to know how you got cast as Howie, the non-slutty character? Specifically the non-slutty part.

I think Joel was doing this great thing, which is to map it onto our friendship a bit while also mapping it onto the source material of “Pride and Prejudice” and having it be like Jane and Liz. But then also just outlining the ways that a lot of queer people, and maybe specifically gay men, might not share an organizing principle in that way. Like, there are some people who really go for it and just catch as many Pokémon as they can, so to speak, and there are some who choose not to.

I mean, in my 20s I was definitely a Howie.

Oh, and then that shifted?

It did shift. And it feels good.

Great. I think maybe that’s in store for me.

In 105 minutes, this film takes on body positivity, prejudiced gays, horny gays, non-horny gays, infighting… . Was there a lot of conversation about what this movie would cover?

I mean, if you create a liberated space for people, then their thoughts might kind of reach just a bit beyond the pale in a setting outside of that. And so I think Joel’s whole thesis for the movie is “what happens when gay people go to an all-gay space, and then gay people start to bring all their societal baggage onto each other and turn it inward.”

I think he did a great job of balancing all those things. I think he just recognized that Fire Island is this wonderful stew pot full of different kinds of people, and that you get all these different elements to that when everyone co-mingles in that way.

I love that there’s a group of queer people of color who are just like, “Gonna sail over, and you know? This is also our place.”

Yeah. And in my experience going there — and I go at least once a year, every summer — it is weirdly still a given that you’re gonna see that it’s a bit dominated by one kind of person.

I’m always really delighted by the people I see there who are there driven by the same sort of mission of just spending time with their queer friends. Going to the beach, just getting away from all the things that sort of bog them down on the mainland.

Did you see “Wine Country”?

I did, yes.

So was this your “Wine Country”?

Oh my god, I guess so. All “Fire Island” was missing was a Brené Brown cameo. I think the nice thing about this is that it’s like a vacation comedy, obviously, and a rom-com, but I think the way that Joel wanted to map it onto “Pride and Prejudice” is such an ingenious thing. It’s about the way people relate to each other. It’s about the ways that we stratify each other, or relate to each other based on class, wealth or, in this case, race.

With “Wine Country,” Amy Poehler had said the film was basically a trip those same girls had taken many times before. Had any of you already experienced “Fire Island” together?

Yes, yes. We have. Me, Joel and Matt Rogers had gone in the past. And the idea came out of Joel and I going the first time together. This was 2015, where he brought a copy of “Pride and Prejudice” to the island. And then he and I were reading by the pool one day, and he just turns to me and goes, “This would make a good movie. The way that people judge each other is similar. The way that there are all these social gatherings that people sort of get worked up about, it’s all there.”

In some ways, the idea predates the established dynamic that Joel, Matt and I have had there. But I feel like it’s [in] a similar vein in that it’s loosely based on these trips that we’ve taken together. It’s similar to our experiences going there in terms of like, we would go there when we could barely afford it. We [were] 18 people to a three-bedroom house, those kind of “roughing it” early experiences.

Did you, Joel and Matt also meet at a brunch like your characters in the movie did?

We did not meet at a brunch. It was at a much more boring place, honestly. And it’s hard to get more boring than brunch.

I’ve never been to Fire Island, but I think I may be more of a P-town gay.

Listen, I am about to go there for the first time this summer. And part of me is a little scared that I’m gonna be a turncoat and just fully, like, be a P-town gay for the rest of my life.

What can you say about your part in the upcoming major-studio gay summer rom-com “Bros”?

I have a really fun part in that. My character, ironically, lives in Provincetown, so not Fire Island. That might be all I can say. But I think they’ve been showing clips of it at different events, and it’s getting a really good reception. I really hope people — I’m sure people will see it. There’s such a great team behind it, and Billy [Eichner, co-writer and star] is just so wonderful. He was so great to work with. I was sort of a day player. I just popped in for a day in between shows at “SNL.” So I was a little disoriented. But it was just such a lovely experience, and I felt very lucky that I got to do that in addition to “Fire Island,” to be a little witness to all these great [LGBTQ+] movies that are being made.

Was “Fire Island” a loose shoot? You are all so naturally funny, so were there moments of improvisation, and did any of those make the final cut? 

Plenty of moments of improv made it into the final cut. From, like, Matt specifically. From me, from everybody. I think everybody [added] a little sprinkling in there. Overall, what’s remarkable about that set was that there wasn’t too much breaking. We weren’t out to make each other laugh or crack up. I think we were all there to hit our marks and do the job well. Because it was a very intense situation. A lot of us, you know, [this was] one of our early jobs doing a feature. And I think we all just were kind of focused on delivering. So maybe in the future, if we all work together again, it’ll be a little bit looser. But it was pretty regimented. We were all very good students, I would say.

Your film career is really taking off, which is exciting. And you got to really create a character for this.

I know. This is one of my first experiences doing that.

What was that like for you?

Really nice. I learned so much. And I think this is one of those jobs that I think will carry into future projects, if I’m so lucky to have them. I mean, James Scully, who plays Charlie, and I… this is my first time having a love interest in something. And he’s someone who is experienced enough as an actor to know how to make that believable onscreen. So we just had a lot of discussions about how to portray that and what these characters would be like after they left the island and what that journey is.

James had the idea to make a playlist. He was like, “Let’s make the playlist the character would make for the other character.” And that was perfect tone-setting. Like, these are two very sweet people who are sweet despite everything around them telling them there’s no place for sweetness. That this is about debauchery only. And even at the end of the movie, there’s an open-ended question about whether or not these people will even end up together after they leave the island. And what happens then? But these are two characters who aren’t concerned with that, who aren’t really worried about what’s gonna happen afterwards. Whether it ends badly or well, they just are very present in their connection to each other.

I’m glad you say that because those trips to me often feel like they’re suited for that sort of experience — for a little weekend romance.

I think the movie does that very well in the end where, again, it’s that open-ended thing. And I don’t think a lot of rom-coms in general do that. It’s a very realistic, authentic sort of representation of that concept. Like, “Maybe this is just a vacation boyfriend. But it’s OK. I’ll still enjoy it.” It’s still a love story, you know? There’s something really powerful about acknowledging that reality for a lot of people. I think there’s a subtextual thing there in the movie where it’s like, “This is how gay people live, and this is why they come to the island, to experience that, to have the possibility of experiencing that.” And then if they do, then what happens?

Whose idea was it to sneak in the reference to the “Gays in Space” sketch, which aired on “Saturday Night Live” in 2015?

