Special to Windy City Times. Richard Knight, Jr. is narrative features co-programmer for the Reeling festival.
The fall film awards season is upon us with some of the most eagerly awaited movies premiering at prestigious film festivals in the country before arriving in theaters.
Since the early 2000s some of those have been LGBTQ themed films. Far From Heaven, Brokeback Mountain, The Kids Are All Right, The Dallas Buyers Club, Moonlight, and Bohemian Rhapsody immediately spring to mind. Yet none of these had an advance screening at a queer film festival.
But this year–for perhaps the first time in its storied history—Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival, is going to host the Midwest premiere of the latest in this list of hotly anticipated award contender movies when it opens with the queer themed La Bola Negra on Thursday, Sept. 17 at the Music Box Theatre.
What took so long?
“Just as queer stories have historically been marginalized within the film industry, queer film festivals have tended to be marginalized in the film festival landscape,” said Brenda Webb, founder and director of Reeling. “When a major queer film finds mainstream success and still chooses to regionally premiere within a queer film festival, it shares its visibility, success and power with the queer community; and by centering the queer audience, it validates that that audience is the most important audience for the film. Not the only audience, but the most important one.”
That was echoed by what the film’s co-directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi (known jointly as Las Javis) have said in interviews and Q&As for the film.
“Let’s give all the straight people the war movie they want, but let’s give our community the love story that they want–why can’t we have it all?” Calvo asked the audience at the movie’s US premiere at Telluride.
The epically scaled La Bola Negra–filmed in Spain by Las Javis (who co-wrote the film with Alberto Conejero)–has gained momentum following its rapturous Cannes debut (winning Las Javis Best Director) where Netflix picked it up for distribution.
The movie follows three generations of gay men across pivotal moments in Spanish history, bound by pain, desire and love. The cast of young newcomers is rounded out by Oscar winner Penelope Cruz and screen legend Glenn Close. Advance reviews of the film have have been overwhelmingly positive.
Chicago audiences will be the first in the Midwest to judge for themselves when the Music Box screening kicks off Reeling’s annual 10-day festival. The fest continues Sept. 18–24 at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema, 2828 N. Clark St., and concludes at Chicago Filmmakers, 1326 W. Hollywood Ave. Sept. 25-27.Chicago Filmmakers is the presenting organization of Reeling which has been going strong since 1981. This year’s edition features 40 narrative features and documentaries and over 50 shorts with selections from more than a dozen countries.
As usual, Reeling offers the gamut of LGBTQ+ experiences (this year’s motto is “Where the Magic is Always Queer”) and the festival includes films in multiple genres. For those looking for a love story Before I Do focuses on a quartet of gay men gathering for a bachelor party when an old flame reignites (think Hallmark but gayer) while Julian is the opposite: a tearjerker about a newly married lesbian couple doing their best to avert a health tragedy (bring your hankies).
Something You Should Know About Me, executive produced by Lily Wachowski, is the darling story of budding love between a trans male cartoonist and the object of his (literal) fantasies and Joan Chen (The Last Emperor, Twin Peaks) is sensational in the romantic drama Montreal, My Beautiful, the tale of a woman awakening to her true nature in middle age when she meets a bewitching beauty at night school.
The fest also offers an assortment of let’s go sexin’ movies–the ‘80s-style crime thriller Body Blow (think Brian de Palma but gay as hell); the sultry, tropical island romance between a heartbroken chef and a hot daddy he meets on the beach in An Island Away From You; the über-sexy Very Deep Inside, about a gay couple trying to regain their mojo by expanding their sexual boundaries; two women exploring their unbridled passion for each other in the psychological crime drama A Safe Distance; and an aging hunk trying to come to terms with his internalized homophobia when he’s drawn into an affair with a younger, flamboyant, unapologetically gay man in A Man Walks Down the Street.
The lineup also includes a superb example of queer horror with Son of Sara, Volume One (a Rosemary’s Baby variation—a jaw dropping one); a pair of black comedies–Lunar Sway, a quirky David Lynch-Coen Brothers-style bisexual offbeat catfish dramedy; SNL’s Rachel Dratch and gay comic actor Jack Plotnick in Loves Company, a twisted variation on Misery; the delightful rom-com Meeting Marsha (featuring Elaine Hendrix from Dancing with the Stars, Freakier Friday); an Ingmar Bergman-style austere gay drama called Trial of Hein; and the over-the-top Madfabulous, a gay variation on Bridgerton and Downtown Abbey, inspired by a true story about a flamboyant aristocrat challenging Victorian conventions featuring Reeling’s 2019 Artistic Achievement honoree Rupert Everett.
