The great John Waters, self-described maven of filth and a pioneer in queer underground cinema, will be receiving a special honor from Frameline in March, at the Castro Theatre.

The Frameline Award, which has not been given out since 2019, is given to a person or entity that has made a major contribution to LGBTQ+ representation in film, television, or the media arts. And this year it will be bestowed on filmmaker, writer, and visual artist John Waters during a special presentation on March 17 to kick off Frameline's 50th anniversary season.

The event will also feature a screening of Waters's 1994 classic Serial Mom, starring Kathleen Turner, with live commentary from Waters and Peaches Christ. Find tickets here, and they're likely to go fast.

"Celebrating John Waters, a titan of transgressive independent cinema who also never fails to bring us together and make us laugh, captures the spirit of Frameline so well," says Frameline Executive Director Allegra Madsen in a statement. "If the world excludes us, we’ll build the one we want to see — and we’ll have a damn good time doing it."

Previous recipients of the Frameline Award include indie fillmmaker Gregg Araki, avant-garde lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer, historian Vito Russo, drag legend Divine, and actor George Takei.

Waters, who has been a part-time resident of San Francisco for over two decades, began his career making underground movies in Baltimore with his childhood friend Glenn Milstead, later known as Divine. As the legend goes, Waters and Milstead used to hang out in high school at a local dive bar called Martick's in downtown Baltimore, which is where they met some of their eventual collaborators in making the loony, campy, bizarre "midnight movies" that Waters would first become known for, like Multiple Maniacs (1970), Pink Flamingos (1972), and Female Trouble (1974).

By the late 1980s, Waters's work became more mainstream, beginning with 1988's Hairspray — an ode to 1960s pop music that doubled as a fable about segregation. That was followed by the films Cry-Baby (1990), and Serial Mom (1994) which solidified Waters as a creator of satirical dark comedies with an edge that was, by that point, not as subversive as at once was, though just as camp.

Waters hasn't made a new movie since 2004's A Dirty Shame, which was rated NC-17 and marked a return to Waters's "trash" roots, but was also a box-office disappointment and failed to capture the attention of a broad range of fans.

In the last 20 years, Waters has primarily turned to writing, penning the novel Liarmouth (which at one point in recent years was being discussed for a film adaptation), a book of essays called Role Models, and a hitchhiking memoir titled Carsick.

Waters has often expounded on his love of "bad taste," saying things like, "To me, bad taste is what entertainment is all about." Also: " To understand bad taste one must have very good taste. Good bad taste can be creatively nauseating but must, at the same time, appeal to the especially twisted sense of humor, which is anything but universal."

The Frameline Film Festival, the oldest LGBTQ+ film festival in the world, kicks off June 17 and will be returning to the Castro Theatre for the first time in three years.

As has been expected, San Francisco's LGBTQ+ film festival, Frameline, is going to return to its old home at the Castro Theatre in 2026, and this will be for Frameline 50, marking 50 years of the world's oldest queer film fest.

Frameline made the announcement Thursday morning, confirming that Frameline 50 will take place from June 17 to June 27, and while it will be happening across multiple venues, the festival has long used the grand Castro Theatre as its home base for opening and closing night screenings.

"It's official," festival organizers announced. "We can’t wait to celebrate 50 years of independent queer media, so pencil in Frameline50’s dates and join us in the Castro and across the Bay Area this Pride Month for a first-of-its-kind milestone."

Frameline held its first festival screenings in 1977, and began using the Castro Theatre as its hub in 1981. And for filmmakers, the submission window for this year's festival opened today, with an early-bird deadline of November 21, and a regular deadline of January 26.

There was plenty of consternation among neighborhood denizens and lovers of the Castro Theatre that Another Planet Entertainment (APE) would not let the theater be used very regularly for movie screenings after its $41 million renovation was complete — and after the orchestra-level seating was removed. But APE has pledged to use many of the theater's unprogrammed nights, when no concerts are scheduled, to show films there, and removable seating is reportedly part of the renovation.

APE took over management of the theater, which is still owned by the family of its founders, the Nasser family, in January 2022.

But, it was always assumed that Frameline would return to using the theater — likely along with other annual film fests, like the Silent Film Festival, Jewish Film Festival, and the San Francisco International Film Festival, all of which have been displaced the past two years.

Frameline has used theaters like the Roxie and Oakland's Parkway in earlier years, and the past two years has also held screenings at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio, and elsewhere.

"The Castro, as a neighborhood, is a vital part of Frameline’s legacy and, over the last few years, we’ve formed incredible partnerships with other San Francisco theaters too," says Frameline Executive Director Allegra Madsen, speaking to the Chronicle. "On the whole, we’re looking forward to celebrating in-person movie-going and five decades of queer film history throughout the Bay Area."

While we await a more fleshed-out programming schedule for the theatre between March and June, and in July and beyond, we know that the theater will be occupied by an extended residency featuring Grammy winner Sam Smith, who will be performing on 20 dates between February 10 and March 14.

Chase Strangio is the first transgender attorney to argue a case before the US Supreme Court. Strangio’s story is told in a documentary at next week’s Frameline film festival, and the court’s decision is also expected to come down during Frameline.

