Peterson, Kristine

1996

A look at life on the cutting edge, at a generation pushing boundaries.

Shelly's just been raped by her lover Jimmy's best friend, and she does what any incipient riot grrrl would: she dumps Jimmy, joins an all-girl band, and starts sleeping with the lead singer. And that's only the beginning of this funny and hip portrait of life on the margins of the Seattle art world. Suzy, Shelly's new lover and the lead singer of the No Exits, is wild and outrageous both on stage and off, and Shelly is a quick study. Soon the pair are crusading around Seattle, bent on changing the world, whether that means offering no apologies for their sexual orientation or stealing pornography from hapless convenience store clerks. Everything seems happy, until Shelly runs into Jimmy and is dismayed to discover that she's still attracted to him. Slaves to the Underground is a fresh, honest look at bisexual love.

Uchida, Kazuko

1996

The main character is a sign of toilet (womyn). Since the day she was born, everything about her (where, how, and whom to live with) had been already decided. But, she couldn't comply with it. Now she goes out looking for her own life, and she finds it!

Bracewell, Charles

1996

A broken hearted soldier comes to grief at the hands of a siren.

Brown, Emma

1996

A story exploring the relationship between two young girls at boarding school in the 1920's.

Bonett, Leslie

1996

Afro-American lesbian's edgy internal dialogue about the cultural conflicts of facial hair.

Collins, Christy

1996

Shapes of Silence mourns the kids who never make it through childhood. A Japanese girl falls in love but cannot escape her abusive father.

1996

Lively interviews are mixed with hot and raunchy lovemaking in Shades of Desire, a sexy and provocative documentary celebrating love between black and white lesbians.

Roth, Phillip

1996

Awarded a Frameline Completion Fund grant this year, Philip B. Roth’s debut feature, Sex, Work and My American Family is the story of the filmmaker’s search for self identity working as an erotic masseur in New York City. Interviews with his uproarious Jewish family, including his 81 year-old grandmother, cast light on his struggles with male intimacy, spirituality and sex. The film features graphic erotic massages, a rare interview with German filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim, a demonstration in the use of Tampax by performance artist Annie Sprinkle, and Yiddish torch singer Nehama Lifshitz wailing on the soundtrack.

Spears, Peter

1996

The Festival presents your chance at a cheap date and some cheap thrills. It's Halloween and a serial killer with a taste for full-figured teenage girls is on the loose, but is Jackie de Palma (Jackie Beat) worried? She's far too busy consuming pizza pockets and her fey neighbor's Halloween candy and doing bong hits with her bad girlfriends to even notice she's in danger. A massacre of a slumber party, Scream, Teen, Scream has it all, most especially Lisa Blair (Alexis Arquette), a chain-smoking, spandex-wearing teenage vixen whose fun is temporarily put on pause when she catches her no-good lout of a boyfriend looking for lube in all the wrong places and finding it with her best friend, Jennie Lee Curtis (Robert Ring). No slumber party would be complete without heartbreak, sex, drugs, too many fattening treats and a trip to the Ouija Board in search of answers only the cranky ghost of Karen Carpenter can provide. You'll be scared out of your seats at the shocking surprise ending to this all-frills thriller. It's a scream!

Thorne, Kika

1996

[From IMDB]: "In a courageous, straight into the camera, monologue the film maker tells us what it's like to be the school fag. The only one that is out about being gay in a small town high school."

School Fag is a monologue by fabulously swishy and self-possessed 19-year-old Shawn Fowler, who waxes eloquent about his days as a Wonder Woman wannabe.