Boston’s Wicked Queer, a volunteer-run organization and the 4th longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival in North America, marks its 40th anniversary with feature films, shorts, and documentaries that look to the past and future of queer movements in art and culture.
Calling things “wicked” is “a thing” in New England, my mom explained to me a few weeks before I moved to Boston. A queen bed wicked small hotel room, a wicked bacon cheeseburger. And, as I was thrilled to discover, a film festival known as Wicked Queer. Previously called the Boston LGBT Film Festival, Wicked Queer was rebranded in 2016, heralding a new era of filmmaking under a banner that celebrates Boston’s queer community.
Executive director Shawn Cotter shared some of Wicked Queer’s history with me: While working as a film programmer at the South Shore Theater, one of Boston’s adult cinemas at the time, Wicked Queer founder George Mansour proposed to the owner that they show a selection of gay porn. This (and the addition of a glory hole in the bathroom) drastically increased the South Shore’s profits and Mansour received a bonus, which he used to start Boston’s queer film festival. Ironically, the Boston Film Festival is also turning 40 this year. “Maybe there was something in the air in 1984,” says Cotter.
On the first Friday night of April, I went to the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge to see the opening film Febrero, about a grandmother-to-be who is led to question what she wants out of life when a childhood friend reappears for her 64th birthday. The Brattle is a key Boston cinematic venue and headquarters for Wicked Queer. Screenings are also held at the Coolidge Corner Theatre and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, among other noteworthy venues. On the first night of WQ 40 and each one following it, the room filled with friendly conversation before the show, reflecting this year’s festival’s themes of the empowerment found in community. Febrero was a poignant, bottle-episode-like narrative showing reunion, heartbreak, and a new adventure beginning in one day.
The mellow tone of Febrero tricked my mind into thinking the rest of the festival would be the same—which is why returning the next night for the glitzy avant-garde documentary Avant-Drag! and the Bollywood-inspired coming-of-age feature The Queen of My Dreams was a (not unpleasant) shock. The latter brought the biggest turnout I saw all week: People crammed into the Brattle until few seats were left, possibly remembering director Fawzia Mirza’s screenwriting and acting talent from Signature Move at WQ 33. Representatives from Queer Muslims of Boston and Muslims for Progressive Values introduced the movie, a colorful depiction of a Pakistani mother and daughter’s strained relationship and reconciliation.
However, to mark 40 years of revolutionary cinema, Wicked Queer also incorporated more throwback films than usual. According to Cotter, “[..] our histories and stories are often erased and not told to us, and I feel like it’s up to us to make sure that our histories and stories […] remain vibrant told and told and told and told again.” Following Febrero on opening night was 1997’s Nowhere, described by director Greg Araki as “Beverly Hills 90210 on acid.” On Tuesday, Gay USA was shown at Boston University, a fitting tribute to 40 years of queer history given that it is the "first American feature-length documentary by and about LGBTQ+ people."
Wicked Queer is playing a major role in the (re)discovery and preservation of forgotten LGBTQ+ films. On Wednesday, 1996’s Fire returned to theaters for the debut of its 4K restoration print. This is one of the first Bollywood films to depict a same-sex relationship and incited riots in India at the time of release. The festival also showed the long-lost film Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers, restored by the Academy Film Archive. Indeed, many of these throwbacks are “lost to the sands of time,” in Cotter’s words. You will be hard-pressed to find a streaming service where you can rent Fire.
In other news, Monster Makeup also returned with their new film Saint Drogo, after bringing Death Drop Gorgeous to the WQ 36. Michael J. Ahern, Ryan Miller, and Brandon Perras-Sanchez attended a post-screening Q&A—just a few of the many filmmakers who came to the festival throughout the week—and discussed the New England-set folk horror film. The film was introduced by Kay Lynch of the Salem Horror Fest, as they also screened Saint Drogo in April 2024. Fans of queer horror will also love T Blockers, directed by Alice Maio Mackay, another Salem Horror Fest alum. On the other hand, shorts programs are also cherished by Wicked Queer.
While some programs, such as Women’s Shorts and the GTFO Shorts are essentially annual, this year’s Drag the World short film program was an anomaly—one comprising a myriad of different compelling narratives and angles of drag. While there has not been a drag shorts program in several years, Cotter says, “We always celebrate drag at the festival,” and while “it all depends on content […] we had a really good, sort of wealth of drag shorts that were in our submissions [this year].” This is in addition to some feature films about drag that stood out this year. For instance, Avant-Drag! relates the stories of 10 different drag performers in Athens who gather for a meal to discuss what drag means to them and the discrimination they have faced.
Wicked Queer is a global film festival, and films from Greece were also at the forefront this year. The last few months have been tumultuous for LGBTQ+ rights in Greece: Just in February, Greece became the first Orthodox Christian country to legalize same-sex marriage. A month later, amid the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival (TIDF), two trans people were attacked by a mob of between 150 and 300. TIDF debuted Avant-Drag! (Greece premiere) and Lesvia (world premiere), two remarkable films that then made their way to Wicked Queer.
Lesvia is a breathtaking documentary that showcases the history of the island of Lesbos, to which lesbians have flocked since the early 20th century. Modern-day footage, older clips, and a torrent of photographs of nude women are woven together to tell of how women came in waves starting in the 70s, camped on the beach of Eressos, and shared stories of being a lesbian in their various countries. The found community and conflict with locals are recounted by director Tzeli Hadjidimitriou, a native Lesvian who only realized her sexuality with this cultural upheaval.
Another personal favorite of mine was Peafowl, shown on one of the low-key screens hidden behind the glitzy façade of the ArtsEmerson Paramount Center in Downtown Boston. Peafowl follows a Korean transgender dancer who returns to her hometown and is coerced into performing a ritual dance at her estranged father’s memorial. Myung’s stunning dance scenes capture a cutting feeling of catharsis, reflecting her directly stated decision to perform the ritual for herself so she can find peace. The only movie that can match Peafowl for intoxicating performance numbers was Elda and the Monsters. While Elda focuses on an aspiring rock star, the journey of a close-knit group of friends is a cornerstone of the story.
Before several screenings, Cotter encouraged the audience to look around the room at the community gathered there. Cotter tells me, “What I want to urge the LGBTQ+ community, and also the ally community to do, is to take in a film of a community that you’re not familiar with and learn a little something. Because I feel like the more we know about each other, the closer we become, and the world is out there to divide us […].” For a first-time attendee, Wicked Queer was an amazing dive into art that explores other queer experiences, showing me a world of possibilities for expression and resistance.
WQ 40 ran from April 5 to April 14, 2024. Wicked Queer has made most of the films screened at the 40th festival available to watch online (only from Massachusetts); full-length films are available until April 22 and shorts programs until April 30. Wicked Queer will also return in November 2024 with its 3rd annual documentary film festival.
Comments