Frameline has announced the full program for the 47th annual San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival (Frameline47). Running June 14 through 24, with a streaming encore to follow from June 24 through July 2, Frameline47 returns with nearly 90 film screenings, including 12 world, 16 North American, and 9 U.S. premieres.
Frameline will host 47 screenings at the historic Castro Theatre and other venues throughout the Bay Area. This announcement comes on the heels of Frameline’s recent unveiling of three marquee presentations: the Opening Night film, Andrew Durham’s Sundance favorite “Fairyland,” which will feature an in-person appearance from producer Sofia Coppola; the Oakland Centerpiece, Hannah Pearl Utt’s “Cora Bora,” featuring “Hacks”scene-stealer Megan Stalter; and the Pride Kickoff film, Jordan Danger’s “God Save the Queens,” featuring RuPaul drag icon Alaska, who will perform during the afterparty at Oasis.
This year’s iteration is set to be Northern California’s largest film festival in 2023, according to Frameline.
In terms of the lineup, Stephen Kijak’s documentary “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed“ looks toward the past, painting an intimate portrait of the Golden Age Hollywood icon, whose death from AIDS in 1985 forced a shift in the public perception of the epidemic. Meanwhile, D. Smith’s Sundance-winning documentary “Kokomo City” centers on four Black transgender sex workers and represents boundary-pushing efforts in cinema being led by Trans creatives. (One of the film’s subjects, Koko Da Doll, died earlier this year in a shooting in Atlanta.)
In addition to examining queer and trans histories, Frameline47’s program spotlights the legacy and impact of LGBTQ+ cinema.
“The pairing of ‘Chasing Amy,’ Kevin Smith’s 1997 cult classic, with Sav Rodgers’ directorial debut, ‘Chasing Chasing Amy,’ is a perfect encapsulation of not only this year’s festival, but of what it means to be a queer filmmaker,” says director of programming Allegra Madsen. “How do filmmakers — and all of us — deal with our problematic cultural past when it was both so formative and so damaging? For queer people, there isn’t always a roadmap to follow. We’re charting our own paths, and the Frameline47 films explore this, no matter the genre.”
Other films include the queer teen sex comedy “Bottoms” from Emma Seligman (“Shiva Baby”) and starring Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri; Sebastián Silva’s quasi-detective story and Sundance hit “Rotting in the Sun,” starring Jordan Firstman; Babatunde Apalowo’s award-winning “All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White”; Zeno Graton’s “The Lost Boys”; “The Celluloid Closet” directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s “Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music”; and “It’s Only Life After All,” Alexandria Bombach’s acclaimed documentary about iconic queer folk duo the Indigo Girls.
In addition to the Castro Theatre, Frameline47 venues include the Roxie (Frameline’s oldest venue partner), CinemaSF’s Balboa Theater, 4-Star Theater, and Vogue Theater — which will host festival tie-in screenings of classic queer films during Neighborhood Nights — and The New Parkway Theater in Oakland. The festival’s return to the East Bay boasts 10 Oakland screenings, including Frameline’s first-ever Oakland Opening Night and Centerpiece films.
Frameline’s flagship festival runs June 14 through 24 in San Francisco and Oakland, and will be available virtually for audiences within the US. See the full lineup over at the festival’s website here.