That was Joel. I promise it wasn’t me. I just never pushed back. It was in every draft of the script, and I never pushed back on it. And I was like, it’s so on the nose of me as Bowen saying to a character that he loves “SNL.”

But that was a Joel line. And we just kept it in there. But then it got me thinking, like, OK, if Howie and I are similar, in what ways are we similar? Howie doesn’t work at “SNL,” but if I didn’t work at “SNL,” I would probably bring that up, too, at a party, if I was getting to know someone. And there was something somewhat authentic about that. I think Joel was going for that sort of authenticity. It was just, What would Bowen say through the lens of this character?

While we’re on the topic of “SNL,” I have you to thank, in part, at least, for making a show I grew up with and loved a much queerer experience for me.

Oh, that’s very nice. But yes, there are so many other people to thank. It’s people like James Anderson who wrote “Gays in Space,” who left somewhat recently. Kate McKinnon, obviously, Chris Kelly, who made “The Other Two.” Paula Pell of “Wine Country.” There’s been this pretty rich lineage of queer people at “SNL.” I think now there are more things to index and reference, and I’m just very happy to be a small part of it.

Historically, yes, there are other skits that were queer. But it definitely feels like it’s become much queerer in more recent years.

I think we talk about how “SNL” has always been this variety show in the truest sense. There’s something for everyone, or at least there’s something different in every sketch. And certainly, with Kate being there, it’s given people a model for how you infuse queerness into a sketch.

Julio Torres working there around the same time I did was just such a fortuitous thing for me because I was able to understand, “Oh, I can write something.” When I first started writing there, I was trying to fit into the mold of an “SNL” sketch. I was trying to write a game show sketch or a commercial parody. And then, when Julio and I started working together, he was like, “No, you can do whatever you want. You can make something that’s from your point of view. That makes the show better.”

Do you have an example of something you wrote from your own POV because of Julio’s influence on you?

One of the first sketches I wrote for the show was called “Cheques.” It was a commercial for checks, like these dramatic, soap operatic women just signing checks for misdeeds. That was something Julio and I co-wrote together. We co-wrote this sketch called “Sara Lee” with Harry Styles, who’s this social media manager who writes all these thirsty gay captions for Instagram. That was Julio’s idea, and it wouldn’t have happened without Julio’s assuredness in his own point of view. And it kind of gave me this example to follow, so that by the time he left, I was like, “I guess I can do that on my own, right?”

So yeah, you think all the way back to Terry Sweeney in the ’80s who was doing stuff at a time when gay men were completely stigmatized at every level [in] society. I think there’s been a queer sort of helix in the show for as long as it’s been on.

What about the “Pride Month Song” sketch from last year? What’s the story behind that?

I co-wrote that with Sudi Green and Celeste Yim. Just really funny writers. Queer writers. And we just were talking about how there is this pretty widely acknowledged reality now that I just don’t think we’ve seen on TV of how Pride is kind of exhausting. And it’s kind of not what you expect it to be: You think it’s gonna be this amazing thing and it actually ends up being really stressful and logistically a nightmare and someone has a meltdown at some point. You know, those are the realities of Pride. And there’s still something joyful about that, even so. And maybe that’s the thing that we kind of look forward to every year. So yeah, that’s where it came out of. And I was, like, listening to Charli XCX’s “Girls Night Out,” and I was like, “Let’s just map it onto this beat.”

Well, that’s your POV, right?  

My POV! Yeah. She counts.

It seems you’ve become a big name in such a short amount of time. How have you processed what I think is a relatively meteoric rise to notoriety these last few years? 

I got really lucky in terms of an incremental, segmented ramp-up, maybe? For me, so far, it’s been manageable at every level. Starting out doing stuff in New York, you kind of are putting yourself out there more and more with every show and every year that you do it. And then Matt and I started this podcast [“Las Culturistas”] together. That kind of got people who didn’t live in New York knowing who we were and connecting with what we were doing. And then going on “SNL,” obviously, kind of broke that open. But I think I’ve gotten some sort of training wheel taken off and there’s multiple sets of training wheels, I guess, in this metaphor. But I think I’ve gotten really nicely acculturated to that. And I’m very grateful.

Can you step into a gay bar in West Hollywood without being conscious of, “I know that there will be eyes on me because I’m Bowen Yang”?

It occurs to me that that might be the case, but I went to Hi Tops recently in LA, in West Hollywood, and was ignored at the bar. And I was like, “This is great.” Not that this was great but I was like, “See, there’s something very democratizing about going to a queer space like that where you’re like, ‘That’s why I go: to feel like a part of something.’” There hasn’t been anything fundamentally different about my reality, which I think is really nice, actually.

What do you want the future of your film career to look like?

I hope I get to just do a nice variety of things, across different genres probably. I feel like we’re about to get hit with a bunch of rom-coms, and I wouldn’t mind just staying in that lane for as long as possible.

I’m keeping an open mind because people have been asking me if I expected to be leading a rom-com ever. I was like, “No, no way.” And so I think me sort of keeping my expectations pretty sparse is kind of setting myself up for some delightful stuff in the future. I don’t really have a vision for what that is yet. And I think that’s OK.

Chris Azzopardi is the Editorial Director of Pride Source Media Group and Q Syndicate, the national LGBTQ+ wire service. He has interviewed a multitude of superstars, including Cher, Meryl Streep, Mariah Carey and Beyoncé. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, GQ and Billboard. Reach him via Twitter @chrisazzopardi.

Patti Harrison on being trans in Hollywood

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Patti Harrison

The Lost City of P
Patti Harrison on being trans in Hollywood, her social media woes and Bowen Yang
By Chris Azzopardi

There still aren’t enough trans actors in Hollywood, but at least there’s Patti Harrison. Harrison is currently starring in the big blockbuster rom-com caper “The Lost City,” alongside Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum, as the social media manager of Bullock’s character, Loretta Sage, a romance-adventure novelist. In the movie, Harrison’s Allison thinks that to help Loretta appeal to a younger demo, it’s just a matter of hashtagging Shawn Mendes’ name at the end of every tweet. 

As for Harrison, her name rose to even greater prominence in 2021 when she voiced Chief of Tale in “Raya and the Dragon,” giving her the distinction of being the first openly trans actor to lend their voice to a Disney film. Last year, she also starred in “Together Together,” a moving comedy about a single man (Ed Helms) and his surrogate, played by Harrison, that premiered at Sundance. But “The Lost City” could really take her career to the next level given it’s a major studio film with major star power, which can only bring more attention to Harrison’s signature brand of comedy.