The United States Supreme Court has a strange habit of changing the tenor of SF Pride celebrations. Sometimes this is glorious, like in 2015 when the Court ruled that same-sex marriage would be legal on the Friday morning of Pride Weekend. And sometimes this is horrible, like in 2022 when the Trump-packed court shot down Roe v Wade, also on Friday morning of Pride Weekend.    

This year’s Pride is once again likely to be rocked — or exhilarated — by another Supreme Court decision. And a documentary about that Supreme Court case just happens to be one of the features playing at this month’s Frameline film festival (June 18-28).

Above we see the trailer for Heightened Scrutiny, which has its California premiere next Friday, June 20, as part of Frameline. It’s the story of Chase Strangio, a transgender man who is the first out transgender attorney ever to argue a case before the US Supreme Court. The trailer is a brief one-minute deal, but has the goosebump-inducing audio of Strangio making that historic first case from a transgender attorney before the court (cameras, of course, are not allowed in the Supreme Court).

“The film centers on ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, the first out trans person to argue before the Supreme Court,” Frameline explains in their film description. “While Strangio fights a high-stakes legal battle to overturn Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth (United States v Skrmetti), he and other leading activists, like Laverne Cox and Elliot Page, examine how media bias influences the public’s perception of trans rights.”

It is not lost on the film’s director Sam Feder that the decision may well come down during Frameline, perhaps even on the very day of this June 20 screening.

“The outcome of this case is going to affect all Americans,” Feder told the Chronicle. “People think this is just about a small community that they don’t really care about, and they want to talk about other things. But we’re seeing the beginnings of coalition building about reproductive rights and trans rights and immigrant rights. This is all about bodily autonomy, what we have the right to do, what our right is to move through space.”

Frameline says that tickets for this screening are “selling fast,” though still currently available. It’s a 7 pm Friday night screening at the Toni Rembe Theater (415 Geary Street), featuring a pre-show performance by the New Voices Bay Area Transgender, Intersex, Genderqueer Choir, a Q&A after the screening with the director Feder, and if you’re down, an afterparty at the Proper Hotel’s rooftop bar Charmaine’s.

Related: Conservative Supreme Court Justices Once Again Do Injustice to Trans Service Members [SFist]

Image: Frameline

Frameline 48 just announced the full schedule for its 2024 LGBTQ+ film festival in June, and as promised, Opening Night will be that free outdoor screening of the new Lil Nas X documentary.

Back in March, not long after Allegra Madsen had just been named the annual Frameline film festival’s new executive director, 48 Hills had quite the scoop teasing an Opening Night event that sounded quite mind-blowing. “​​There will also be a super-exciting kickoff event,” that site reported. “On Juneteenth, June 19, the festival aims to take over Castro Street right outside the Castro Theatre for a free hybrid festival/opening night, with a movie shown in the street and a celebratory atmosphere that welcomes new crowds for the fest’s offerings.”

Well, Frameline just announced its full 2024 schedule (June 19-29), and we now have the details of that exciting kick-off event, and they do not disappoint. It’s a free screening of the music documentary Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero, scheduled for 6 pm on Wednesday, June 19, and it is indeed a block party being held on the street. There will also be live performances from drag performances from Oasis’s all-Black drag show Reparations. The capacity for this event has not been announced, but you’ll probably want to hit that RSVP page right at 3 pm this Friday when tickets become available, as this show is sure to hit capacity.

The Chronicle reports on some other Frameline 48 highlights, which include another music documentary about 4 Non Blondes’ lead singer, in Linda Perry: Let It Die Here. There’s also a conversation with actor and screenwriter Lena Waithe, and Deborah Craig’s documentary Sally!, which is about SF State professor and fantasy author Sally Gearhart.

Poking around that full schedule, we’re also intrigued by the same-sex animal relationship feature Second Nature, the trans horror slasher Carnage for Christmas, and the music documentary Teaches of Peaches.

Again, Frameline 48 is scheduled for June 19-29, with more than 120 programs screening or happening at the Palace of Fine Arts, Roxie Theater, Vogue Theatre and the Herbst Theatre, as well as the New Parkway Theater in Oakland.

The Full Frameline 48 schedule is here, tickets go on sale at 3 pm PT on Friday, May 24.

Related: Here Are Seven Recommendations for Movies to Catch at Frameline, Which Kicks Off Wednesday [SFist]

Image: HBO Films

As you surely know by now, Frameline, San Francisco's LGBTQ film festival, is the longest-running LGBTQ film fest in the world, having first launched in 1977. And it's back this year, with a bunch of programming at the still-seat-filled Castro Theatre, as well as other venues around SF and Oakland.

The 47th Frameline festival runs from June 14 to June 24 — so, starting tomorrow (Wednesday) and going through Pride Weekend. And this year, as during the pandemic, there are a large number of streaming options as well, with a whole "steaming encore" happening from June 24 to July 2.

"There is nothing like seeing a great film at the cinema — sharing an experience in the same moment as friends and strangers alike,” says James Woolley, Executive Director of Frameline, in a statement. "Despite the challenges that have reshaped moviegoing, we are proud to present Northern California’s largest film festival this year. It says so much about the power and resiliency of queer art and community as well as the urgent need for it."

