Screen Grabs: Mermaids, magic, John Cameron Mitchell… It’s Trans Film Fest time

Not the least cheering thought after last week’s midterm blue wave was the realization that terrorizing Middle America about transpersons—a topic it understands perhaps even less than “socialism”—ultimately wasn’t effective enough to make voters forget they can’t afford food, gas, or our current war. Will conservatives stop believing “What is a woman?” is a question that magically overrides all debate? Will they grasp that nobody is “transitioning” children at public schools?

Probably not: It is at least as hard to shake a delusion as it is to absorb it in the first place. But maybe MAGA & co. will realize they need to find some new propagandic weapon of mass distraction. Which would, needless to say, be a considerable boon to a trans community that was only ever guilty of being chosen as a political scapegoat.

So it’s a very good moment for the return of the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival. Founded in 1997, it’s back at longtime principal venue the Roxie Theater for in-person shows this Thurs/12-Sat/14 (schedule here), then the same programs are available for streaming On Demand Nov. 15-22 (“virtual festival” info here). 

There are no feature-length films this year, but 30-odd shorts grouped by theme, most originating from the US—though there are also titles from Germany, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, Costa Rica and more. Program #1’s four selections are dedicated to “Comedy,” with Hedwig’s John Cameron Mitchell playing a kinda-sorta-gay male john to writer-director Justice Singleton’s reluctant sex worker in Cockroach, and similar entrepreneurial ingenuity highlighted in Autumn Boxley’s funny Flash Sale, in which two trans dudes seeking top surgery cash ponder the possibilities of OnlyFans.

Program 2 is all documentary, including portraits of Costa Rican trans athletes doing an Iron Man triathlon (3 Hearts of Iron), an annual celebration of “trans Black euphoria” in Puerto Rico (Hustleween), an 89-year-old Spanish grandma supportive of her trans grandchild (Reef), and a Japanese-American electrologist who only takes MTF clients (One of the Girls). 

The “Horror” bill is largely tongue-in-cheek, with humor present to varying degrees in Canadian furry tale Mascott, the fanged US Vamped, and witchy South African Dread. But arguably the best selection, Kylie Aoibheann’s The Dysphoria, provides seriously creepy vibes as a couple’s candlelit occult ritual naturally goes very wrong. A “Grab Bag” program encompasses music video, animation, dance, and an ambiguous stranger-danger thriller (Peter). Particularly worthwhile are Mariales Diaz’s Today & Tmrw, a nuanced dramatic miniature about a downlow relationship, and Sarah Hill’s “cinematic spell” The Door Is Open, a poetic experimental mix of stop-motion and other techniques.

A “Speculative Fiction” package features mermaids, pregnancy, sci-fi and time travel—the latter providing a trans woman with familial closure in Tilly & Susan Bridges’ poignant Long Away. Finally, Program 6 is “Adult,” with no one under 18 admitted, and plenty of playful raunch on display. 

As previously noted, all half-dozen programs will be available via streaming for a week after the Roxie shows.

There are two other mini-festivals happening in SF this weekend. One is the SFJFF46 Encore Series, which reprises some favorites from this summer’s Jewish Film Festival. There are two shorts programs, one dedicated to narrative works and the other to Bay Area makers. Israeli director Netlie Braun’s Oxygen, which won a critic’s prize at the fest, is an intense drama in which a single mother’s worry about her only child goes into overdrive when his anticipated release from Army service coincides with the onset of the Third Lebanon War. A unique bill pairs Ben Proudfoot and Stephen Curry’s half-hour documentary The Baddest Speechwriter of All, about a key player in the Civil Rights Movement, with a live performance of old and new protest songs by the LewNer Family Singers. All four shows take place Sat/14-Sun/15 at SF’s Jewish Community Center, full info is here.

The other event is “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Fest,” a weekend-long salute to the Canadian cult phenomenon hatched by creators and stars Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol. Its very meta mockumentary comedy started as a web series, became a two-season broadcast series (a third season got derailed by its network’s collapse), and then a feature film released this February. The latter did not make much of an impression at the US box office—but it is still one of the best more-or-less-mainstream, big-screen comedies in recent years. You will get to see it on 35mm, plus both seasons of the show, plus the original Back to the Future (a continual in-joke reference point for the time-traveling Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie). Full schedule and other info is here.