Harrison’s wry deadpanning was first introduced on primetime TV, when, in 2017 on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” the actor-comedian made wisecracks about then-President Donald Trump’s ban on trans people in the military. Harrison, who was born in Ohio and whose father is from Detroit, starred in a recurring role on Hulu’s “Shrill” in 2020, along with smaller roles in “Bob’s Burgers,” “Broad City” and “Search Party.” 

During a recent Zoom interview with the actor, Harrison joked about what the movie might have been about when its working title was “The Lost City of D,” chimed in on her own interest in reading romance novels (and reading, period), and discussed how she feels about the “overcorrection” of queer people on TV. 

When you got the script for this movie, originally titled “The Lost City of D,” what exactly did you think the D stood for?

To be honest, I thought it stood for dick. Or dong. Maybe dildo. Probably less likely [it would be] dildo. Well, I guess it would be _dildos_, ’cause then it would be “The Lost City of the D.” So I think “Lost City of Dildos,” if it’s pluralized, is better.

I appreciate that the movie, even now that it’s called simply “The Lost City,” did still lean into the D, as there’s a couple dick jokes in it.

Well, there’s a lot of cut scenes with a ton of dildos.

And those are all with just you, or you and Channing?

Well, there was one with me [that] got cut from the movie, but my character was a master in combat with, like, tonfas. But then there weren’t tonfas available, so she wields dildos. And it’s really a lot of work. I took about four months of martial arts classes to learn how to use tonfas correctly and they cut it. Because of dildos.

That’s a shame. Our society is just not ready for something as brave as that.

Doesn’t that suck?

That movie will exist 20 years from now when we’ve made even more progress than we already have.

And Elle Fanning’s granddaughter is doing flips and throwing dildos, and they’re, like, going through people’s heads.

I love that Elle Fanning is your go-to. 

Oh yeah. She’s always in my mind.

I don’t know how we’re going to be serious now, but I do want to ask if you read any romance novels, queer or not, when you were growing up?

Not at all. I never read a lot, and I never really read outside of what was required of me for school. I don’t think I really… I’m learning. I used to feel really guilty about not reading books, specifically. I think there’s a culture around shaming people who don’t read books. I just don’t absorb information that way. A lot of the stories that I absorb are visual. So I love movies, video games and TV. Maybe that makes me stupid, but I watched a lot of romantic movies and TV shows. But as far as novels go, I think I remember reading “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” in school. I think that is, like, a rapey book. It opens with a sexual assault. That’s probably the only book that comes to mind, actually.

And then no more books for you after that. You just stopped reading.

What if the only book I’ve ever read was “Tess of the d’Urbervilles”? That’s the one book. I should be studied by science if that were the case.

What if there was a romance novel based on your life? What might it be called? And who would be your cover model for it?

Well, I did get asked this question earlier today, but I think it’s probably for a publication that wouldn’t use [my answer] and wouldn’t care what I said. Because my answer when asked what the title of my romance novel would be [was], “Oh, Is There Poop?” And I don’t think I would be on the cover of it, right? It would be my mom and my fourth grade teacher, who’s my mentor. And they’re just kind of doing a thumbs up through a foggy window. They’re standing outside of a window. And then you see the crest of someone’s butt.

That’s beautiful, actually.

There would be more explained in the book. I promise.

While you were making this movie, playing a social media manager, did it hit you how ironic it is that in real life you might not cut it as a social media manager since you were banned from Twitter? 

I definitely think there’s some irony there. I, every day, am waiting for my Instagram account to be deleted against my will. Probably for the best. But now Instagram’s terms and conditions have changed and they, like, auto go through and will flag photos. Maybe once a week, I get a new photo flagged. And it’s always a post from, like, 2013. And it’ll be a photo of me being like, “I love this bitch,” and it’ll be me and my friend. And then it’ll be flagged for bullying and harassment, ’cause I called my friend a bitch. And I was like, “Well, that’s my whole Instagram page, me being like, ‘Love this stupid, ugly fucking slut.’” I guess if that’s bullying and harassment, then I’m not fated for Instagram anymore.

I think social media has had a big part in my career success, which has been great. I also think social media has evolved. So the version of it we have now is mainly a shopping platform. So I don’t think social media is intrinsically bad, but I think we’ve made it bad ’cause it’s corporatized. But I don’t remember exactly why Adam [Nee, who co-directed and co-wrote the screenplay], Aaron [Nee, Adam’s brother, who co-directed) or Sandy [Bullock] said they specifically wanted me for the part other than they saw me and thought I was funny. In other things I’ve been cast in, it’s usually ’cause of stupid videos or something I made on Instagram.

Or maybe it was “Together Together,” which was one of my favorite movies of last year. How major did it feel to be part of a film where you, a trans actress, is playing a surrogate? There was a lot of conversation around that and how I’m not even sure that that’s ever happened before in a movie. It all felt pretty groundbreakingly important casting-wise. 

Yeah. I mean, I think I definitely thought about what that meant and the optics of it. I had so many conversations with [writer-director] Nikole [Beckwith] about if it was stunt casting or whatever. But it really did feel like something I just never thought I was going to get to do, and I tried not to overload it in playing the role, like bring too much of that into it. 

I think what was really nice is that Nikole was so present in making sure I felt prepared and knew what was going on in each scene, like where my character was in her pregnancy. I think it helped me get out of my head and not think about the politics of what it means. You know, my whole thing when we were filming was, “Oh my gosh. Are people going to be staring at my Adam’s apple? Is this something that I’m going to deal with? A level of TERF scrutiny or something that would be really emotionally painful to endure?” But, ultimately, it’s been an incredible gift in my life. The only thing that I’ll ever earnestly talk about is that movie because it just felt so special. 

As a queer person, I try not to overthink the optics. But oftentimes, it’s hard for me not to, just because I’m always looking for us to be represented and be visible. 

Yeah. Speaking of social media, I feel like there is an overcorrection or overemphasis with development and TV, like stumbling over themselves to be inclusive in a way that I think can sometimes be minimizing to the creator or the artist or writer, whoever’s trying to make a project, if that person is marginalized in any way.

And if that marginalization is queer, then in an ideal world, that person could just make whatever they want. I think what’s stressful about it is that people who aren’t queer, who aren’t marginalized, and who are in these gatekeeping positions, are trying to figure out a way to capitalize on queerness or the more mainstream interest in it and it can feel very minimizing when the only stories they want to tell or they want to see from you as a queer person is stuff about being queer. It’s like, my sense of humor as a comedian has really been not about that, but it has kind of pivoted into that. I’m approached about being trans so much that it’s made me a little resentful. I’m like, “Oh, I see comedians who are peripheral to me who aren’t queer, and they can make a TV show about whatever they want.” But when I take a meeting, it’s like, they don’t want to hear my idea about, you know, Elle Fanning with dildos. They want to hear about a biopic about me coming out to my mom and her struggling with it.

