Out There :: Presenting the Frameline Presenters

Frameline 38, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, has announced its offerings and special attractions in a beautifully designed new catalog, and it's not too early to buy your screening tickets. So Out There sat down with director of exhibition & programming Desiree Buford and senior programmer Peter L. Stein in the Frameline offices to get the scoop and hear the buzz.

Buford said it's always an "honor curating and presenting the world's largest and oldest LGBT film festival." Programmers "travel the world, scouting at Sundance and the Berlinale [film fests]," but the films that make it to Frameline are also the product of "a robust submission process." This year, the festival offers 214 films, gleaned from over 800 submissions. Apart from all other considerations, its gatekeepers look above all for "craft and storytelling."

How have digital filmmaking and new social media affected the submissions pool? Stein acknowledged that now that more people "have access to the tools of moviemaking, we're getting stories that might not have emerged before. But it's still hard to make a good film. Talent will always out!" The programmers try to "open our lens wide" to all kinds of new and emerging voices. As one example, director Florencia Manovil's Dyke Central, concerning the lives and loves of lesbians and bisexuals in Oakland, began as a Web series, and will be seen at Frameline up on the silver screen.

We chatted about directors Ben Cotner and Ryan White's opening-night film, "The Case Against 8." Stein remarked that even though "you know how the story ends, it's still a riveting journey towards justice" that will keep audiences on the edge of their seats. He encouraged us to think of some of its footage as if we were flies on the wall during, say, the Brown vs. Board of Education deliberations.

Centerpiece film To Be Takei (directors Jennifer Kroot & Bill Weber) celebrates the work and worth of George Takei - rhymes with Ta-GAY - an actor, activist and inspirational figure whose life has had, as Buford put it, "a wonderful third act!"

Despite its campy press photos, director Axel Ranisch's closing-night film Ich Fuhl Mich Disco (I Feel Like Disco) is "not a silly film at all," according to Stein. "It has real heart to it."

Brazilian director Daniel Ribeiro expanded a previous short film into feature length in his showcase film Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho, which has been given the English title The Way He Looks, an appropriate double entendre for a film whose lead character is blind.

Thanks to a grant from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (baby daddies to the Oscars), Frameline will present three panels under the rubric New Storytelling in LGBT Cinema, including one on digital platforms and technologies; one on exploring hidden, suppressed or buried queer history; and one focusing on queer women filmmakers. This year marks the 20th anniversary of "Go Fish" and the 15th anniversary of "Boys Don't Cry": their respective directors Rose Troche and Kimberly Peirce will appear on the latter panel, and both films will screen in the fest. Also on the panel will be Appropriate Behavior writer, director and lead actress Desiree Akhavan, whose fictional incarnation was described to us as a "hot mess."

On a very hot topic right now, Spotlight: LGBT Films in Today's Russia brings four programs of recent queer filmmaking from that troubled land. "It's so brave for people to be making LGBT films in Russia," said Stein, and we'll see dramas "Stand" (director Jonathan Taieb) and "Winter Journey" (directors Sergei Taramaev & Luba Lvova), shorts including directors Gogol's Wives' "Pussy vs. Putin," and "Campaign of Hate: Russia and Gay Propaganda," with a discussion by its director, Moscow-born filmmaker Michael Lucas, and journalist Masha Gessen.

Films from 31 countries include a strong representation from Latin and South America, including Ecuador, Venezuela and Mexico; the Finnish director Simo Halinen's "Open Up to Me," centering on a transgender woman; and a look at what it was like to be gay in a police state, in directors Jochen Hick & Andreas Strohfeldt's "Out in East Berlin - Lesbians & Gays in the GDR." A strong run of films about transgender people includes director Eric Schaeffer's "Boy Meets Girl," about a lonely trans girl in Kentucky; director Eduardo Roy, Jr.'s "Quick Change," about the black market for silicone injections in Manila; and directors Sandrine Orabona & Mark Herzog's "Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story," a documentary about Beck's incredible journey from U.S. Navy Seal to transgender activist.

All of this, of course, is barely scratching the surface of the bountiful Frameline 38 offerings. Oh, and did we mention Barney Frank is the subject of one doc, and he'll be coming to the fest? General ticket sales begin on Friday, May 30. Go to frameline.org and knock yourselves out, cinematically.

Scarlet Fever

Out There was in the elegant house for the debut party of The Scarlet Huntington, the grand old hotel on the top of Nob Hill given a colorful new makeover, and the attractions included good sparking wine (Mumm Napa), yummy canapes prepared at the hotel's beloved Big 4 restaurant, mini spa treatments at Nob Hill Spa, live Instaprinting and photo projections, and a glam fashion show presented by Karen Caldwell Design. Our dear friend Elena flew in from Chicago and booked a room at the hotel with cocktail party furnishings and a view of stately old Grace Cathedral, so we stayed with her pre- and post-party in high style. Just consider it another installment in the long-running series Out There: Fading Gigolo.