There are a couple of premieres and pre-release screenings at Frameline that you will have plenty of time to see afterwards — like Bottoms, the lesbian teen black comedy coming to theaters in August, the Castro screening of which is already sold out; and Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History of Popular Music, the two-hour documentary about the 24-hour show that Mac performed both here and originally in New York in 2018, which is coming to Max a couple of days after it screens at the Castro on June 24.

But there's lots of stuff that doesn't have a distributor and hasn't been picked up by a streaming service that is the type of great festival fare Frameline is known for.

Below, a few selections.

All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White is the second film to receive Frameline’s Out in the Silence Award, which is given to an "outstanding film project that highlights brave acts of LGBTQ+ visibility in places where such acts are not common." The new film by Nigerian filmmaker Babatunde Apalowo tells the story of two young men exploring an exciting bond they share amid a country where homosexuality remains illegal. (Castro Theatre, 4:00 p.m. June 18, tickets here)

Cora Bora is the first star vehicle for rising comedic genius Meg Stalter (Hacks), and it's a followup Centerpiece film for director Hannah Pearl Utt who made Frameline43 Centerpiece film Before You Know It. The film follows "chaotic poly bisexual Cora [on] a surprise trip back to Portland to try to win back her girlfriend Justine." (Castro Theatre, June 18, 6:30 p.m., tickets here)

Sisi & I, one of the Centerpiece films of this fest, tells the story of 19th century Austrian Empress Elisabeth, who infamously "decamped from the stuffy courts of Vienna to a proto-queer paradise on the Greek isle of Corfu." According to festival organizers, "Fans of The Favourite and Portrait of a Lady on Fire will love this stylish revamp of the lesbian period drama, with its fluid camerawork, eye-popping costumes, and amazing, anachronistic, all-female soundtrack featuring the likes of Le Tigre, Portishead, and Nico." (Castro Theatre, June 20, 6 p.m., tickets here)

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is a coming-of-age gay story set in Texas in the summer of 1987 in which two Mexican-American teen boys meet and begin a budding romance. Adapted from Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s beloved YA novel, the bilingual film features a very late-80s soundtrack. Director Aitch Alberto will be making an appearance at the June 17 screening. Tickets here.

Will-o-the-Wisp, is a Portuguese dystopian fantasy musical coming-of-age tale from cinematic provocateur João Pedro Rodrigues, which organizers say is Rodrigues's most "breezy and playful" work to date, featuring plenty of choreographed erotica involving firemen.

Anhell69 is director Theo Montoya's docu-memoir that was a hit at SXSW and a multiple award-winner at Cannes, depicting young queer life in the director’s hometown of Medellín, Colombia, and the world of drugs and violence that lurks around many corners. (Castro Theatre, June 14, 9:30 p.m., tickets here)

God Save the Queens, Jordan Danger's dramedy about four drag queens (Alaska Thunderfuck, Laganja Estranga, Kelly Mantle, and Jordan Michael Green) who end up at the same therapy retreat. The screening, which will be on Friday, June 23 at 7 p.m. at the Castro Theatre, will be followed by an afterparty at Oasis — the nightclub's official Pride Kick-Off Party, featuring a live performance by Alaska.

See the full calendar of Frameline screenings and events here, and tickets and passes are still available — including the Castro Pass, for Frameline members, which gets you into all the screenings at the Castro Theatre over the next two weeks.

Disney-Pixar’s Lightyear will make Frameline history as the first Disney feature with a same-sex kiss, plus a Vinsantos documentary and two Margaret Cho features round out the just-announced LGBTQ+ film festival schedule.

“The Coast is Queer” for the full in-person return of Frameline, the world's oldest LGBTQ+ film festival that just announced the full schedule for their 46th fest here in SF June 16-26. Among the features, a local legend returns, as early 2000s drag-scene icon Vinsantos gets a feature documentary, plus a Disney-Pixar Toy Story prequel may be the unexpected talk of the fest with Disney’s first-ever onscreen same-sex kiss, and two new Margaret Cho features complete the roster of 132 different films from 36 countries.

“What queer film festival would be complete without not one but two appearances by the hilarious Margaret Cho,” Frameline director of programming Allegra Madsen said at a Tuesday night schedule announcement at El Rio.

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A post shared by Vinsantos DeFonte (@vinsantosdefonte)

Old-school San Francisco drag fans will recall the onstage fright antics of Miss Trannyshack 2000 Vinsantos, who has recently retired the drag persona. But the documentary Last Dance (June 23, Castro Theatre) captures the six-month preparation for Lady Vinsantos’ star-studded final show in Paris. Vinsantos’ real-life incarnation, Vincent DeFonte — who now lives in New Orleans — will be on hand for the screening, along with another local legend, Fauxnique.

The opening night feature is the first two episodes of Amazon Prime’s TV series reboot of the women’s baseball comedy A League of Their Own (June 16, Castro Theatre); and closing night will feature Peter von Kant (June 26, Castro Theatre), a sort of reverse-gender version of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.  

Vulveeta (Official Trailer) from Maria Breaux on Vimeo.

There’s more local San Francisco satire in the rock mockumentary Vulveeeta (June 25, Roxie Theatre), the story of the reunion of a 1990s riot grrl band, which features cameos from Lynn Breedlove and… Supervisor Hillary Ronen?  “This our own Spinal Tap,” Madsen tells SFist. “It captures this moment of 90s lesbian San Francsico, and brings it into 2022.”

