Laura Zak and Jen Richards are constantly working to represent on screen the kind of queer communities that they know and love in real life. Their series Her Story is about two trans women finding romance in LA and it leads with a refreshing amount of honesty and nuance — a welcome change in an entertainment landscape that often portrays trans lives with stereotypes. As co-creators (and now Emmy nominees!), they also made sure that the rest of their creative team represented their community; it’s a series starring and created by trans folks.
Jen and Laura bring their keen eye for narrative to this new curated channel, which we are so excited to have in our Pride celebration of LGTBQ+ artists. They share picks from music videos and shorts, to series and feature films. Watch on, read Jen and Laura’s thoughts, and fall in love with these films.
“This delightful film is improvised by its talented ensemble of four queer actors, and is directed and shot by queer women as well. Its premise — two couples enjoy a casual lunch until an anonymous suicide note is discovered — is equal parts hilarious, dark, unflinching, and sincere. The performers’ authentic, witty banter feels familiar and they are compulsively watchable.”
“Although this is an admittedly fluffy, borderline lecherous recommendation, it is hard to resist the sumptuous music video for Hayley Kiyoko’s pop song ‘Sleepover.’ The song and video perfectly capture the singular pain of falling for your straight best friend, and the fantasies that dominate one’s mind in the throes of unrequited desire. Kiyoko, who is queer herself, stars in the video as the besotted friend who imagines her ideal sleepover, with her bestie by her side. The video is also directed by Kiyoko, so you can rest assured that a female gaze staged the sexy scenes.”
“We have no idea how Tayarisha Poe identifies, but her films have what we think of as a queer sensibility — naturally existing outside the aesthetics of straight white men. She has the best eye of any young filmmaker we know, and a vision that is simultaneously evocative, sensual, and powerful. She’s clearly bursting with ideas. Check out ‘Honey and the Trombones’ to start, then dive into this prolific filmmaker.”
“Chicago’s Open TV blessed the internet with the first season of ‘Brown Girls’ last year. This complete gem of a series follows the lives of friends and roommates Patricia, a Black American musician, and Leila, a queer South Asian American writer. It’s easy to fall in love with this rad and endearing duo and the series showcases spectacular writing and acting. The scene of Leila coming out as queer to her sister is one of the most beautiful portrayals of coming out we’ve ever seen.”
“A supernatural web series about gay Latino witches in Chicago. Do we really need to say any more? We don’t want to spoil any of its delights, and nothing in print can capture its intoxicating glee. This is the kind of content we didn’t even know we desperately wanted until we found it.”
“This short, quietly devastating film by Vivek Shraya, a Canadian trans woman, is a solid introduction to her consistently compelling poetry and film. She also has fantastic hair.”
“A young, black, closeted trans kid faces relentless harassment in their community and explicit disapproval from their father. They find the courage to come out at a spoken word performance and when their father unexpectedly appears in the audience, they use the opportunity to speak frankly in front of him for the first time. This is a beautifully shot short film that intimately conveys how it is sometimes hardest to reveal ourselves to the people closest to us.”
“We have a soft spot for the most common of trans tropes — the struggling sex worker — when it’s done well. This is one of those times. What really makes this short film sing is the natural chemistry between Miss Cairo and Thea Lamb. Further kudos to filmmaker Paul Frankl for casting an actual trans woman in the lead, years ahead of the curve, and for not reducing her to a tragedy.”
“One of us has a huge crush on Jake Graf, but we still think it’s objectively true that he’s one of the very best filmmakers in the world today. His work has both a brutal and unflinching honesty, with little touches of tenderness. ‘Brace’ is a must-see, but watch ‘Dawn’ afterwards to warm your broken heart.”
“This soulful short film became an easy favorite on last year’s festival circuit, and we were thrilled to see it available on Vimeo. In this queer-directed story, a woman whose butch-identified girlfriend recently passed away butts heads with the deceased woman’s mother, who insists on burying her daughter in a dress. The girlfriend and grieving friends must take it upon themselves to ensure that their loved one is put to rest in clothing that honors who she was in life. Don’t miss this piercing and beautiful film.”
“One of the great pleasures of film is having intimate access to a world you’d never see otherwise, and one of the important strengths of a great filmmaker is their capacity to make such a specific lens universally relatable. Andrew Ahn’s film Spa Night, available on demand, excels by both accounts. Spend a few bucks and a couple of hours to see inside the dynamics of a Korean immigrant family and a first generation son’s awakening in the spas of Los Angeles.”
Watch the rest of Laura and Jen’s picks on their channel, and catch the rest of the guest curators sharing their favorite artists in June.
