Queer Futures

The QUEER FUTURES series centers joy and connection to radically imagine future visions of queer life. Four short films explore fat beauty and liberation, gender-affirming healthcare, nonbinary siblinghood in ballroom culture, and the anonymous connections of a decades-old LGBTQ hotline. Transcending the rigidity and oppressions of the current moment, these films locate, build, and inhabit speculative worlds that offer new ways of being – in the present and the future. Just as queer lives subvert normative expectations of behavior, identity, and expression, these directors expand the boundaries of nonfiction forms to present new ways of seeing the queer experience lived out loud.

How to Carry Water (dir. Sasha Wortzel)
The boundless beauty of bodies in water through the lens of Shoog McDaniel — a fat, queer, and disabled photographer working in and around northern Florida’s vast network of freshwater springs, the state’s source of precious drinking water. Bringing Shoog’s photography to life, the film immerses audiences in a world of fat beauty and liberation, one in which marginalized bodies — including bodies of water — are sacred.

The Script (dir. Brit Fryer & Noah Schamus)
Blending personal interviews with dramatized genre recreations, The Script explores the troubled relationship between trans communities and medical providers in healthcare settings. With a playful approach toward experimentation, the film offers a vision of how physicians and trans patients can meet one another on equal footing.

MnM (dir. Twiggy Pucci Garçon)
MnM is an exuberant portrait of chosen sisters Mermaid and Milan, two emerging runway divas in the drag ballroom community. Celebrating their joy, siblinghood, and unapologetic personas, the film explores the power and beauty of being nonbinary in a community that prizes gender ’realness.’

The Callers (dir. Lindsey Dryden)
The Callers combines intimate documentary testimony with imagined creative scenes to tell the anonymous stories of those who have called England’s oldest LGBTQ+ phone helpline since it opened in 1974. Callers seek guidance on everything from where to find the nearest leather bar to how to come out, navigate an open relationship, impress a new lover or mend a broken heart. Together with the listening volunteers who answer the phones, they imagine the outcome they dream of.