The feel-good crossover hit may well be Bowen Yang and Margaret Cho in Fire Island  (June 23, Castro Theatre). Margaret Cho also stars in the screwball Hollywood sendup The Sixth Reel  (June 25, Castro Theatre).

And it’s rare for Frameline’s Family Matinee to have the biggest buzz of the festival, but they’ll be screening the new Toy Story prequel Lightyear (June 19, Castro Theatre), the Buzz Lightyear origin story. That film is historic in the sense that it’s the first Disney animated feature to depict a same-sex kiss onscreen, a scene that Pixar employees had to fight to keep Disney from cutting from the film.

More than half of the films will be available for streaming at home following the festival; Frameline Streaming Encore is available from June 24-30, and those available for streaming are denoted on the films’ description pages.

Frameline 46 is June 16-26 at various Bay Area theaters. Tickets here.

Related: Vinsantos, Legendary Queen Of Trannyshack's Heyday, Returns To SF Sunday For A One-Night-Only Cabaret [SFist]

Images: (Left) Galerie Vinsantos, (Middle) Searchlight Pictures, (Right) Disney/Pixar

The first-ever Pride Movie Nights at Oracle Park — with this year’s theme organized around the ideas of inclusivity and togetherness — will feature in-person film screenings of the film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical In the Heights, plus a second unannounced feature picture, in June.

For its 50th anniversary in 2020, San Francisco Pride hosted an entirely virtual celebration amid climbing COVID-19 cases. (Big Freedia’s Twitch-streamed headlining act will forever occupy a happy corner of my mind, rent-free.) But with vaccination rates rising and California planning to soon remove its COVID-19 restrictions, the 51st San Francisco Pride festivities are looking to be largely in-real-life affairs. And the nonprofit’s movie nights at Oracle Park are expected to host thousands of people in an outdoor space that allows for “public safety and social distancing.”

Jointly announced by San Francisco Pride and Frameline — the non-profit organization behind the annual San Francisco International LGBTQI+ Film Festival — Pride Movie Nights at Oracle Park will be hosted on Friday, June 11, and that following Saturday, June 12, at 8 p.m. each night; the film for the event’s second screening, however, hasn’t been decided yet.

The Friday night show, too, will double as a kick-off to Frameline’s 45th LGBTQI+ film festival.

“I can’t think of a better way to kick off Frameline45 than with an in-person screening of Jon M. Chu’s highly anticipated film adaptation of In the Heights, a film that celebrates the spirit of community,” said James Woolley, the Executive Director of Frameline, in a press release. “We are honored to partner with San Francisco Pride and Giants Enterprises on this first-ever movie night and look forward to bringing audiences together from throughout the San Francisco Bay Area to share in this collective experience."

Citing “current trends” around the City’s handling of the pandemic, Executive Director of San Francisco Pride Fred Lopez is “optimistic” that when the film festival begins, denizens of San Francisco will be able to participate in once normal activities — “cheering, laughing, and simply being together.”

“We know that this is what our communities have been aching to experience for more than a year, and we’re confident that our team will create a safe, welcoming environment that’s memorable, too,” Lopez adds in the same release, which also notes that additional San Francisco Pride 51 festivities will take place throughout the month of June.

Pride Movie Nights at Oracle Park are set to be socially distanced and ticketed events — which are subjected to uphold whatever state-mandated capacity limits exist at the time — and are the result of a cooperation with the Giants Enterprises and support from the City and County of San Francisco. (Attendees of the screenings will need to wear their masks, except when dining or drinking.)

Individual tickets, which are priced to reflect varying degrees of included niceties, range from $24.99 to $44.99; the “On-Field Experience package” is priced at $2,499.96, which allows for twelve guests to nestle themselves inside a well-appointed large “pod” in the outfield.

For more information on Pride Movie Nights at Oracle Park, as well as to purchase tickets, visit frameline.org/pridemovienight.

Related: SF Pride Won't Have a Parade In 2021, But There Will Be Some In-Person Events

Image: Courtesy of San Francisco Pride

The Frameline festival— the annual SF queer film happening synonymous with Pride Month — was postponed this year, promising to return in the fall. Soon, you can catch all of Frameline44's screenings online (which will begin next month), making it the "world's largest" virtual LGBTQ film festival.

The fall of 2020 is, admittedly, going to look a lot different than what we were hoping and wishing for earlier in the spring and summer months. COVID-19 cases continue to mound in SF... as bars, clubs, and various cultural centers still stay closed; everything from September's Folsom Street Fair to most of BroadwaySF's fall programming has been either canceled, postponed, or morphed into a digital event. (Flying to visit family over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays remains  up in the air for many.)

However, Frameline44 is set to offer some semblance of pre-pandemic normalcy next month with an 11-day film festival — which will be made available entirely online. The entire virtual shindig is slated to start September 17 and will last until September 27.

Over the course of the week-plus-long happening, ticket holders will have the opportunity to view ten world premieres, four international premieres, three North American premieres, and one US premiere; new narrative features, documentaries, episodic storytellings, and shorts programs are also included in the scheduling.

