FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Denver Film Media Contacts:
Ambriehl Turrentine: ambriehl@denverfilm.org
Marty Schechter: marty@schechterpr.com
Bottoms opens 15th Annual Festival with Closing Night featuring Problemista
Tickets on sale June 29 at denverfilm.org/
DENVER – June 26, 2023 – Denver Film announced the lineup for its 15th Annual CinemaQ Film Festival, Aug. 10-13 at the Sie FilmCenter, 2510 E. Colfax Ave. Festival passes are $60 for Denver Film Members/$70 Non-Member. Individual film tickets are $12 for Denver Film members/$15 non-member and are available beginning June 29, at 10 a.m. at denverfilm.org.
The CinemaQ Film Festival, presented by William LaBahn, begins at the Sie FilmCenter with the Aug. 10 Opening Night presentation of Bottoms, a hilarious comedy following two queer high school girls who try to hook up with cheerleaders by starting a fight club. The Festival will conclude on Aug. 13 with a presentation of Problemista, a surrealist comedy following an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador struggling to bring his unusual ideas to life in New York City.
“We’re delighted to be opening and closing on such unique high notes in queer cinema this year, both providing solid bookends for what is an inquisitive and diverse lineup for the three days in between,” said Sie FilmCenter Artistic Director and Festival Programmer Keith Garcia. “The queer voices and visions featured this year are some of the strongest we’ve ever had and our visiting guests will be some of the most interesting (Hello? Udo Kier?). All in all, a fantastic marker to celebrate 15 years of treating Colorado to the best in Queer cinema.”
In addition to an exceptional film lineup, this year’s festival includes an Opening Night party on Thursday, Aug. 10 at 5:30 p.m. as well as a Hangover Ice Cream Social and Marketplace featuring Little Man Ice Cream and goods from local, queer-owned businesses on Sunday, Aug. 13 from noon to 5 p.m.
The Festival will also feature live Q&As with filmmakers as well as three in-depth panel discussions. Q&As will take place immediately following the presentations of Saint Drogo on Friday, Aug. 11 at 9:30 p.m, the Queer Shorts Program on Saturday, Aug. 12 at noon, Perpetrator on Saturday, Aug. 12. at 1:30 p.m., and 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture on Sunday, Aug. 13 at noon.
Panel discussions include The Deep Roots And Dark Branches of Queer Horror on Saturday, Aug. 12 at 11 a.m., Break The Game & Break The Cycle: Mental Health and Identity In the Digital Landscape Panel immediately following the 3 p.m. presentation of Break the Game on Saturday, Aug. 12, and Your Own Personal Jesus – Finding Faith In The LGBTQIA Community on Sunday, Aug. 13 at 11 a.m. Panel guests will be announced forthcoming.
“CinemaQ delivers the space for LGBTQ+ filmgoers and filmmakers to fully express their creativity as we continue our long-term outreach efforts and expand the visibility of this unique programming to our growing audiences,” said William LaBahn whose sponsorship and commitment have helped heighten the profile of the annual festival and build the CinemaQ brand. “We’ve been working for a decade-and-a-half to leverage the power of film to celebrate queer voices, queer visions, and queer visibility. This festival is designed to showcase the best in new and classic LGBTQ+ cinema from around the world to Colorado audiences and this year’s lineup with not disappoint.”
Founded in 2009, the CinemaQ Film Festival was created to leverage the power of film to celebrate queer voices, queer visions, and queer visibility. The four-day festival is designed to showcase the best in new and classic LGBTQ+ cinema from around the world to Colorado audiences with this year’s lineup including a Scream Screen-presented double feature of brand new restorations of the Andy Warhol-produced ‘70s horror flicks Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula, both directed by Paul Morrissey and starring Udo Kier, who will appear in-person to discuss his storied career in between the screenings.
Click to see the full schedule and purchase tickets and passes.
FILMS IN PROGRAM:
BOTTOMS
Director: Emma Seligman
Writers: Emma Seligman & Rachel Sennott
Opening Night – Thursday, Aug. 10, 7 p.m.
In this refreshingly unique comedy, two girls, PJ and Josie, start a fight club as a way to lose their virginities to cheerleaders. And their bizarre plan works! The fight club gains traction, but PJ and Josie find themselves in over their heads and in need of a way out before their plan is exposed.
LAST DANCE
Director: Coline Abert
Friday, Aug. 11, 4 p.m.
Vince, a.k.a. Lady Vinsantos, is an iconic drag queen from New Orleans, where he founded his own school-community, after starting his career in San Francisco. Drag is a sulfurous way for him to challenge gender codes and status quo. But after 30 years, Vince is tired of the character that has taken over his life. He has decided to say goodbye to Lady Vinsantos by releasing his greatest dream: one last show in Paris.