On that note, it’s nice to see you and Bowen Yang in “The Lost City,” where you can both just be funny. 

Yeah. Bowen shot the last week I was there pretty much, and it was the perfect little ending to the trip. We had, like, golf carts where we were staying. It was so much fun. I wish he would have been there the whole time. It made me want to work with him on something.

On the poop book or the dildo movie? 

Yeah. Where we have unsimulated sex. A lot of penetration, me and Bowen. Really close friends just, like, really screwing for art. That’s representation.

Chris Azzopardi is the Editorial Director of Pride Source Media Group and Q Syndicate, the national LGBTQ+ wire service. He has interviewed a multitude of superstars, including Cher, Meryl Streep, Mariah Carey and Beyoncé. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, GQ and Billboard. Reach him via Twitter @chrisazzopardi.

New Short Film Brings Light To Transgender Parenting & Surrogacy

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‘Intended Parents’ is a short film about a Black millennial couple, seeking to expand their family through surrogacy. With one partner identifying as a transgender woman, the couple (Alexander Grey as “Robyn” and Lawrence Locke as “Anthony”) find themselves continously educating or being imprisoned by outdated traditions and opinions from loved ones. While the film explores the intersections of love, gender, surrogacy, acceptance, and desperation; the powerful couple aims to deflate multiple negative stigmas as they prepare for the life-alternating roller coaster of fertility and surrogacy. The short film also features Marc Rose, Varinia Justine and Fredrick Irvin as supporting characters.

WATCH OFFICIAL TRAILER HERE

The film is set to release November 25, 2021 nationwide  and can be streamed via Amazon Prime Video.

Emmy Award Winner and co-director, Dr. Louis Deon Jones, states, “Intended Parents strives to normalize surrogacy, love, support and advocacy, for the transgender community.” In addition, the beautifully directed film has been co-directed by Jabari Redd and executive produced by; Taylor Bryan Barr, Andre Davis, Tori Kay, & Shar Jossell.

Unfortunately, 2021 has already seen 45 transgender or gender non-conforming people fatally killed. With the fatal violence disproportionately affecting transgender women of color, particularly Black transgender women, showing films like ‘Intended Parents’ is imperative to dismantle a culture violence and shame against the transgender community.

About Dr. Louis Deon Jones

Dr. Louis Deon Jones is a screenwriter, producer, director and psych doctor originally from Chicago, IL but resides in Los Angeles, CA. Dr. Louis is known for his award winning digital series, Cycles and NoHo: A North Hollywood Story. He is the writer, producer, and director of several short films such as The Good Teacher, A Hopeless Father, Can I Be Me?, Divided, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? and Produced the Daytime Emmy Award winning film, ‘The Girl in Apartment 15’ which earned him a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Daytime Fiction Program.

‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’ recreates a historic interview with a man living with AIDS

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In the Eyes of Tammy Faye

By Mark King

At the height of their 1980s popularity, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were television evangelist royalty, hosting multiple shows and raking in cash from their on-air collection plates. Tammy Faye, however, also had an expansive view of love and acceptance, despite her conservative Christian roots.

She proved it in 1985 when she had a gay man living with AIDS, Steve Pieters, as a guest on her show, Tammy’s House Party. The interview is recreated in the new film The Eyes of Tammy Faye, about the rise and fall of the Bakkers. It premieres September 17 and stars Jessica Chastain as Tammy Faye and Andrew Garfield as Jim.

Pieters spoke with POZ magazine about the original interview, which is available on YouTube, and the new film.

It’s amazing that of all the events in Tammy Faye’s life, the filmmakers chose to include her interview with you.

I’m thrilled that they did. I’m touched and honored.

The film The Eyes of Tammy Faye recreates the original Steve Pieters interview

Tammy Faye Bakker interviews Steve Pieters on her show Tammy’s House Party in 1985.YouTube

It’s ironic that the gay man they found was also a theologian and pastor.

Yes. I was a pastor at the time with [the LGBTQ-affirming] Metropolitan Community Church [MCC], and I had been speaking about living with AIDS for two years or more. I made sure the interview went out live so they couldn’t edit it. It was a kick.

But it was a conservative environment. When did you realize it was friendly ground?

Tammy’s producer had been very friendly. She reassured me that Tammy was proud and excited to be the first to give an affirming interview to a gay man with AIDS.

You also kept bringing the topic back to your faith. When she asked you if you had given women “a chance,” you said God loves you the way you are.

I did that quite deliberately. She had said [before we went on air] that “we don’t talk about Jesus” on this show. And then, of course, we ended up talking about Jesus a lot.

It’s also surprising, frankly, that the person living with AIDS who did that interview in 1985 is still alive to talk about it.

I know! I got sick in 1982 and was diagnosed with GRID [gay-related immunodeficiency, a diagnosis used prior to the discovery of HIV]. They told me I had eight months left to live.

There’s no rhyme or reason to it, is there? Who was empowered, who fought hard, who lived, who died, in those early years.

Yes, absolutely. When I think about all those amazing people who were killed…

What was the initial response from folks to your interview?

Not much. It wasn’t until 1987, when the Reverend Troy Perry played the interview at a general conference for MCC and 1,000 people stood up and cheered, that I got much of a response.

I was so shocked. After that, I traveled for 12 years all over the world, and they always wanted me to show that interview at church events. Everyone wanted to see it.

The trailer for The Eyes of Tammy Faye gives viewers the impression that she was really going rogue with her interview with you. It didn’t please the conservatives in power. She wasn’t sticking to the political script of homosexuals being a threat to Christianity and democracy.

Absolutely. I don’t know if it was because she had a good heart or because she wanted to be known as someone who did something radical. I don’t know. But I’m told this was not the first time she had talked to a gay man.

The new film explores the mystery of Tammy Faye, meaning whether she was just playing a role or whether she was, in fact, an innocent who loved the Lord. If her constant cheerfulness and loving attitude was a persona, she never, ever dropped it.

I know she treated me like a real human being. She was very compassionate. It seemed very sincere.

Her son, Jay Bakker, and I have talked the last couple of years, and he tells me that my interview changed her, and it changed the whole family.

After that interview, she decided that she had a calling to minister to the LGBT community.