“Frameline remains the largest virtual LGBTQ+ film festival in the world,” says James Woolley, Frameline Executive Director in a press release. “As trailblazers in the industry for over four decades, Frameline continues raising the bar through virtual and interactive programming ensuring important LGBTQ+ stories are being told to a wider audience. Building on the success of our virtual Pride Showcase in June, we have assembled a lineup of films that promise to engage, inspire, and entertain film lovers across California.”

Centerpiece screenings this year include Shit & Champagne  — which, much like one documentary feature in this year’s Framline44 Pride Showcase, will only be screened at the West Wind Solano Drive-In in Concord — a film directed by and featuring SF's own D'Arcy Drollinger as the infamous stripper Champagne, the psychological thriller Through the Glass Darkly, and a very poignant film, The Obituary of Tunde Johnson... which tells the tale of a gay Black teenager who keeps waking up on the last day of his life before it was taken by "killer cops."

Frameline44 will also present a free community screening of the Pixar short film, OUT, followed by a live panel with writer-and-director Steven Clay Hunter, producer Max Sachar, and members of the filmmaking team to discuss queer storytelling in an animated film.

All in all, this year's 39 documentaries and shorts programs span cinema representing 25 countries, touching on on a variety of themes (like the BLM) and common denominators of everyday life for LGTBQ individuals — all while celebrating the power of queer storytelling.

Tickets ($8–$12 per screening) and inclusive passes (starting at $250) for Frameline44 are available at frameline.org/festival/tickets. You can view the entire festival’s film guide, here.

Forewarning: the screenings are geo-blocked... so you can only stream them in California. (Read: don't be surprised if you run into some technological hiccups while trying to watch the films.)

See a few trailers from the featured films, below:

Related: Frameline Still Doing An Online Film Festival in Late June, Announces Lineup

Image: Courtesy of Frameline

The full Frameline festival is still postponed til fall, but they’re filling your late June with an online mini-Frameline called “Frameline44 Pride Showcase”⁠ — which includes a drive-in show in Concord!

2020 is the year of everything is cancelled, and June will especially suck with SF Pride being cancelled entirely (though some unofficial protest might still take shape in its absence).

The annual Frameline LGBTQ+ film festival that traditionally accompanies your Pride Week proceedings is bringing some normalcy and joy to the final weekend in June. It’s in the form of a four-day, 16-feature mini-Frameline they’re calling the Frameline44 Pride Showcase (June 25-28), to be streamed online, and with some pretty intriguing programming  —  including one documentary screening in person at the West Wind drive-in theater in Concord.

“Pride Month has begun with riots and protests in the face of systemic injustice,” Frameline executive director James Woolley said in a release — which, ironically, quickly pivots to thanking corporate sponsors Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and AT&T. “The LGBTQ+ community is no stranger to these issues and we honor and support all those raising their voices in dissent and demanding equality.”

The Frameline 44 website is confusing as hell and is clearly designed to create as many unwanted and accidental clicks as possible. But we went through and we’ll try to explain the whole deal in plain English.

You are of course most intrigued by the one physical show at Concord’s drive-in, the world premiere of the documentary Ahead of the Curve which details the life and times of trailblazing lesbian magazine Curved. (It’s also going to stream online.) Your ‘Opening Night’ feature is the gay West Hollywood romcom Breaking Fast, Friday night’s documentary feature Denise Ho - Becoming the Song tells the tale of Hong Kong’s first out lesbian pop superstar, and the Closing Night show is Stage Mother, a San Francico-set drag romp with Jackie Beat, Lucy Liu, and Entourage’s Adrian Grenier. (There is an online dance party after the screening.)

But the most interesting bit of this lineup may be Parade, a 14-minute found-footage affair screening for free, documenting San Francisco’s 1971 first Pride parade (apparently Black Sabbath was involved???). The traditional collections of shorts Fun in Boys Shorts and Fun in Girls Shorts are joined by curated short film anthology Transtastic.

Each film comes online at 12:01 a.m. on its screening date, and is available until 11:59 p.m. that evening. But you only get the Q&A afterward if you stream the film at its proper “scheduled” time.

Shows are generally $8-10, with senior and student discounts available (a couple shows are free, and Ahead of the Curve at the Drive-In is $25). A $250 “valid all year” pass will cover not only the four days of the mini-fest, but the full, in-person Frameline in the fall too (assuming it happens). The program is geo-blocked so that you can only stream it in California, and there are all manner of other technical concerns you may have depending on which device you use to watch.

Ticket sales for the Frameline44 Pride Showcase started at noon today, and are available online.

And here's the Pride Showcase official trailer:

Related: Google Could Be Barred From SF Pride For Allowing Homophobic Harassment [SFist]

Image: Transtasctic, “Dungarees,” Abel Rubinstein

The Frameline LGBTQ film festival, which serves as the unofficial kickoff of SF Pride proceedings when it begins its ten-day run from June 15-25, posted its full 2017 lineup of 147 films from 19 countries in the wee hours last night. Queer film buffs already saw that Frameline previewed the 2017 schedule about a month back, with highlights including the opening night documentary about Armistead Maupin and the closing night flick featuring Alan Cumming (in person!) and Justin Vivian Bond (probably not attending).

Mick LaSalle has a little Frameline41 preview in today’s Chronicle, but that writeup doesn’t cover much more than what we’ve already known for weeks. So here’s a cursory look at some other standouts, based purely on a quick skim of the full schedule and no real inside knowledge whatsoever.