GUSSY
Director: Chris Osborn
Friday, Aug. 11, 9:30 p.m.
As children, Miles and Rocky hunted a monster they thought they saw in the woods. Twenty years later, they’re still searching.
Screening before Saint Drogo
SAINT DROGO
Directors: Michael J. Ahern, Brandon Perras, Ryan Miller
Friday, Aug. 11, 9:30 p.m.
Partners Caleb and Adrian take an impromptu respite to the New England coastal Provincetown, Massachusetts for a winter getaway. While the purpose of the trip is ostensibly to rekindle their floundering relationship, Caleb becomes concerned for his ex, Issac who had been working in town for the summer, but seems to have gone missing. As the off-season year-rounders remain aloof, Caleb grows more concerned, but his fixation on finding Issac only widens the schism in his relationship as something more sinister simmers beneath the surface.
Preceded by the short film Gussy
Includes a post-film Q&A with Directors, Writers, Stars Michael J. Ahern, Brandon Perras
QUEER SHORTS PROGRAM
Saturday, Aug. 12, 12 p.m.
Films and presentations include Sasha Wortzel’s How to Carry Water, Tomás Paula Marques’s Dildotectonics, Brit Fryer and Noah Schamus’s The Script, Karimah Zakia Issa’s Scaring Women at Night, Isabella Miller and Gabe Braden’s Ambrosia, Hao Zhou’s Here, Hopefully, Twiggy Pucci Garçon’s MnM, and Iiti Yli-Harja’s BLUSH – An Extraordinary Voyage.
Includes a post-film Q&A with MnM film subjects Mermaid Garçon and Milan Garçon
SOME DAY ALL THIS WILL BE YOURS
Director: Cricket Arrison
Saturday, Aug. 12, 1:30 p.m.
Some Day All This Will Be Yours follows an increasingly strange pregnant woman (Cricket Arrison, Give Me Pity!) giving her unborn child a guided tour of its inheritance: a haunted house. Amidst a riot of crumbling 1970s interior design, Some Day uncannily twists the tropes of motherhood, home, and family legacy. A queer autofiction comedy/horror, the film was shot in director Arrison’s childhood home.
Screening before Perpetrator
PERPETRATOR
Director: Jennifer Reeder
Saturday, Aug. 12, 1:30 p.m.
Perpetrator follows Jonny (McKirnan), a wild and impulsive teenage girl living precariously in a town where young women continue to go missing, and the power she’s forced to unlock to survive. At its core, a horror film inspired by the shared experience of generations of women, Perpetrator is equal parts modern mythmaking, thrilling story of revenge, and extraordinary exploration of youthful chaos.
Preceded by the short film Some Day All This Will Be Yours
Includes a post-film Q&A with director Jennifer Reeder
BREAK THE GAME
Director: Jane M. Wagner
Saturday, Aug. 12, 3 p.m.
After coming out as a trans woman, world-record-holding gamer, Narcissa Wright loses her massive fanbase. To win them back, she attempts to set a new world record in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, while live-streaming every minute of her mythic quest. Drawing from an archive of more than 3,000 hours of Narcissa’s livestreams, intimate verite, and 8-bit animation, Break the Game is a moving exploration of gamer culture, the realities of online harassment, and the mental health implications of living a digital life.
Includes a post-film panel discussion – Break The Game And Break The Cycle: Mental Health and Identity In the Digital Landscape Panel – with director Jane M. Wagner, film subject Alex Eastley and others to be announced soon.
SCREAM SCREEN PRESENTS AN UDO KIER DOUBLE FEATURE!
Saturday, Aug. 12, 6 p.m.
With a nearly six decade career – made up of 276 roles and counting – actor Udo Kier has built one of the wildest, weirdest, scariest, hilarious and most intriguing bodies of work of any actor – living or not – and his penchant for working among many of the greats among many genres – from Warhol to Herzog to Von Trier and beyond has made him a queer cult icon with a talent beyond his piercing blue eyes. Scream Screen curator and host Theresa Mercado will talk one-on-one with Udo in between screenings of recent restorations of two films from Warhol Factory auteur Paul Morrissey in a biting and bloodthirsty night you don’t want to miss!
Includes a Q&A with actor Udo Kier in between the two films
FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN:
Director: Paul Morrissey
A delectably gory and cynical social satire from acclaimed filmmaker Paul Morrissey, Flesh for Frankenstein is among the most original and transgressive interpretations of Mary Shelley’s classic novel. Baron von Frankenstein (Udo Kier, Suspiria), with the help of his bizarre assistant Otto, is determined to create a new master race. To achieve his objective, he constructs two perfect “zombies” from an assemblage of body parts, intending them to mate.
