While the Tribeca Film Festival is, for the first time ever, hosting a day-long event to celebrate Pride this year, the independent film fest has always championed LGBTQ+ storytelling. This year is no different as it has over 30 queer projects set to screen in New York City between April 24 and May 5.
The programming slate include documentaries, features, shorts, television shows, and virtual reality titles, among others. Varying talent includes drag performer and Drag Race All Stars winner Trixie Mattel, actor-director River Gallo, actor-producer Adam Silver, and rapper A$AP Ferg.
Check out the descriptions for all 33 projects below. You can buy tickets here.
Circus of Books was a bookstore and gay porn shop in Los Angeles and a once notable cruising spot of the late 20th Century. While both locations — in West Hollywood and Silverlake — were considered important sites of L.A.’s gay history, both have closed, marking the end of an era. This playful doc from Rachel Mason, the daughter of owners Karen and Barry Mason, charts the history of the stores, featuring Larry Flynt, Justin Honard (aka Alaska Thunderfuck), and Jeff Stryker.
When Justine and Julia pick Jake up at a bar, it’s not quite the threesome he was expecting. Starring Christine Medrano, Teresa Lee, and Josh Fadem, this picture was directed by Bridey Elliott and written by Teresa Lee and Christine Medrano.
Centered on New York staple Wigstock, an annual drag festival that has glamorously signaled the end of summer for the gay community in New York City for almost 20 years and was founded by Lady Bunny, this doc is a celebration of the art of drag, showcasing the personalities that inform the ways we understand queerness, gender, and identity today. It explores the origins and the influence of the historic festival through rich archival footage, while providing a look into the contemporary drag movement that the festival served as a foundation for.
Directed by Michael Barnett, this doc highlights transgender high school athletes from across the country. While competing at the top of their fields, they’re also challenging the boundaries and perceptions of fairness and discrimination. It features wrestler Mack Beggs and runners Sarah Rose Huckman and Andraya Yearwood.
Created by Andrew Thomas Huang, this film follows a young Chinese restaurant worker who falls in love with a god who leads him on a journey of sexual awakening and self-discovery. It stars Teddy Lee and Jeff Chen.
Written and directed by Emily Cohn, CRSHD centers on best friends Izzy, Anuka, and Fiona who have a pact to lose their virginity before the summer break. They’re hoping to get invited to the college’s super exclusive “crush party.” The feature stars Isabelle Barbier, Deeksha Ketkar, Sadie Scott, Will Janowitz, L.H. González, and Abdul Seidu.
When the Supreme Court legalized marriage equality, the backlash by the religious right was swift, severe, and successful. Daniel Karslake’s documentary, co-written by Nancy Kennedy, looks at four faith-based families with LGBTQ+ children caught in the crosshairs of sexuality, identity, and scripture.
As a music store across the street is closing, Julia realizes it’s time for them to face their fears with only a few minutes to make their move. Lydia Rui wrote and directed this picture starring Michelle Keating, Lee Mason, and Hannah Koch.
Directed and written by Sharon Maymon and Tal Granit, this world premiere from Israel and Germany spotlights three teenage girls who, in search of physical perfection, are drawn down a dark path of black-market plastic surgery, an impulsive adventure that ultimately becomes a journey of self-discovery. It stars Stav Strashko, Netsanet Zenaneh Mekonnen, Noam Lugasy, Arad Triffon Reshef, Niv Sultan, and Asi Levy.
With hopes of confronting a resurgence of anti-LGBTQ+ laws, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus embarks on an unprecedented bus tour through the Deep South, celebrating music, challenging intolerance, and confronting their own dark coming out stories. This doc from David Charles Rodrigues also features the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Dr. Tim Seelig, Ashlé, and Jimmy White.
Ponyboi is an intersex sex worker looking for love and to escape his seedy life in New Jersey. Through an encounter with the man of his dreams, he discovers his worth. Ponyboi is the first-ever narrative film by and starring an out intersex individual with River Gallo (who wrote and co-directed it), Keith Allan, Aaron Schwartz, Sophie Labelle, and Logan Arevelo.
Writer-director Sam De Jong presents a “stylish and gritty New York City fable” about a woman named Goldie who takes care of her sisters while their mom is in prison. But Goldie’s true dream is stardom. With child protective services looming and a music video shoot on the horizon, her last option is to make her dreams come true or lose it all in this picture starring Slick Woods, George Sample III, Danny Hoch, Khris Davis, Marsha Stephanie Blake, and A$AP Ferg.
This feature written and directed by Bora Kim is set in 1994 Seoul as a quiet eighth-grader named Eunhee spends her time consumed by love and friendship, shoplifting, and karaoke. But it’s in her new teacher that Eunhee finds the unlikely connection that she has been desperately seeking. The coming-of-age drama stars Jihu Park, Saebyuk Kim, Seungyeon Lee, and Ingi Jeong.