Trans actress and Orange is the New Black star Laverne Cox is in the mix with a new screwball comedy called Freak Show. We have a Whitney Houston documentary called Whitney. ‘Can I Be Me’. Alaska is a Drag depicts the adventures of a fish cannery worker who moonlights as a drag queen. 100 Men is a New Zealand film that literally documents having sex with 100 different men. A Date for Mad Mary is a standout from this year’s SFFILM Festival about an Irish woman fresh out of prison who immediately has to serve as a bridesmaid, and awkward hilarity ensures.

But you’re well advised to take a deep dive into the full Frameline41 schedule, which you can organize by genre, country, director, or the five Bay Area theaters hosting screenings.

Tickets go on sale to Frameline members this Friday, May 26 at the curious time of 3 p.m., and to the general public next Friday, June 2, also at 3 p.m.

If you’d like to volunteer for Frameline to get the t-shirt and those sweet free movie passes, the first Volunteer Orientation session is tonight at 7 p.m. at the SF LGBT Center. If you can’t make that one, there’s another Volunteer Orientation session on Thursday, June 1.

Frameline41 runs June 15-25 at the Castro Theatre, the Roxie Theater, the Victoria Theatre, the Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley, and the Piedmont Theatre in Oakland.

Related: Frameline Breaks Out A Preview Of Its 2017 Festival Schedule

We do not yet have the full schedule for this year’s Frameline, a.k.a the San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival that is set to run its 41st annual iteration June 15-25, 2017 at various Bay Area theaters. But we do have an announcement of this year’s biggest Frameline screenings, including Opening Night, Closing Night, the Centerpiece films, and — most importantly — where all the afterparties are happening.

“Frameline41’s Opening, Closing, and Centerpiece films shine a light on LGBTQ heroes in every sense of the word,” Frameline executive director Frances Wallace said in a statement. “Whether it be the fascinating story of San Francisco gem Armistead Maupin, the bold Chavela Vargas, iconic macha chanteuse and sexual outlaw, or Alan Cumming capturing the duality between queer generations - Frameline41 presents a Festival that has something for everyone.”

Here are a few of the somethings-for-everyone that have been confirmed for Frameline41.

The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin
Who among us is not fond of once-again San Francisco author Armistead Maupin and his blockbuster semi-fictional franchise Tales of the City? The new documentary The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin serves as the Frameline41 Opening Night fare, fresh off its successful world premiere at SXSW, and tells tales of Maupin’s life in a bounty of celebrity interviews including Sir Ian McKellen, Neil Gaiman, and Amanda Freakin’ Palmer.
Opening Night, Thursday June 15, 7 p.m., Castro Theater. Opening Night afterparty will be at Terra Gallery

'After Louie'

After Louie
Alan Cumming and Justin Vivian Bond star in your Frameline41 Closing Night offering After Louie, a sort of May-December romance between a grizzled ACT UP veteran and a carefree, PReP-popping hunky youngster. Cumming will be awarded the 2017 Frameline Award, so we take that to mean he will be in attendance.
Closing Night, Sunday, June 25, 7 p.m., Castro Theater. Closing Night afterparty will be at Oasis and feature a performance by Heklina

A Fabulous Trio of Centerpiece Films
Three other Centerpiece feature films are also confirmed for Frameline41, all screening at the Castro Theatre at 6:30 p.m. on their respective weeknight dates. The documentary Chavela (Monday, June 19) tells the life story of macha lesbian and “sexual outlaw” Chavela Vargas whose work was featured prominently in many Aldomovar films. Ernesto Contreras’ I Dream In Another Language (Tuesday, June 20) won an Audience Award at this year’s Sundance, so it is surely pretty damned good. And Tony winner Lena Hall (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, 2014) stars in Becks, doubtlessly a very entertaining lesbian midlife crisis story.

We expect the complete Frameline41 schedule to drop on Tuesday, May 23. Frameline members can buy tickets to these shows now, while non-member tickets will go on sale Friday, June 2, 2017.

Related: Living Trans In Mississippi Since the 1970s: A Firsthand Account

The most disturbing aspect of tonight’s Frameline documentary about “ the largest gay mass murder in US history” is that it’s no longer about the largest gay mass murder in US history. The documentary Upstairs Inferno, the gut-wrenching tale of a brutal 1973 New Orleans gay bar attack that took the lives of 32 people and screening at the Victoria tonight, gives horrible, powerful and poignant insights into what it’s like to be stuck in the middle of the a homicidal massacre of an LGBT nightclub.

The survivors of this month’s grisly Pulse nightclub shooting are not yet ready to write their tell-all books, or appear in documentaries. Ostensibly, some of them someday will. But many of the survivors of the UpStairs Lounge arson attack do appear in Upstairs Inferno to share the harrowing, tiny details of being trapped inside a gay safe space that’s under siege specifically because it is a gay safe space: the sounds of the screams, the jumping out of second story windows, the heroic (and often fatal) attempts to go back and save lovers or friends. And in an awful Orlando parallel, the attack was committed by closeted gay man struggling with his own identity.