She started taking her kids to MCC services and to Pride parades and to hospices to meet people with AIDS who were sick and dying. Jay said it completely changed their attitudes and her direction in ministry.

Was Jim Bakker involved in any of this?

Jay Bakker tells me that his father was all for having the interview done.

They did decide, though, that it should be broadcast on Tammy’s House Party, rather than on their flagship show, The PTL Club [PTL stood for “praise the Lord”]. They thought it would go better if it were on her show.

Now, all of these decades later, the notoriety of doing this interview is all going to come up again. There’s an actor, Randy Havens, playing you in a major Hollywood film. How does that make you feel?

I’m thrilled about it. I got a note from the producer saying that her interview with me figures very prominently in the plot.

Did the producers of the film approach you beforehand to ask your thoughts, then and now, about the interview? Did you even know that the film was happening?

No. I was on Jay Bakker’s podcast, Loosen The Bible Belt, and he told me about the movie.

He said that the actress Jessica Chastain, who plays Tammy Faye, told him that the interview was central to the plot. Jessica decided to do the film because of that interview in the plot.

The producers apparently thought that I was no longer living. Because the interview is on YouTube, I’m considered to be a historic figure, so they don’t have to ask my permission to do it. I wasn’t even aware of it until after the film was in the can.

The film The Eyes of Tammy Faye recreates the original Steve Pieters interview

Steve Pieters Courtesy of Steve Pieters

What are your apprehensions?

There is a little bit of fear in me that this is what’s going to be the lead in my obituary.

This interview and now this film is what I’m going to be remembered for, not that I survived AIDS or was a director of AIDS ministries but that I was that gay pastor with AIDS who did that interview. Which is OK, I could be remembered for a lot worse.

To have represented a community so well on a national television show that became kind of infamous? That’s a great lead for anyone’s obituary. And the interview eventually became your calling card. Look at all the great work you were able to do as a result of that moment. It accelerated your career in advocacy as well as your ministry.

It definitely raised my profile. And I’ve had people over the years come up to me and say that that interview saved their life or that they never realized they could be gay and Christian. I had one person tell me that he was seriously contemplating suicide, and the interview changed his mind.

It is a fascinating slice of HIV/AIDS history. It deserves to be remembered. And for what it meant for representation of people living with HIV and the marvelous work it helped you do and for the lives it changed, it deserves to be the lead in your obituary—if that turns out to be the case.

That’s true. It was a big deal. And I didn’t even know it at the time.

Udo Kier and Michael Urie on their queer cross-generational bond in ‘Swan Song’

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Arthouse icon Udo Kier and co-star Michael Urie on their moving, queer cross-generational bond in ‘Swan Song’

An Aging Queen Gets His Swan Song
By Chris Azzopardi

Swan Song is available on Amazon Prime

German character actor Udo Kier is on camera holding old prints of press photos from his previous films over his face like a Halloween mask. He jokes that if a journalist dare ask a terrible question that he considers daft, the photos, not Kier himself, will answer back. Luckily those prints never made their way back onto camera during our conversation, which also included his “Swan Song” co-star Michael Urie.

“Swan Song,” the new film from openly gay “Edge of Seventeen” director Todd Stephens (“Another Gay Movie,” “Another Gay Movie 2: Gays Gone Wild”), wouldn’t be the film it is without Kier’s brilliant performance at the heart of it. He’s a leading man for the first time, rightly earning him some of the biggest buzz of his 50-year career. But there’s no question the film’s bittersweet coda, a scene that serves as an elegiac tribute that Kier shares with Urie (“Ugly Betty”), is something special in its own right. Poignantly, it honors older generations of unapoletically queer elders who enriched the lives of younger LGBTQ+ populations, demonstrating that, without them, queer life now wouldn’t be the same. 

Though Kier, also openly gay, has appeared in more than 220 films over the span of five decades (among them: almost all of Lars von Trier’s films, as well as Dario Argento’s “Suspiria” and Gus Van Sant’s “My Own Private Idaho”), he’s never played a character as proudly gay as Pat Pitsenberger, a legendary Ohio hairstylist known as the “Liberace of Sandusky.” Women loved Mr. Pat, as he’s called, for making them look, and consequently feel, beautiful.

Now in his advanced years and living in a nursing home, retired from doing hair, he’s more than earned the right to be a bitter old queen. Mr. Pat survived the AIDS epidemic, lost friends, was at the forefront of gay liberation. In this new gay world, he’s an outsider all over again, his glory days behind him. But when one of his former clients dies and he’s asked to do her hair, he has an opportunity to reclaim the history that made him who he is.

Kier, speaking from Los Angeles, and Urie, at home in New York, recently chatted about shooting their powerful scene, what attracted them to the film and the legacies they hope to leave behind.

What made you agree to do this project?

Udo Kier: For me, I got the script and I liked it. I said, “I want to meet Todd, because I want to see if I can work with him.” If I wouldn’t have liked him, I wouldn’t have made the film. But I liked him.

He came to Palm Springs, and we talked about it. His script was very strong. And I wanted to shoot as chronologically as we could. I wanted to start in the retirement home, which we did. I stayed there a single day on my own with no camera, because I wanted to feel the bed, I wanted to see where everything was. And then we went into town.

For me, the importance (of) this film is the different generation — my generation — and going back (to Ohio), and people don’t recognize me anymore. You see, I’m from Germany, and in Germany … if two men lived together, and the neighbors were hearing some erotic noises, they could call the police and the people were arrested and put in jail. Now they’re holding hands at Applebee’s.

So I think it’s so, so wonderful (that) in (a) relatively short time, two men or two women can get married and adopt children. It’s amazing. It’s amazing that, after 50 years in the business working with genius directors like Lars von Trier and Gus Van Sant, the critics now write that it is my best film.

Michael Urie: It was Udo from the beginning. When I was offered the job, he was already on board. That was very exciting to me, ’cause I’ve been a longtime fan of both the filmmaker, Todd, and Udo. But it’s this quiet observation that we as queer people have when we’re younger. Most queer people do not grow up in households with other queer people, and so we look elsewhere to find ourselves to see what we could be.

Michael, your character Dustin acknowledges that Pat, even though they had never met, made it easier for him to be openly gay. Who are the queer people you never personally knew who paved the way for you to be openly gay?