Other arrivals this week include two worthwhile features that didn’t get much of a theatrical airing in the Bay Area, but are now available on streaming platforms. Maya Annik Bedward’s documentary Black Zombie provides an interesting perspective on what has (via the 28 Days films, The Walking Dead et al.) unexpectedly become one of the primary horror tropes of our eras. She is not so interested in the post-Night of the Living Dead cannibal spin that drove that popularity, but rather in how earlier zombie depictions borrowed, exploited, and warped Haitian culture—once again turning the Black into a fearsome “other,” reducing the history of slavery and voodoo practices to spooky exotica. A lot of vintage clips make this subgenre survey entertaining as well as educational. 

Longtime East Bay filmmaker Finn Taylor’s The Optimist premiered (then called Avenue of the Giants) at festivals in fall 2023, then for various reasons kept getting its release delayed until this year. It’s a warm-hearted drama based on real-life late Marin County resident Herbert Heller, who after retiring from the San Rafael children’s store he founded began lecturing to youth groups about his own formative years—as a Czech Jew who barely survived the concentration camps he and his family got shipped to. The film has Heller (played by Stephen Lang) reaching out to a troubled teen (Elsie Fisher) whose personal woes are less life-threatening but still weigh heavily on her. Kino Lorber releases Black Zombie to home formats this Tues/10; Well Go USA does likewise for The Optimist on Tues/17.

Other new arrivals:

Mouse

In 2002 North Little Rock, Arkansas, Callie (Chloe Coleman) is queen of the school plays, has a cute blond boyfriend (Beck Nolan as Brad), and is liked by all in her extroverted, admittedly attention-needy but not overbearing way. Yet her BFF is contrastingly shy Minnie (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), to whom she remains loyal despite the ill-concealed jealousy and snobbery of some classmates. The two are looking forward to beginning their senior year of high school, with Callie naturally seizing the spotlight, and Minnie maybe coming out of her shell a bit. But then fate drastically upends those expectations, throwing the whole community into grief. In their shared desolation, Minnie grows close to Callie’s mother Helen (Sophie Okonedo)—finding in her the maternal support rather sorely lacking in her own too-busy, dismissive single mum (Tara Mallen as Helen). But as we all know now, grief has many stages, and sooner or later this withdrawn teen and adult woman are going to find themselves no longer on the same page with their different needs.

The first feature for actress turned scenarist Kelly O’Sullivan and her co-director Alex Thompson, 2024’s Ghostlight, charmed many with a story that had several elements reprised here. But it struck me as a bit pat, a more formulaic feel-good movie than their latest can be called. Arguably a bit overlong at two leisurely full hours, Mouse nonetheless rewards patience with considerable emotional payoff that feels well-earned. The characters go through changes that are not always pretty, yet ultimately feel right. All the performers are fine, but particularly good is Okonedo, an esteemed British stage actress whose big-screen roles have hitherto seldom given her this much to work with. Mouse opens Fri/13 at AMC Metreon and other Bay Area theaters.

Take Me Home

Another acutely observed domestic drama is this first feature from writer-director Liz Sargent, which expands her prize-winning 2023 of the same title. Anna (Anna Sargent) is the adult special needs child of a retired Florida couple who are rapidly aging out of being able to care for her. Mom Joan (Marceline Hugot) is heavy-set, sweltering in the heat, increasingly beset by mobility issues. Father Bob (Victor Slezak) is short-tempered, probably a result of his frustration with what appears to be creeping dementia—he is physically able but sometimes mentally blank. Anna would be a lot for even younger, fitter minders to handle: Something as trivial as misplacing her water bottle can send her into a manic tantrum for hours. She is loud, obstinate, and demanding in ways you might normally associate with the “the terrible twos.”

Then, as in Mouse, fate suddenly removes one player from the scenario, and the survivors have a very hard time coping. The crisis forces home Anna’s (also-adopted) sister Emily, played by Ali Ahn, who cannot really spare the time away from her job—and despairs of setting right this highly dysfunctional household. Outside help is needed… but without soapboxing about it, Take Me Home makes it quite clear that our cash-strapped healthcare and social services systems are likely to only provide a Band-Aid at most to families like this one, when they need a tourniquet. 

It’s a story that has its unpleasant and discomfiting moments, aptly so. But Sargent lends it grace notes, as do the very good performers—and the epilogue is very satisfying without being at all excessively contrived. Take Me Home releases to On Demand platforms Sun/15.

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