“The term ‘hate crime’ did not exist at the time of the fire,” the film’s director Robert L. Camina told SFist. “Some people say that self-hatred was a contributing motive. Others look back at the way the gay community was treated in the wake of the fire and the deafening silence of religious and government leaders was the real hate crime.”

Image: 'Upstairs Inferno'

Indeed, the New Orleans police chief put out a statement at the time calling the victims “thieves, murderers and queers” according to one person interviewed in the film. This is not exactly the kind of outpouring of support we saw for the Orlando victims. Many of the UpStairs victims’ families flatly refused to claim their bodies or hold funerals.

“Communities across the country and world are holding vigils and standing in solidarity with Orlando,” Camina said. “That didn't happen in 1973. Over $5.6 million dollars have been raised for Pulse victims through a GoFundMe account. In the aftermath of the UpStairs Lounge arson, only $17,900 was raised through the National New Orleans Memorial Fund. Adjusted for inflation, that equals $96,951.90. That's a huge difference.”

Image: 'Upstairs Inferno'

Tonight’s Frameline screening is on the eve of the 43-year anniversary of the arson, and some of the victims’ families will be on hand for the Q&A. The film is also screening tomorrow at New Orleans Pride, as it did last year on the 42-year anniversary.

UPSTAIRS INFERNO - Trailer 1 [HD] (www.UpstairsInferno.com) from Camina Entertainment on Vimeo.

“The audience was full of survivors, friends, family members of victims and witnesses,” Camina said. “Many traveled across the country to attend the screening. Never before, have so many people affected by the fire been in the same room.”

That was significant, but that was before the Pulse massacre replaced the UpStairs massacre as the US’ deadliest gay mass murder. “No one wanted to pass that moniker on and see a horror of this nature again,” Camina admitted. “Whether bullets or arson, this is a nightmarish deja vu. It's a stark reminder that while the LGBTQ community has achieved a lot in its fight for equality, there are many people who still feel that LGBTQ lives are expendable.”

'Upstairs Inferno' plays tonight at the Victoria Theatre at 9:30 p.m., with the director and victims’ family members in attendance. Get tickets here.

Related: Remembering The Gay San Francisco Church That Was Torched Out Of Hate In 1973

Somebody is getting married — possibly Doris — and we find out from the Looking finale movie trailer that we're jumping ahead a couple of years in time with Patrick, Dom, Augustin and the gang from where Season 2 left off. Patrick (Jonathan Groff) did, indeed, break things off with Kevin (Russell Tovey), who now has blond hair (!), and he moved to Colorado. It looks like the movie opens with Patrick returning to SF for a wedding, running into Richie, getting some kind of closure with Kevin, getting love advice from a wedding-performing judge played by Tyne Daly, and partying with his friends.

And once again, San Francisco looks very pretty, Augustin is still annoying, and we're probably going to all feel sad saying goodbye to everyone.

Also: Do Patrick and Dom end up together?? No, right?!

Groff and some of the cast will likely be here in SF for the Frameline red carpet premiere at the Castro Theatre Sunday night, for which there aren't any tickets left but you may have some luck standing in line before showtime and grabbing an unoccupied seat at the last minute. It is Pride Sunday, after all, and maybe not everyone will show up.

For the rest of us, we'll be waiting until Saturday, July 23 at 10 p.m., when the movie will air on HBO.

Previously: Looking Recap: Monagamish

Trans people have never had it easy. But they had it way less easy in rural Mississippi in the 1970s. Meet Jheri Jones, who transitioned to female in 1976, and is the subject of the incredibly riveting, wow-inducing documentary The Joneses playing Saturday at The Roxie as part of Frameline 40. We spoke to Jheri, now 74 years young, about living at the frontlines of the trans movement since before there was a trans movement. The Joneses tells her story of raising four children and two grandchildren while suffering the trials, tribulations, slings, arrows, hate, bigotry — and occasional unexpected poignance — of living trans in a deep south trailer park in Pearl, Mississippi.

This documentary is packed with powerful, three-Kleenex moments that you will never forget watching: the exasperated, “I miss calling you dad!” conversation, a son coming out to his biological mom conversation, and Jheri explaining to her grandkids that their grandmother is technically, biologically their grandfather. And you will bawl your eyes from their sockets witnessing these real-life scenes.

What’s Jheri’s secret to maintaining the peace with her rural Mississippi neighbors? “They don’t know,” she told SFist. “Unlike some of the gay people, who wear their gay pride bracelets and all of that, this is not a situation where you go around telling everyone just for the sake of telling them. I just let people take me as I am. When I meet someone, I see no point to mention anything about transgender unless for some reason that comes up. It’s not because of shame, it’s because I’m trying to keep a low profile and protect myself from any kind of bigotry or persecution.”

Jheri transitioned in the mid-1970s, with no real trans community around her for support. “There was no one to help me,” Jheri said. “It was like dancing in the dark. The medical establishment here, they didn’t want to talk about hormone therapy and all that. That was just ‘Eww!’.”

“From ‘76 to ‘86 it was just hit and miss, here and there,” she recalled. “I was working at the time and my employer would not allow me to cross-dress at work. I still had to do the male thing.”

Last week’s Orlando mass shooting resonated particularly to Jheri, who has seen decades worth of violence directed gay clubs and clubgoers. “There were several murders that took place here from the time I started going in the late 70s, in the disco era,” she remembered. A 1979 murder hit her particularly close to home.