Urie: I’m from Texas, and I grew up in a suburb of Dallas called Plano, Texas. I was in drama in high school, and I was reading great queer literature and (there was) theater: “Angels in America” and Terrence McNally plays. I was exposed to this stuff, and I was aware of it and titillated by it. But there was a guy in my high school who was tall, strapping, extremely well dressed, very attractive, and pretty obviously gay. When I picture him in my head, he’s 30, even though he was, of course, 17 at the time. I looked to him and his strength and his power and his beauty. He was, in many ways, my Mr. Pat. I still think back on him. I still think about how awesome he was.

As gay men, do either of you see parts of yourself reflected in Pat?

Kier: I think, first of all, Michael, you did amazing, good work. (Our) scene on the couch works so well because I don’t move one inch. If I would have had a conversation, that would have been not good. But just having the cigarettes with the ashes, and listening, listening, listening made it stronger than if I would have answered you.

I’m more like an actor who likes to underplay (the character). That’s why, also, I never rehearsed with Todd, because Todd is a director who likes to rehearse. I learned from Lars von Trier, (whose) favorite line is, “Don’t act.” I always think about, especially if you’re in a movie like “Swan Song,” when you have a strong story, a strong situation, which is funny at times, and sad at times, there’s no need to do acting numbers. A lot of actors, they’ll start with their back to the camera, by the chimney, and then they’ll turn around and they’ll talk to the floor, and finally they’ll come up to the camera. No, no, no, no.

Yesterday I saw 20 minutes (of “Swan Song”), and today I will see the whole film at Outfest, and it’s a strong film. I hope a lot of people will see it. I showed it before to a few friends. Not many. I don’t have many friends. But I showed it to a few friends, and they all said, “Oh, I cried and cried. And I laughed.” So that is good. If you’re able to tell a story where people laugh and cry, that’s good.

It’s amazing how many really young people liked the movie. You know, I was afraid that (they’d say), “There’s an old man.” But it’s not true. There were young, young people. And one girl, yesterday, said to Todd, “This is one of my favorite films ever.” And I said, “Wow. Maybe she only goes once a year to the cinema.”

I got choked up throughout the movie thinking a lot about my older self and what I might be like when I’m Pat’s age, how I might look back on my life. Do you feel like you share something in common with Pat when it comes to being gay and aging?

Kier: That’s why I accepted the role. Todd told me a lot about Pat and when I got there (to Sandusky) I talked to Pat’s friends and (they) told me how he was smoking and things like that. It’s definitely the generation, and we’re very lucky that in Sandusky, the main street became our set. So in that green suit, I went to have a glass of chardonnay, and they all know me. There was the secondhand store and across the street was the theater, so it became all real. It was not a film where you have trailers. No, no, no, no. It was a real film. It was all from my heart. It wasn’t calculated. I never in the whole film calculated a situation. When I come out and say, “I’m back!,” that was a copy of Liberace. Because when Liberace was performing in Las Vegas, he ran through the stage with all (his) rings and said, “You paid for them.”

Because this movie says a lot about the legacies we leave behind, how do both of you hope others will remember you?

Kier: Well, in my case, because Mike is so much younger, doing it for 50 years, being Andy Warhol’s Dracula, Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, people will, I guess, remember me (for those roles). But, for me, it’s really amazing that Variety and all the critics write that (“Swan Song” is) my best film. I feel a little bit strange about that. Making so many films with great directors, like “My Own Private Idaho” with Gus, and now they write it’s my best film. I know why. You know why? Because I have the leading part, and you follow the character. If you have a guest part in a film, people say, “He’s very good. He’s a good villain, yeah, yeah, yeah.” But they cannot follow you through the story, from folding napkins to wearing wonderful shoes when he’s dead (laughs).

Urie: I guess I want my legacy to be: “He was part of cool things. And he was always himself.” I’ve been in a lot of queer movies and queer theater and —

Kier: Strange movies.

Urie: (Laughs.) I’ve been in a lot of strange movies. And there was a point when I was first on TV and I was playing a very flamboyant gay character and I was told, “Don’t do this again. Don’t do any more of these. Don’t get pigeonholed.” And I thought, “There’s so many different kinds of gay people.” And I do play gay parts all the time, and they are different. We have so many different ways of being LGBTQ, and there are so many stories to tell.

I’m so proud to be part of this one, which I saw with a group at the Rooftop Film Festival in Brooklyn (with) a group of predominantly heterosexual people who loved it. That is a really exciting thing, too, to be a part of a movie that you would maybe call a gay movie because the protagonist is gay and the central conflict has to do with his homosexuality, but this is a straight person’s gay movie. Straight people love it. I think that’s a testament to Udo and a performance at the center that can compel and delight and break your heart. It’s a piece of life, watching it. And working on it felt like walking into the movie.

As Udo said, we took over that town — or they took over that town, and I showed up. I showed up at a certain point in the shoot and I felt like I was walking into a movie — not onto a film set, but into a movie. There he was in his green suit, and we didn’t talk much before we started shooting. He wanted our first interaction to be our first interaction. I’m used to going on stage and making people laugh, and here I am in this movie, reacting to a person. This is a guy walking into my space, and it was actually very easy because he was bringing so much over to me.

Michael, what do you think this film says about aging, in particular regarding the queer demographic?

Urie: That’s very interesting because now the way queer people navigate the world — marriage, parenting — there is a more traditional society-based way of getting older. An older person gets taken care of (by) family and loved ones. But I think all of us as queer people, we’re not going to have a life that society deems as normal. That is one of the things that we fear: that we will grow old alone or have no one to take care of us. Certainly it’s a fear that I have and I think about.

But what’s so beautiful about Mr. Pat and the way in which I relate to Mr. Pat is that, even though now it’s 2021 and queer people are accepted — I can walk down the street holding hands with my partner and I don’t feel any shame anymore or any danger, and I actually feel proud to do that; we’re legal, we’re allowed to marry, we’re allowed to have kids, we have full protections under the law, for the most part, I can blend in, I can assimilate — I don’t want to.

I think that is something that the older generation, when marriage equality became a thing and when people started getting married, thought, “Why would we need that? We’ve been fine without that. We don’t wanna be like straight people; we don’t wanna get married.” It’s two different things. It’s the right to be married, versus the need to be married. Also, I’m proud of who I am, and I’m proud to be different, and I don’t need to assimilate. I can be someone else. I think that I want to always have a little bit of Mr. Pat. I don’t wanna walk down the street and have people think, “That’s a straight person.”

Kier: (Laughs.) You have to get a green suit! Get a green suit and just smoke like (him).

Yesterday I looked up, because I hear (it) now so many times, the word “queer.” I wanted to look in the dictionary (to see) what it means. And queer means, actually, strange. If you go on the dictionary, it says queer means strange. Um, (I) definitely did a strange performance. (Laughs.)

