Starring: Suzanne Gregg Ferguson, Dudley Findlay Jr., Michael Hyatt, Jon Kit Lee, Michael Lynch, Claude E. Sloan
4K restoration
Through a campaign of fabulous surprise attacks, an underground band of radical queer HIV+ activists, addicts, and drag queens take to the streets of New York City to combat conservative politicians and government apathy towards the AIDS crisis. A frenetic debut feature from writer/director Stephen Winter, Chocolate Babies unleashes a world of anarchic camp and unapologetic Black queer power in one of the hidden gems of New Queer Cinema, ripe for rediscovery and ready to be introduced to new audiences.
For the film’s 25th anniversary, Frameline has commissioned a 4K restoration of Chocolate Babies in partnership with the National Film Preservation Foundation, the UCLA Film & Television Archive, and the Outfest Legacy Project. Following its festival run in the mid-1990s (playing at SXSW, the Berlinale, and Frameline21), Chocolate Babies struggled to secure major distribution due to its radically independent Black queer vision, but eventually found a home at Frameline Distribution who championed the film and continued to bring it to new audiences. Frameline proudly presents the world premiere of this pristine restoration in rich color and vivid detail like never before.
Starring: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock, Kasey Rogers
In Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s thriller, tennis star Guy Haines is enraged by his trampy wife’s refusal to finalize their divorce so he can wed senator’s daughter Anne. He strikes up a conversation with a stranger, Bruno Anthony, and unwittingly sets in motion a deadly chain of events. Psychopathic Bruno kills Guy’s wife, then urges Guy to reciprocate by killing Bruno’s father. Meanwhile, Guy is murder suspect number one.
Starring: Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Syms, Peter McEnery
In early 1960s London, barrister Melville Farr (Dirk Bogarde) is on the path to success. With his practice winning cases and a loving marriage to his wife (Sylvia Syms), Farr’s career and personal life are nearly idyllic. However, when blackmailers link Farr to a young gay man (Peter McEnery), everything Farr has worked for is threatened. As it turns out, Farr is a closeted homosexual — which is problematic, due to Britain’s anti-sodomy laws. But instead of giving in, Farr decides to fight.
Starring: Silas Howard, Harry Dodge, Stanya Kahn, Carina Gia
A buddy film that chronicles three weeks in the life of a handsome, gender-bending, small-town butch with a nagging messiah-complex. Emotionally defeated since the death of her father, Shy heads to the big city to sink herself into a life of crime. She is quickly distracted by Valentine, a deliriously expressive, wise-acre adoptee on a misguided search for her birth mother. The two freaky grifters join forces and learn the true meaning of poise under pressure.
Starring: Robert Townsend, Marla Gibbs, Eddie Griffin, Robert Guillaume, James Earl Jones, Roy Fegan
An unassuming teacher, Jefferson Reed (Robert Townsend) lives and works in an urban area plagued by a tough gang. When a falling meteor hits Jefferson, he discovers that he has gained numerous superpowers. Encouraged by his father (Robert Guillaume) and mother (Marla Gibbs), Jefferson sets out, somewhat awkwardly, to become a crime-fighting hero. While he manages to improve his community, he finds out that his powers aren’t limitless, making his efforts more challenging.
Starring: Sandra Kane, Linda Gale, Diane Conti, Robin Nolan, Eileen Dietz
Shot guerilla-style in the shadows of Brooklyn, Teenage Gang Debs combines the template of Freaks with the blueprint for Hairspray to forge the most essential juvenile delinquent gutter-noir that ever was. With its cinéma vérité fight scenes, gang leaders who wear cardigan sweaters, and refreshing flip of gender roles in exploitation, this Something Weird classic feels like what would happen if The Shangri-Las stopped singing “Leader of the Pack” and started stabbing punks with switchblades.
Warning: Images are not from the movies we’re showing. Trust us, you can’t imagine what we’re showing!
Shot in the United States, this brutal immigrant song features two of Hong Kong’s biggest superstars before they were famous and two of its most famous screen fighters busting skulls with staffs and getting run over by cars with no pads, no stunt doubles and no safety wires. It’s a grindhouse ode to the good old days of analog action, the kind of easy B-movie programmer that came out all the time in the 1980s but that look today like a hidden gem. So much pure cinematic craftsmanship, so much uncut celebrity charisma.
Starring: Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Sterling Holloway, Jerry Colonna, Verna Felton
4K restoration
Lewis Carroll’s beloved fantasy tale is brought to life in this Disney animated classic. When Alice (Kathryn Beaumont), a restless young British girl, falls down a rabbit hole, she enters a magical world. There she encounters an odd assortment of characters, including the grinning Cheshire Cat (Sterling Holloway) and the goofy Mad Hatter (Ed Wynn). When Alice ends up in the court of the tyrannical Queen of Hearts (Verna Felton), she must stay on the ruler’s good side — or risk losing her head.
Starring: Natja Brunckhorst, Christiane Lechle, Thomas Haustein
Adapted from actress and musician Cristiane Felscherinow’s harrowing account of her teenage years, Christiane F. depicts the impact of West Berlin’s mid-to-late-70s heroin epidemic on one of its youngest and luckiest survivors. On the cusp of fourteen, David Bowie-worshipping Cristiane (Natja Brunckhorst) begins slipping out from under the watch of her divorced mother (Christiane Lechle) and spending time at hip discotheque Sound. There she falls in love with Detlev (Thomas Haustein), whose recent experiments with heroin soon have her hooked. Working with first-time actors and shooting on location with real-life regulars of Zoo Station’s notorious drug cruising scene, director Uli Edel unflinchingly captures the degradation of each phase of junkie life, from underage prostitution to brutal withdrawals to the seemingly endless vows to “go straight.” Bowie himself appears in a concert performance of “Station to Station”; the film’s soundtrack is a virtual compendium of the epochal musician’s celebrated “Berlin period” and a perfect sonic evocation of nightclubbing’s dark side.
Starring: Christopher Walken, Lindsay Crouse, Frances Sternhagen, Andreas Katsulas
Step into this strange, unsettling world where autobiography blurs and certainty dissolves!
Based on Whitley Strieber’s controversial bestseller, Communion follows a successful writer whose life begins to unravel after a series of inexplicable occurrences. Anchored by a committed, off-kilter performance from Christopher Walken, the film walks a tightrope between psychological drama and sci-fi horror, inviting you to question not just what’s happening on screen, but how we define reality itself. Is it a story of alien abduction, a meditation on trauma, or something even stranger?