In this short film, a mother and son shop for a Bar Mitzvah gift at a 99 Cent store. Created by Nick Borenstein, it stars Kathryn Markey and Nick Borenstein.
Jeanie Finlay’s doc charts a transgender man’s path to parenthood after he decides to carry his child himself. The pregnancy prompts an unexpected and profound reckoning with conventions of masculinity, self-definition and biology.
One of RuPaul’s Drag Race’s most successful former contestants, Trixie Mattel is the subject of this doc from Nick Zeig-Owens. It chronicles her grind of performing and the pressure she faces after winning the season three All Stars title.
Released in 1995, Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls was met by critics and audiences with near universal derision. This doc written and directed by Jeffrey McHale traces the film’s redemptive journey from notorious flop to cult classic, and maybe even masterpiece, featuring Peaches Christ, Jeffrey Conway, April Kidwell, Haley Mlotek, Adam Nayman, and David Schmader.
From Maud Wiemeijer and Valerie Bisscheroux, Anne+ follows a 24-year-old the weekend she moves into her Amsterdam apartment and unexpectedly runs into ex-girlfriend Lily. Her reappearance pushes Anne to reflect on the diverse women from her past and their influence on her life.
Directed by Sarah Smith and written by Phillip Guttmann, this short follows a pious Hasidic man living a secret double life when he misplaces his hat one night, causing his two separate lives to collide in a way he never imagined. It stars Adam Silver, Sebastian Velmont, Shelly Kurtz, Alan Lennick, Carolyn Michelle Smith, and Nicholas Hylander.
A short poetic film following Carlito, a young man living in an indigenous village at the heart of the Amazonian jungle, it’s directed and written by Quentin Lazzarotto. It stars Carlito Tirira Meshi and Alfonsina Sehua Tioshe.
Chase Joynt and Kristen Schilt co-direct this reenactment and documentary about a group of trans artists who, in 2017, gained access to a 1950s archive of never-before-seen histories of transgender people. A revival of the past to redefine the future, it features Angelica Ross, Chase Joynt, Max Wolf Valerio, Silas Howard, and Zackary Drucker.
Writer-directors Arron Blake and Darius Shu created this film about two men of different ages who meet for the strangest encounter of their lives. It stars Arron Blake and Philip Brisebois.
Staceyann Chin and Micaela Birmingham brings us the true story of a lesbian's quest (played by Chin) to become a mother. With her closest friends by her side (played by Gina Yashere, Laura Gomez, and Janine Brito), she embarks on a wild road toward motherhood.
Co-directed by Taylor Hess and Erin Sanger, this short takes the audience behind the scenes as Mack Beggs, a gifted athlete from Euless, Texas, struggles against the outside forces that stigmatize transgender athletes.
When notorious bank robber, the Momster, catches her daughter Angel mid-gunfight, Angel thinks she's being rescued... until she realizes she has to do the saving. From writer-director Drew Denny, this stars Brianna Hildebrand, Amanda Plummer, John Ennis, Josh Fadem, and Ryan Simpkins.
Eric Leven brings us 40 years of New York City gay history told through photographs and the man behind the camera there to capture it all, Stanley Stellar.
Following the shock commutation of her sentence, whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who is trans, prepares to leave an all-male military prison in Kansas and transition to living life for the first time as a free woman. The doc is directed by Tim Travers Hawkins and written by Mark Monroe.
Tanya Saracho is back with the latest season of Vida in which Lyn and Emma begin the monumental task of rebuilding their mother’s bar. They navigate obstacles while contemplating the relationships in their lives, including their own, and are forced to dig deep to unearth what their mother’s legacy means to them. (All 10 episodes of this will drop in May online.)
An animated documentary virtual reality experience, Another Dream brings the true love story of an Egyptian lesbian couple to life. Faced with a post-Revolution backlash against the LGBTQ community, they escape Cairo to seek asylum and acceptance in the Netherlands.
Corey's day couldn't be worse. Then he gets a free coffee, in this world premiere from Nick Borenstein who also stars in it.
Another to add to the list of recent docs about fashion's greatest, French-born director Frédéric Tcheng brings us this film about the eponymous designer. From Iowa to Studio 54, the documentary investigates his rags-to-riches story and uncovers the cautionary tale of an artist who sold his name to Wall Street. It features interviews with Tavi Gevinson, Cornelia Guest, Liza Minnelli, Marisa Berenson, Joel Schumacher, and Pat Cleveland.
Starring Otmara Marrero, Sydney Sweeney, Will Brittain, and Sonya Walger, this feature from Lara Jean Gallagher follows a heartbroken Karen who breaks into her ex’s lake house after she breaks up with her. There, Karen strikes up a complicated relationship with a provocative younger woman named Lana in this psychological drama and sexual coming-of-age story.