So you might call your performance queer?

Kier: Not me. It’s just a performance. It’s not my swan song. I have made already four films after that. And so it’s not my swan song. That was the danger of it: I thought, “Oh my god, ‘Swan Song.’ I’m 77 years old soon, so is that maybe my last movie?” No, no, no. I had to go to Lars von Trier and quickly make a movie. And that’ll be my swan song.

Swan Song is available on Amazon Prime

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity

Conor Leach: The Crazy Side of Queer Connection

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Conor Leach

‘Sequin In a Blue Room’ star Conor Leach talks playing a slutty queer teen
By Lawrence Ferber

Watch Sequin In A Blue Room on Amazon Prime

Raging hormones barely explain the behavior of Sequin, a gay 16-year-old high school student who who wears a shirt embossed with glittery discs while hooking up with anonymous guys in the director Samuel Van Grivsen’s audacious, erotic and suspenseful feature debut, “Sequin in a Blue Room.”

Played by Brisbane-raised bisexual actor Conor Leach in a fearless breakout performance, the secretive Sequin lives with his well-meaning, patient single father (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor) while screwing strangers on a strict one-time-only basis (once out the door, he deletes their respective profiles from his hookup app). Yet when Sequin’s invited to a sex party, he connects with a young Black guy (Samuel Barrie) on a level he hasn’t felt before and finds himself wanting seconds. This leads Sequin to break his cardinal rule and meet again with B (Ed Wightman), an older man who can lead him to the mysterious hottie again but soon proves manipulative, dangerous and determined to keep Sequin for himself.

At least in conversation, Leach, comparatively loquacious and well-adjusted, is nothing like the enigmatic Sequin. The actor earned a theater degree at Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts in 2017, scored an agent through a graduate showcase, and will next appear in the Aussie TV miniseries “New Gold Mountain.” Here, Leach chats about the film, hookup apps and the status of that sequin shirt.

The film’s been called a “coming-of-age thriller.” Do you agree with that description?

Yeah, I think that’s pretty accurate. In the end it’s a film about someone trying to find their way out of loneliness. In that way, it’s “coming-of-gay.” It’s funny, because we filmed so much material that didn’t make it to the final cut that made it more of a drama. But seeing it for the first time I was shocked by how much of a genre film it is. It’s a thriller through and through and amazing to see a queer story told through those conventions.

Can you elaborate on the material that was cut out?

Sam cut out a whole storyline, actually, that aimed to give a little more context around the character. I remember he said he edited the film back to how it originally was in the first draft, which was a thriller, quick and fast, to shock the viewers. Some of the scenes that didn’t make it were beautiful and, in a way, it’s unfortunate they didn’t make it. But the final product, I think, is better for it.

Hello Blu-ray extras! How are you most like Sequin?

I struggle with this question, because I get asked how I relate to the character a lot, but I think part of acting is [thinking] nothing that this human [I’m playing] does is alien to me. If I was in these circumstances, I would do these things. But what I related to most was he just fears loneliness and a lot of us are afraid to admit that. I look back on who I was when I was 16, and I needed connection and love and we all still do, and I also wanted to appear strong and resilient. He wants to appear he has everything under control, and I definitely wanted to seem that way.

Conversely, how are you most unlike Sequin? Clearly you’re not as economical, shall we say, with your words!

Yeah, I was watching the film thinking, “Sequin just does not speak! Use your words!” I’d say I’m more of a rule abider. I don’t like to rock the boat. On the surface I’m much more subservient to authority, and I can’t see myself doing anything as reckless as Sequin when I was 16.

I assume that means you weren’t trolling the apps during high school, either.

No. I was a goody-goody. I was a teacher’s pet! On the surface I was very different.

Why does Sequin cut people off, both the guys he hooks up with and even his own father, whom he keeps in the dark about what he’s up to despite the guy’s clear desire to love, understand and protect his son?

While we were shooting I developed a detailed backstory that shined a light on how Sequin became like this. I wanted to know what happened and what motivated his actions. I genuinely can’t remember too much now, but I think Sequin loves the power it gives him. The sense of being desired after the encounter. You see that in the scene with B, when B says, “I’d love to see you again,” and Sequin says, “I don’t really see people twice,” and B asks, “Is that everyone or just me?” Sequin gets off on that, and it’s exactly what he wants. The sense of power and control it gives him — the sense of power that’s been robbed of him in other aspects of his life, I guess.

I read that Sam had his own idea of Sequin’s backstory and you compared notes after shooting and they “differed wildly.”

Sam never actually talked to me in too much detail about his vision for the character’s past. My imagining of Sequin’s upbringing was quite different in terms of the amount of privilege he had, his relation with his mum, even what his real name is. He gave me that creative license. I remember explaining my ideas to him after the film and he was like, “Oh my goodness, I would have been worried if you expressed all this to me before the shoot!” But that’s all work the audience doesn’t need to see. That’s for the actor. So I was very thankful we didn’t need to speak of it during the shoot.

To prepare for the role, did you spend a lot of time on hookup apps or ask friends about their crazier app experiences?

Yeah, I definitely looked into it. Oh goodness me. I heard some absolute doozies.

Would you be amused to learn that someone had a profile with your photo and Sequin’s name on Grindr now?

(Laughs.) Power to them. You do you.

You’re wearing a nice ochre-toned sweater today, Conor, but I’ve got to ask: Where’s the sequin shirt, and do you ever pull it out on occasion?

I did _not_ keep it. Sam kept it and lost it — for a little while, it went missing — but it was so smelly and rancid. I cannot stress enough: It was rank, because it couldn’t be washed! It was meticulously sequined and lined; it was so stinky. But Sam keeps it hidden away so people don’t convulse, I guess!

Sequin gave off a mermaid vibe, almost, by wearing that shirt. And there’s even a bit where B discovers one of its “scales” left behind on the bed. What was the intent?

It’s kind of an abstract choice that asks the audience to have their own associations and resonances. I very much developed my own backstory of how he might have come across this shirt or made it, but I don’t think I regarded it in quite that abstract associative way. They had it made for the film, though. It was still being finished on day one of the shoot! It took ages!

Has the film caused any controversy in Australia because the character is 16 and already has a prolific sex life? After all, the country has seen waves of moral panic about teenage sexuality over the years, notably some specifically over the work of acclaimed photographer Bill Henson.

