After Outfest returned in a up-to-date form last Fall following a two-year hiatus, the Los Angeles LGBTQ film festival is back with a Summer outing
After Outfest returned in a up-to-date form last Fall following a two-year hiatus, the Los Angeles LGBTQ film festival is back with a Summer outing.
On Thursday, OutfestNext announced that Gregg Araki‘s I Want Your Sex will headline the second edition of its four-day screening series, which takes over the LA LGBT Center’s Village at Ed Gould Plaza from July 23-26.
“My long history with Outfest dates back to when I was a baby queer filmmaker in the ’80s/’90s and festivals like Outfest and Frameline provided a crucial platform for voices like mine to be heard,” said Outfest Achievement Award winner Araki. “Thank you, Outfest, for supporting queer culture in this awful age when it is needed more than ever!”
Directed by Araki from a script he co-wrote with Karley Sciortino, I Want Your Sex stars Olivia Wilde as Erika Tracy, an artist and provocateur who enlists her assistant Elliot (Cooper Hoffman) as her sexual submissive, as murder and questionable power dynamics ensue.
The lineup also includes the Sam McConnell-helmed sports drama Test, starring Matthew Morrison, Brock Yurich and Tammy Blanchard; the Brydie O’Connor-directed documentary Barbara Forever, about lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer, from executive producer Kristen Stewart; Maspalomas, from Spanish directors Aitor Arregi and Jose Mari Goenaga; the EJ Marcus and Morgan Sullivan-starring trans rom-com Something You Should Know About Me, from executive producer Lilly Wachowski; and the Ethan Fuirst-directed dramedy Can’t Go Over It, starring Susannah Perkins and Taylor Trensch.
“The Outfest programming team can barely contain our excitement when it comes to sharing the work of these visionary filmmakers with theaters full of movie-loving Angelenos,” said Senior Programmer Daniel Crooke. “OutfestNEXT exists at the convergence of defiant expression and community power, two of our most essential tools in building a world that reflects the vibrance, value, and beauty of queer and trans life.”
Sponsored by Delta Air Lines and Art & Rev, the showcase of narrative and documentary features, as well as compact films, includes screenings at Renberg Theatre and Outfest Microcinema, plus a series of accessible filmmaker-forward workshops and panels throughout the weekend.
Advanced tickets for Outfest members go live with the full lineup on June 29, with tickets available July 1 for the general public.
After the organization endured financial woes, a change in leadership and unionizing in 2023, Outfest returned last year with the first OutfestNext screening series taking place in November.
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