Virtual Female Gaze & LGBTQ+

Bowery Film Festival is proud to screen the following selections:

• But Mom! it’s the end of the world

  Directed by Ella Sahlman & Kyle Kallman
  

  It’s the end of the world and this teenager doesn't want to spend her last day at a family dinner, she wants to make out before the nuclear apocalypse.

• LIMP

  Directed by Sean Leviashvili & Stephen Riscica
  

  LIMP follows Sean, a young gay man with cerebral palsy as he navigates dating with a disability in New York City. After meeting a man he believes is a perfect match, he decides to lie about his disability, saying he sprained his ankle at the gym. This white lie leads to series of events and missteps that make Sean examine the way he presents himself and his condition to the world.

• I Am

  Directed by Laura Arten
  

  A documentary series that explores the life and work of queer artists who paved the way for gender equality movement by daring to be themselves fully.

• Garden DayZe

  Directed by Evie Hammer
  

  Garden DayZe is a short film that explores the relationship that develops between the daughter of a gay man and his young lover in the face of unexpected tragedy. Having received a call that her father has been in an accident, Esme returns home to not only find changes to the house where she grew up, and where her other father passed away, but Jack - a new, young love in it. Set in one location, we follow Esme and Jack, thrown together, navigating their exhaustion between long hospital days, waiting for calls from doctors, struggling to understand their place and significance in the home and life of the man they both love and are terrified of losing.

• WINSTON

  Directed by Tanya Taylor
  

  Nighttime in Kingston Jamaica. Dancing. Drinking. Murder? On a secluded Kingston beach, our protagonist, WINSTON unpacks his true feelings and explores the ultimate betrayal, while denying his sexuality. WINSTON’s year long undercover relationship has been discovered by his life-long friends. A victim of his community and his socialization, he can only be what he knows. In an attempt to save face and prevent himself and his children from being a community target, he goes along with his friends and ends his relationship … … permanently.

• Gay Boys And The Bridges Who Love Them

  Directed by Seth Moore & Cole Smothers
  

  Based on the raw poetry of Sam Sax, Gay Boys And The Bridges Who Love Them is an expressionistic short that combines dance, design, and spoken word to paint a jaggedly beautiful meditation on suicide.

• Eat The Rainbow

  Directed by Brian Benson
  

  EAT THE RAINBOW is a musical fable about an odd yet kind person named Bayani with blue skin who moves into a conservative suburban neighborhood and disrupts the otherwise comfortable sameness. Bayani doesn’t look or act like anyone else in the neighborhood which causes fear and panic and eventually a demand for Bayani to leave. Cousin Wonderlette, who only sees kindness in others, befriends Bayani and together they take on the aggressive neighborhood mob led by capitalistic realtor and neighborhood bully Lobelia Gerber.

• Lo: The New Adventures of Ultimate Man’s Ex-Girlfriend

  Directed by Meri Haitkin
  

  Lo, a brilliant investigative reporter, and woman-in-her-thirties ends her relationship in an attempt to refocus on and revitalize her career. But this proves to be impossible because her ex-boyfriend is Ultimate Man, America's favorite superhero.

• A Girl From a Box

  Directed by Alxis Ratkevich & Chloe Taylor
  

  Charlie is a dispirited bachelor on a losing streak whose only friends are his overbearing Catholic mother, Wendy the webcam girl, and Bill his pet fish. After countless rejections in the dating world, he stumbles upon a website selling companion robots. Intrigued by the idea of finally finding his perfect mate, Charlie designs his companion to meet all his specifications. Initially, the technologically advanced “April” fulfills all of Charlie's desires, but the honeymoon fades quickly when April's artificial intelligence allows her to evolve into a real woman. Feminism is awoken in April as she reads voraciously, makes new friends, and enrolls in a University. Soon April's lust for life begins to surpass Charlie and his lack of ambition. He finds himself lonely again and waiting on dinner with a sink full of dirty dishes. He begins to wonder if “perfectly designed love” is really so perfect.

• Talking To Strangers

  Directed by Lucy Rosenthal
  

  A filmmaker revisits her complicated personal history with a popular webcamming site.

• The Comedown

  Directed by Bettina Bilger
  

  Falling in love backwards.

• The Tampon

  Directed by Erica Ortiz
  

  Following a night of heavy drinking, an art student comes face to face with the complexities of consent in her college sorority through her art.