I don’t think it’s caused controversy. I know there are people in Australia who wouldn’t like it. But we’ve been thrilled with the response it’s had in Australia. The conversations it’s started are amazing. Festival screenings are incredible. When I read the script, I thought, “I haven’t read something this bold and ambitious, let alone in Australia.” There’s still deep, deep conservatism here, so I’m very proud of how the film addressed something that needs to be addressed.

Watch Sequin In A Blue Room on Amazon Prime

Conversion Therapy Documentary Available on Amazon

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The Sunday Sessions

A new documentary exploring Conversion Therapy by Baltimore Director Richard Yeagley is now available on Amazon, ITunes, Kanopy, and DVD.

THE SUNDAY SESSIONS is an intimate portrait of one man’s struggle to reconcile his religious conviction and sexual identity. The observational documentary chronicles the turbulent journey of Nathan as he attends conversion therapy in hope of changing his sexual orientation. Conversion therapy is the controversial, non-scientifically based process which aims to convert an individual’s sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual.

Yeagley states: “Seeing a man similar in age to me struggle with his sexual orientation, as well as his identity in general, was a struggle to witness. No individual in modern times should ever feel the need to hide or change their sexual identity. But unfortunately, and quite tragically, there are many communities in America and across the globe where intolerance is pervasive. In this film, I was exposed to such communities. “

Although it has been discredited by all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional counseling organizations, some therapists still offer the service for reasons almost exclusively rooted in a conservative religious belief system. The filmmakers had unfettered access to these secretive and controversial therapy sessions and have crafted an emotional and psychological drama which
chronicles two years of Nathan’s journey.

Find out more at www.thesundaysessionsmovie.com.

10 Best LGBTQ Films of 2016

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Let’s face it, 2016 was not the best year for all of us, but before we move on to 2017, let’s take a look at some of the good things that happened. Here are some of my favorite LGBTQ films that were released in 2016. Several of these films were featured at the Reel Affirmations Film Festival held every year in Washington DC. I’ve included my 10 favorite movies & documentaries from 2016 but of course, this is not an exhaustive list. Share your favorite queer films in the comment section below.

Moonlight


A young man deals with his dysfunctional home life and comes of age in Miami during the “War on Drugs” era. The story of his struggle to find himself is told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love while grappling with his own sexuality.

Uncle Howard


Howard Brookner was buried on his thirty-fifth birthday in 1989. He was gay; an Ivy League graduate; broke artist; rising Hollywood star; heroin user; jet-setter; bohemian; seedy nightlife lover; director of cult docs; an honest and devoted friend – he was many things to many people. To director Aaron Brookner, he was a loving and inspirational uncle who died of AIDS when Aaron was only seven, right when Howard was on the brink of a promising filmmaking career. Uncle Howard is an intertwining tale of past and present, the story of filmmaker Howard Brookner whose work captured the late 70’ s and early 80’s cultural revolution – and his nephew’s personal journey 25 years later to discover his uncle’s films and the legacy of a life cut short by the plague of AIDS.

Tangerine


It’s Christmas Eve in Tinseltown and Sin-Dee (newcomer Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend (James Ransone, STARLET, “Generation Kill”) hasn’t been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, the working girl and her best friend, Alexandra (newcomer Mya Taylor), embark on a mission to get to the bottom of the scandalous rumor. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity. Director Sean Baker’s prior films (STARLET, PRINCE OF BROADWAY) brought rich texture and intimate detail to worlds seldom seen on film. TANGERINE follows suit, bursting off the screen with energy and style. A decidedly modern Christmas tale told on the streets of L.A., TANGERINE defies expectation at every turn.

LOEV


When hot shot, Wall Street dealmaker Jai thinks of putting some pleasure into his 48 hour business trip to Mumbai, Sahil, his young, music-producer friend, drops everything, including his reckless boyfriend Alex, to help him execute the perfect getaway. Hiking the hills and canyons of Maharashtra, amidst half-attempted conversations and sudden silences, business calls and old jokes, the friends discover there is more than just time-zones keeping them apart. Things take another turn when Alex shows up with a new male-companion at his side, throwing up old conflicts and bringing unanswered questions to the fore.

Free CeCe


On her way to the store with a group of friends, Chrishaun Reed “CeCe” McDonald was attacked. In fighting for her own life, a man was killed. After a coercive interrogation, CeCe was incarcerated in a men’s prison in Minnesota. An international campaign to free CeCe garnered significant support from media and activists, including actress and executive producer Laverne Cox. Laverne uses her platform to explore the roles race, class, and gender played in CeCe’s case.

Suited


SUITED follows its subjects—clients seeking a personalized experience—into the minimalist office space of Bindle & Keep, a bespoke tailoring company based in Brooklyn that caters to a diverse LGBTQ community and looks beyond the gender binary, creating custom-made suits for gender-nonconforming and transgender clients. Clothier duo Rae and Daniel take a holistic approach to their work, considering each client’s personal narrative, which becomes inextricable from the creation of the perfect suit.

Strike a Pose


In 1990, seven young male dancers – 6 gay, 1 straight – joined Madonna on her most controversial tour. On stage and in the iconic film Truth or Dare they showed the world how to express yourself. Now, 25 years later, they reveal the truth about life during and after the tour. Strike a Pose is a dramatic tale about overcoming shame and finding the courage to be who you are.

Women who Kill


Commitment phobic Morgan and her ex-girlfriend Jean are locally famous true crime podcasters obsessed with female serial killers. There’s a chance they may still have feelings for each other, but co-dependence takes a back seat when Morgan meets the mysterious Simone during her Food Coop shift. Blinded by infatuation, Morgan quickly signs up for the relationship, ignoring warnings from friends that her new love interest is practically a stranger. When Jean shows Morgan proof that Simone may not be who she says she is, Morgan accuses Jean of trying to ruin the best thing that’s ever happened to her. But as she and Simone move into commitment territory, Morgan starts to notice red flags — maybe Jean was right and Simone isn’t as perfect as Morgan’s made her out to be.

Pushing Dead


Pushing Dead is a warm and magnetic comedy drama from Director Tom E. Brown. The film follows a struggling poet and writer named Dan Schauble (played by James Roday), who has been HIV positive for 22 years. He splits his San Francisco flat with his dear friend Paula (Robin Weigert), who is more like a sister than a friend to Dan.

Forbidden: Undocumented and Queer in Rural America


Growing up in rural North Carolina, Moises Serrano fell in love with a country that refused to recognize his full humanity – both as an undocumented immigrant and as a gay man. The documentary project Forbidden follows Moises’ personal journey as an activist fighting for the American Dream.

 

Best LGBT Films of 2016
Best LGBT Films of 2016