Cinema lovers, rejoice: Queer Rhapsody, a new film series, has kicked off in Los Angeles. The event—which is not a film festival, Martine Joelle McDonald, creative director and senior director of Queer Rhapsody, points out—puts indie and lesser-known films with queer narratives on the big screen. Five venues across L.A. will be showing a slate of movies curated by UCLA’s Film & Television Archive, recognized as the world’s largest publicly accessible trove of queer moving images, along with independent programmers. The series kicked off on July 19 at the Hammer Museum with a screening of Second Nature, a feature narrated by Elliot Page that explores animal species engaging in same-sex sexual activities and with same-sex families. Running through July 28, Queer Rhapsody aims to make audiences feel cared-for and seen, while “celebrating the rich tapestry of LGBTQ+ cinema,” McDonald adds. “I hope that viewers take away a sense of nourishment and energy for their own story being of value.”
Below, we’ve culled 12 standout projects from the series; keep your eye on these storytellers, who are making a splash in independent film. This is a mere handful of the movies and short films on view that will inspire, captivate, and affirm you.
Love Letter to Asian Women
This stunning short film directed by Min Soo Park makes every second count. At the heart of the story is Felicia Oh, a Taiwanese drag queen who subverts stereotypical conceptions of Asian femininity while simultaneously entertaining audiences. Assisted by director of photography Fengze Liang, Oh guides viewers through her day-to-day life in New York City: her estrangement from her biological family, and her chosen family, which functions as a salve against the pains of the former. If you’ve got an appetite for gorgeous cinematography and compelling storytelling, Love Letter to Asian Women will leave you fed.
Dilating for Maximum Results
Director, writer, and star Nyala Moon delivers a zany good time with this tale of a Black trans woman hoping to hook up with her Internet boyfriend IRL. But there’s one dilemma: she hasn’t dilated in four years. This work is a thoughtful nod to the IYKYK experience of finding connection in the cyberverse during the early 2010s as a trans woman—accessing vital info about gender-affirming care, making friends who bring a refreshing understanding of how you move through the world, and dating online. Moon is in her element when taking on niche topics specific to trans women, and connecting them to universal themes like body insecurity and loneliness.
2 Dollars
There’s something about navigating corporate culture as a Black artist that inspires the question: Am I in actual hell? In director Robin Cloud’s 2 Dollars, Syd (Gabrielle Maiden) is a Black, queer artist stuck in an undesirable office job. They’re gender non-conforming in a place where falling into line is essential to success, their manager is a faux-progressive Girl Boss, and most of their coworkers are kind of the worst. Despite the rising stack of work, a pay raise never materializes—but everything changes when Syd finally sees a way out thanks to a lottery-loving coworker. It’s a new day—or is it? Reminiscent of the Awkward Black Girl web series from Issa Rae, this comedic gem explores the concessions we make in the name of getting bills paid.
ILY, BYE
Siobhan is a bit of a hot mess. Played by comedian Meg Stalter, the perennially unemployed, socially anxious character is trying to live her best life on her candy-pink-painted side of the apartment she shares with her bestie/roomie, Gary (Kanoa Goo). When Gary lands her an interview at his job (IOU sticky notes can only supplement their rent for so long, after all), things take a chaotic turn. Stalter brings her signature comedic chops to this feature directed by Taylor James, adding charisma and relatable cringe to a character on a mission to right the ship of her life.
Do Digital Curanderas Use Eggs In Their Limpias
In Roberto Fatal’s surreal film, people can disconnect from their physical bodies, upload their consciousness to the Internet, and swap life on earth—along with all the mortal headaches that come with it—for an existence within the digital realm. Ria (River Gallo) is an Indigenous curandera, or healer, who has lost their magic. He’s ready to peace out on the physical realm, and only needs the approval of their best friend, played by Angel Zeas, to join the online utopia. Colorful park murals and greenery drenched in Los Angeles sunshine creates a perfect backdrop for this film—and the chemistry between Gallo and Zeas makes it easy to imagine this as a series you’d binge-watch over a weekend.
Life Is Not a Competition, but I’m Winning
This German documentary by Julia Fuhr Mann centers a group of athletes from various backgrounds, ages, and gender identities, who gather at historic sports sites like the Olympic Stadium in Athens to discuss their personal experiences as gender nonconforming athletes. They explore the question: What could bloom in a space created with queer and trans athletes prioritized? In the film, viewers hear from Annet Negesa, an Olympic hopeful who was pressured by the International Sports Federations to undergo irreversible hormone-altering surgery in order to compete; and Amanda Reiter, a trans marathon runner who has dealt with prejudices from sports organizers. In the midst of it all, a beautiful reimagining of the sport unfolds.
Grace
In writer-director Natalie Jasmine Harris’s hands, Black audiences feel safe, cherished, well cared-for. Those emotions consistently shine through in Harris’s growing body of work, including Grace, the tale of a 16-year-old in the 1950s South preparing to be baptized while grappling with her affections for her best friend. (Harris’s debutante coming-of-age short Pure, was recently acquired by HBO.) Alexis Cofield and Jordan Wells star as the will-they, won’t-they best friends.
How to Carry Water
There should be more soft, nuanced depictions of fat people across media—and director Sasha Wortzel has done just that with How to Carry Water. Wortzel tells the story of artist and photographer Shoog McDaniel’s creative process as a fat, queer, and disabled photographer who works in and around northern Florida’s network of freshwater springs. Just as bodies of water are sacred and boundless, so too are the glorious bodies and humanity of fat people—especially when those fat people aren’t depicted as only being in conversation about an urgent anxiety to lose weight.
Queenie
Queenie is a Black lesbian woman who’s 73 years young—and ready to shake up her living arrangement. She’s lived in Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects since 1988, but has her sights set on Stonewall Residencies, New York City’s first affordable housing for LGBTQ+ elders. The only thing in the way of this new life chapter is her applications getting approved. Grounded in themes like intergenerational friendship and caring for the elderly, filmmaker Cai Thomas brings heart and unfiltered realism to documentary storytelling.
Saturn Risin9
“I am cleansing my body and my mind of all my experiences that have not been up to par with what I deserve,” says the musician and DJ Saturn Risin9 in the eponymous film by Tiare Ribeaux and Jody Stillwater. The performance artist translates their experience growing up in the Bay Area into a poetic, experimental, symphony-like story: threading together dance, music, and fashion while revisiting the nature spaces that offered them solace as a child.
The Queen of My Dreams
This dramedy by Fawzia Mirza spans 30 years in the lives of a Pakistani-Canadian family, diving deep into the intergenerational relationships between mothers and daughters. Expect humor, romance, Bollywood fantasy, nods to Pakistani history, and women trying to figure it out across land and time. Don’t be surprised if the film sticks with you long after your first watch.
Entre Amigxs
Entre Amigxs—which translates to “between (queer) friends”—highlights five trans and gender-expansive artists living in Mexico City. Directors Lío Mehiel and Robert Nachman compiled 16mm film, camcorder clips, and Super 8 footage to create this documentation of precious moments between friends. Through the narratives of these artists, co-directors Mehiel and Nachman underscore how taking up space and showing up as your truest self causes a ripple of positive effects felt across the community.