Tatum Yancy, returning as Narrative Features Co-Programmer, had this to say about the lineup: “One of my favorite aspects is that I get to play a part in discovering exceptional films that many have yet to see.”
She cited the bittersweet coming of age drama Caity, the story of a teenage girl opening herself to same sex attraction as she is trying to hold her newly sober father in check (Morgan Spector of The Gilded Age in a heartbreaking performance), and Mermaid as two films out of the over 100 she watched that “really stuck with me.” The latter, a story of a trans child who longs to be a mermaid mentored by a grief-stricken drag queen, has been given the honor of being selected as Reeling’s Narrative Centerpiece film. The film’s writer-director-producer, Fia Perera, will attend the screening.
As Yancy’s narrative features co-programmer, I concur but add a further endorsement for Test, the story of an amateur bodybuilder trying to turn pro while confronting a dysfunctional family, substance abuse and his own emerging gay sexuality. Boris Yurich, former bodybuilding champ, wrote the script and stars in the title role, and he and director Sam McConnell, making his feature debut, will be on hand for the screening. The film is winning awards left and right on the circuit and I can’t wait for audiences to see why.
I would also give a shout out to My Brother’s Killer, the true crime documentary directed by Rachel Mason and produced and edited by Dion Labriola (both former Chicagoans who will attend the screening). The film is a riveting and heartbreaking deep dive into the L.A. gay porn scene and attempts to solve a 40-year-old brutal murder.
Webb programmed this year’s documentary features, which also include the standouts Jaripeo, the award-winning Sundance film that explores queer life and hidden subcultures within the hyper-masculine world of traditional rodeos in Mexico and Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders from director Jeffrey Schwarz (Vito, I Am Divine). It focuses on the controversy over the filming of William Friedkin’s 1980 S&M murder thriller Cruising.
The self-described Britney Griner Story, which details the athlete’s harrowing story, and A Deeper Love: The Story of Miss Peppermint, about the rise to prominence of the Harlem-born drag queen and RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant, are two more compelling docs in this year’s lineup.
The festival closes with a 30th anniversary screening, sponsored by The Legacy Project, of The Celluloid Closet, the award-winning documentary based on Vito Russo’s 1981 seminal bestseller tracing LGBTQ+ representation in the first century of Hollywood. This is also the 40th anniversary of Russo’s appearance at Reeling, where he presented a lecture and film clips from his book.
Webb recalled: “The airlines had shut down and—this was long before cell phones—we didn’t know until Vito walked into the theatre that he was coming. But somehow he made it, and his appearance was tremendous. The Celluloid Closet had been published in 1981 the same year as we started.”
As with every edition of Reeling, the festival features a huge variety of shorts programs to choose from–10 in all (everything from Queeries and Quandries to Youth in Revolt). Returning Shorts Programmer Iona Bodem was particularly enthusiastic about two of the blocks: Memento Vivre and Chosen Family. The first “focuses heavily on our queer histories, both in narrative and documentary,” Bodem said, “I want to highlight the entire block, but in particular Plenum; a remarkable short that plays with (non) fiction by Chicago filmmaker Charlene A. Carruthers. It is a must see.”
Bodem continued: “The Chosen Family (program) looks at our communities, our villages and our loved ones—kicking off with another Chicago filmmaker, local comedian Whitney Chitwood’s “Sam Wants Her Sweater Back,” a funny, poignant and remarkably touching short about a group of friends stealing back a treasured sweater from an ex. With two screenings, there’s no excuse to miss it.” David Pevsner—star of Scrooge & Marley, the Chicago-shot and produced queer holiday variation on A Christmas Carol, which I co-wrote and co-directed—stars in “Just Not Naked Enough,” which is part of the Bodies of Desire lineup. Pevsner will attend the screening.
Like many queer film festivals, Reeling is assembled by a small but dedicated staff that includes Program Coordinator Patrick Friel; Sponsorship Coordinator Jerry Nunn (sales director and entertainment for this publication); and Marketing Manager Shelli Nicole, among others.
This is Nicole’s first year with the festival. Part of her responsibility has been “making sure that we’re being intentional in pairing these incredible films with organizations, community spaces and shops in the city that have an audience who can connect with the stories on the screen.” Those include organizations like Pride Action Tank, Brave Space Alliance, Gerber/Hart Library & Archives and the Legacy Project, along with a host of new supporters.
“Reeling is not just a major part of queer history, it’s a big part of Chicago history,” Nicole enthusiastically added.
Complete festival information, tickets and advance tickets by calling 773-293-1447 or at www.reelingfilmfestival.org.