BLOOD FOR DRACULA:
Director: Paul Morrissey
Immediately after completing Flesh for Frankenstein, filmmaker Paul Morrissey and star Udo Kier created Blood for Dracula, a sumptuously depraved Euroshocker that tows the line between art and bad taste. Desperate for virgin blood, Count Dracula (Kier) journeys to an Italian villa only to discover the family’s three young daughters are also coveted by the estate’s Marxist stud (Joe Dallesandro of Morrissey’s Flesh, Trash, and Heat).
OUR SON
Director: Bill Oliver
Saturday, Aug. 12, 7:15 p.m.
Nicky (Luke Evans), a book publisher devoted to his work, lives with his husband Gabriel (Billy Porter), a former actor and stay-at-home dad, and their eight year-old son, Owen. Gabriel loves Owen more than anything; Nicky loves Gabriel more than anything. Despite appearances, Gabriel has been dissatisfied with their marriage for some time and files for divorce, leading to a custody battle that forces both of them to confront the changing reality of their love for each other and for their son.
1946: THE MISTRANSLATION THAT SHIFTED CULTURE
Director: Sharon “Rocky” Roggio
Sunday, Aug. 13, 12 p.m.
Seeking to uncover the origins of the rabid homophobia of the conservative church, a gay seminary scholar and a straight activist make a shocking discovery: In 1946 an erroneous translation of the term homosexual in the Bible that has been weaponized against the LGBTQIA+ community ever since. Director Rocky Roggio uses her own complicated history as the queer daughter of a minister as a point of departure to bring us this fascinating personal investigation.
Includes a post-film Q&A with director Sharon “Rocky” Roggio and writer/producer Jena Serbu
ROTTING IN THE SUN
Director: Sebastián Silva
Sunday, Aug. 13, 2 p.m.
Writer-director Sebastián Silva’s Sundance hit Rotting In The Sun is a darkly funny and refreshingly audacious meta-comedy that skewers the business of filmmaking and our self-obsessed culture. While unwinding at a Mexican gay beach town, depressed director Sebastián Silva meets gregarious Instagram influencer Jordan Firstman (both playing versions of themselves), and Sebastián reluctantly agrees to collaborate on an upcoming project. But when Jordan arrives back in Mexico City, Sebastián is nowhere to be found, and Jordan embarks on a wildly unpredictable, quasi-detective journey.
CHASING CHASING AMY
Director: Sav Rodgers
Saturday, Aug. 13, 2:30 p.m.
This charming, earnest meta-documentary examines the transformational impact of a 90s romcom on a 12-year-old queer kid growing up in Kansas. For young Sav Rodgers, the Kevin Smith cult classic Chasing Amy became a lifesaving representation of queer identity. A deeper dive into the film as a cornerstone of LGBTQ+ cinema finds the director at many unexpected and emotional crossroads. Featuring interviews with Kevin Smith, Joey Lauren Adams, Guinevere Turner, Bob Hawk, Andrew Ahn, Princess Weekes and many others.
PROBLEMISTA
Director: Julio Torres
Closing Night – Sunday, Aug. 13, 5:00 p.m.
Alejandro is an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador, struggling to bring his unusual ideas to life in New York City. As time on his work visa runs out, a job assisting an erratic art-world outcast becomes his only hope to stay in the country and realize his dream. From writer/director Julio Torres comes a surreal adventure through the equally treacherous worlds of New York City and the U.S. Immigration system.
Members of the press interested in covering the CinemaQ Film Festival may contact Ambriehl Turrentine at ambriehl@denverfilm.org or Marty Schechter at marty@schechterpr.com.
Sponsors
arc Thrift, Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, Canadian Consulate, Colorado Health Foundation, Colorado Creative Industries, Colorado Office of Film, Television, and Media, Eldorado Natural Spring Water, Elevate Yoga, IFC / AMC, Ken’s Reproductions, Liberty Global, Little Man Ice Cream, National Endowment for the Arts, Ratio Beerworks, SCFD, The Center, Vinegar Syndrome, Visit Denver, Vizzy, William LaBahn
About Denver Film
Founded in 1978, Denver Film is a membership-based, 501(c)(3) nonprofit cultural institution that produces film events throughout the year, including the award-winning Denver Film Festival and the popular, summertime series Film on the Rocks. With a vision to cultivate community and transform lives through film, Denver Film provides opportunities for diverse audiences to discover film through creative, thought-provoking experiences.
The permanent home of Denver Film, the Sie FilmCenter is Denver’s only year-round cinematheque, presenting a weekly-changing calendar of first-run exclusives and arthouse revivals both domestic and foreign, narrative and documentary – over 600 per year, all shown in their original language and format. Denver Film’s one-of-a-kind programs annually reach more than 200,000 film lovers and film lovers-in-training.
