Outfest — the Los Angeles-based nonprofit that uplifts queer and trans creators in the entertainment industry by providing career support and curating the exhibition and preservation of queer and transgender stories — announced the full lineup for its 41st Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Festival presented by Warner Bros. Discovery and Genesis Motor America, taking place July 13 – 23 in venues around Los Angeles and is headquartered at the Directors Guild of America in West Hollywood.
Tickets and passes are now available to Outfest members, the general public can get their passes starting Friday, June 23rd.
The 11-day festival will showcase a program of over 170 titles from more than 25 countries that includes narratives, documentaries, shorts, and an episodic showcase. Highlights among the films featured include the world premiere of Truth Be Told, a feature doc directed by Emmy Award-winner Nneka Onuorah (Lizzo’s Watch Out For the Big Grrrls) and produced by MACRO (Judas and the Black Messiah) which gives a probing, heartfelt, and often humorous exploration of the relationship between the LGBTQ+ community and the Black church, featuring interviews with Billy Porter, Meagan Good, Cedric The Entertainer, David Mann, Tamela Mann and Kev on Stage; Acsexybility, a feature doc from Brazil by Daniel Gonçalves about the sexual lives and desires of people with disabilities, will also hold its world premiere at the fest, with Gonçalves attending; Fabian Stumm’s Berlinale title Bones and Names, an ensemble dramatic comedy about married men who seek new experiences outside their humdrum relationship, will hold its North American premiere with writer/director/star Stumm attending, and the U.S. premiere of Venice Film Festival highlight Le Favolose (The Fabulous Ones) will also take place.
Favorites from the 2023 festival circuit making their Los Angeles premieres with Outfest include Sundance titles Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project directed by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson (which took that fest’s U.S. Grand Jury Prize for Documentary) about the iconic Black activist and poet, Mutt directed by Vuk Lungulov-Klotz and starring Lio Mehiel and Cole Dolman, Sebastián Silva’sRotting in the Sun starring the director and Jordan Firstman as versions of themselves on a drug-and-sex fueled journey in Mexico City, and It’s Only Life After All that takes an intimate look into the lives of one of the most iconic folk-rock bands in America – the Indigo Girls.
SXSW premieres going to Outfest include a special screening of Julio Torres’ Problemista from A24 starring Torres and Tilda Swinton in the story of a Salvadoran toy designer in New York who must take a job with a wildly eccentric art collector when his visa renewal is in jeopardy; audience favorite Bottoms, starring Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri, directed by Emma Seligman (Shiva Baby) and written by Seligman and Sennott, in an uproarious high school comedy about two social outcasts who start a female fight club in a covert attempt to hook up with their cheerleader crushes, and Cora Bora directed by Hannah Pearl Utt and starring Megan Stalter, Jojo Gibbs, and Manny Jacinto.
Tribeca Festival alum highlights include Asog, a heartfelt and hilarious blend of fiction and documentary about a struggling comedian’s journey across typhoon-affected areas of the Philippines to compete in the Ms. Gay Sicogan pageant; the film boasts Adam McKay, Alan Cumming, and Joel Kim Booster among its executive producers; and feature doc Break the Game, which took a Jury Special Mention in Tribeca this month.
Additional highlights include a new restoration of the 1996 New Queer Cinema classic Chocolate Babies directed by Stephen Winter, who will be attending the screening, and feature doc Commitment to Life directed by Jeffrey Schwarz which chronicles the response in Los Angeles to the AIDS crisis spearheaded by AIDS Project Los Angeles.