“I made the mistake of bringing home some guy I had met this gay bar,” Jheri said. “[My roommate] decided he wanted this guy as his lover, so he made me leave, he made me move. Shortly after that, the guy murdered him, killed him, robbed him, took his car.”

“I had to go court and testify against this person, this was a very horrific incident,” she recalled painfully. “I felt responsible, because I had introduced them. If I hadn’t introduced them, he might still be alive.”

Image: 'The Joneses'

Jheri’s seen it all as a trans parent — having her children taken away from her, getting them back, raising two sons with special needs, and ultimately coming out as trans to her teenage grandchildren. She recalled the awkwardness her 17-year-old grandson had with this discovery. “He at first had some reservations about it, he was pretty confused,” she said, “He’s finally come to terms with it. He jokingly calls me his ‘grandmapa’.”

These and many many other gut-wrenching/heart-warming moments make The Joneses one of the most memorable documentaries you’ll see at Frameline, or anywhere. It’s not just about being trans, it’s about being a mother, a grandmother, and holding a family together at any cost. What some might call dysfunction, others would call deep and enduring family love. As Jheri says, “If there’s enough love there, you can overcome.”

The Joneses plays at The Roxie, Saturday, June 18 at 1:30 p.m. Get tickets here

Related: The Eight Most Awesome LGBT Films Playing At Frameline 40

You guys. The world’s longest-running LGBTQ film festival Frameline kicks off Thursday night at the Castro Theatre and runs through the end of Pride Weekend, and boy could we use some Frameline right now. Here to open a No. 10 can of social justice, solidarity, and unapologetic fabulous flair on our currently conflicted society, Frameline’s 40th annual incarnation gets loud and proud with more than 150 screenings at the Castro, the Roxie, the Victoria, and in Oakland and Berkeley. While the Closing Night screening of the feature-length finale of HBO’s Looking is “At Rush” (that’s film festival-speak for “sold out, but you can stand in line and hope to get an unoccupied seat”), there are still tickets available for these other magnificent, thought-provoking and massively entertaining contemporary works of queer cinema.

Kiki
Opening Night vogues hard with this modern-day revisitation of the underground queer ballroom dancing culture seen in the 1990’s groundbreaking film Paris is Burning. Ballroom dancing serves as an escape for a band of New York City LGBTQ kids as they struggle with poverty, homelessness, and harassment in Sara Jordenö’s unflinching and relentlessly inspiring dance scene documentary.
Castro Theatre, Thursday, June 16, 7 p.m. and Landmark Theatres Piedmont (Oakland)
Friday, June 24 7 p.m. Get tickets here

Akron
The squee, teenage gay jock romance we’ve always been waiting for has finally arrived. Put aside your LeBron hate for 90 glorious, heartwarming minutes as we take a fictional, romantic trip to the small town of Akron, Ohio (LeBron’s real-life hometown) where two hunky football players find young love. Unsurprisingly, complications ensue as the story unfolds into a hot, young beefcake version of Romeo and Juliet.
Castro Theatre, Friday, June 17, 4 p.m. and Victoria Theatre, Saturday, June 25, 4 p.m. Get tickets here

Girl Gets Girl
It’s like a lesbian Three’s Company delivered telenovela-style in Sonia Sebastián’s dyke dramedy. A teenage girl’s “Period Party” flows heavily with adult situations, mistaken identities, comic twists and sexual innuendos in this feature-length film adaptation of the popular Spanish TV series.
Roxie Theatre, Saturday, June 18, 6:30 p.m. Get tickets here
UPDATE: As luck would have it, this film has gone to Rush. But there are 54 other outstanding lesbian films for your consideration in this year's Frameline.

'Vegas In Space', image via Frameline

Vegas In Space
The Peaches Christ Productions offering at this year’s Frameline — hostessed, of course, by Peaches herself — is the 1991 Troma Entertainment low-budget epic Vegas In Space that has played at Cannes, Sundance and most prestigiously on USA’s Up All Night. Peaches packs plenty of the film’s stars into the Victoria for this screening, including longtime local drag faves Connie Champagne, Timmy Spence, and the film’s director Phillip R. Ford
Victoria Theatre, Friday, June 17, 9:30 p.m. Get tickets here

PUSHING DEAD TRAILER from MrD on Vimeo.

Strike A Pose
Rejoice, vintage Madonna fans — here’s the documentary that shows you what the documentary Truth or Dare did not dare show you. The surviving background dancers, all of whom were hand-picked by Madonna for the “Blonde Ambition” tour, reunite to tell the inside story of what really happened on tour and to their lives afterward. Christ, have they aged well, and yes the boys will be onhand at this Castro screening to hopefully dish some serious dirt about Madge.
Castro Theatre, Saturday, June 25, 8:30 p.m. Get tickets here

Growing Up Coy
The bravest little soldier in the transgender bathroom access movement is Coy Mathis, a Colorado first-grader who won the right to use the girls bathroom in 2013. This is her story. A poignant portrait of the a family whose persistence set of a national battle still being fought today, this documentary details the very personal and very public conflict they waged on behalf of the “thousands of Coys out there”
Castro Theatre, Saturday, June 25, 11 a.m. Get tickets here