Experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer illuminates the story of surrealist writer, photographer, and lesbian Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, her lover, step-sister, and artistic collaborator. Capturing the spirit of this Jewish couple who refused to live by any standards but their own, the film masterfully employs photographs of the women and their artwork, interwoven with voiceovers and insightful interviews. Lover Other brings art, politics, and gender identity to the fore in a thought-provoking investigation of artists and resistance during WWII.

Event Info↗

his is the first British Dogme 95 film and was made on a shoestring budget by first-time director Jan Dunn. It tells of the impact of Tasha, a Czech refugee who affects one unhappy British working-class family. The same story is told from three radically different perspectives: that of the good-hearted mother who welcomes Tasha, the teenage daughter who turns against Tasha, and the fed-up father who loathes Tasha. The bare-bones style (no music, no artificial lighting, and actual locations) gives the story a documentary realism that, combined with a determination to tackle a taboo subject head-on, makes this similar in many ways to the films of Ken Loach. Description adapted from the Borderlines Film Festival.

Event Info↗

Fabulous! charts the evolution of independent gay and lesbian cinema from experimental filmmakers of the 1940s and 50s, to underground filmmakers of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, to the breakthrough “New Queer Cinema” of the 90s, and the cutting-edge gay filmmakers of today. The documentary features directors Todd Haynes and Jennie Livingston, as well as John Cameron Mitchell, John Waters, and Angela Robinson; actors Guinevere Turner, Alan Cumming, and Heather Matarazzo; producer Christine Vachon; and journalists Michael Musto, B. Ruby Rich, and Alonso Duralde—all waxing eloquent on the movies queer audiences are lucky to have. Followed by a discussion on current trends in GLBT film with panelists including filmmaker Debra Wilson, Yusuf Nasrullah of MASALA, James Nadeau of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies Program, and film critic Loren King.

Event Info↗