Stay home and still get your Q on!

The 14th Annual QFest St. Louis — presented by Cinema St. Louis (CSL) — will take place from April 16-25. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, CSL will offer all programs virtually, protecting the health of patrons. Programs can be streamed at any time during the festival’s dates. Recorded introductions and Q&As will be available for most film programs.

The St. Louis-based LGBTQ film festival, QFest will present an eclectic array of 24 films (14 shorts, six narrative features, and four documentary features). The participating filmmakers represent a wide variety of voices in contemporary queer world cinema. The mission of the film festival is to use the art of contemporary gay cinema to spotlight the lives of LGBTQ people and to celebrate queer culture.

The fest is especially pleased to host the St. Louis premiere of new works by internationally acclaimed filmmakers Agnieszka Holland (“Charlatan”) and François Ozon (“Summer of 85”). Another QFest highlight is this year’s Q Classic, the 50th anniversary of the trippy, experimental 1971 film “Pink Narcissus.”

Thanks to several generous sponsors, CSL is able to make the festival more accessible to all by offering both shorts programs free for the duration of the event.

For the full schedule of screenings, including trailers and descriptions of the films, visit the festival website at www.cinemastlouis.org/qfest. Advance digital screeners of the features and some of the shorts are available for press review on request. Please inquire with QFest St. Louis artistic director Chris Clark.

The 2021QFest St. Louis begins on Friday, April 16, and runs through Sunday, April 25. Tickets go on sale March 24. Tickets are $14 general, $10 for Cinema St. Louis members and students with valid and current IDs. Passes are also available: Five-Film Passes are $60, and All-Access Passes are $115. All screenings will be held virtually for residents of Missouri and Illinois via Eventive, CSL’s online presentation partner. Direct ticket links are available on the QFest website.

QFest St. Louis is sponsored by AARP Missouri, Arts & Education Council, CheapTRX, Grizzell & Co., Missouri Arts Council, Bob Pohrer & Donnie Engle, Crafted., Just John Nightclub, Matt Kerns, Regional Arts Commission, Deb Salls, St. Louis Public Radio, Cindy Walker, and Webster U. Film Series.

Social media: Facebook: @QFestSTL | Twitter: @QFestSTL | Instagram: @QFestSTL

FEATURES

THE CARNIVORES director Caleb Michael Johnson

U.S / 2020 / 77 minutes

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/388481118

One of the oddest and darkest films screened at QFest to date, “The Carnivores” features a young lesbian couple, Alice and Bret, whose dog, Harvie, is slowly dying. The vet bills are adding up fast, Alice is quietly panicking, and high-strung Bret dotes on the dog and ignores the reality of the situation. When poor, innocent Harvie goes missing, the fragile status quo is finally shattered, and both women go off the deep end in their own way. What had been a bright and happy little family unit is undone by self-doubt, suspicion, and a disturbing amount of ground beef. The Hollywood Reporter writes: “(Director) Caleb Michael Johnson employs a dreamlike, David Lynchian aesthetic to the proceedings throughout the film. If you are a fan of abstract, surreal storytelling supported by strong central performances and a fascinating relationship dynamic, then ‘The Carnivores’ has more than enough meat for you to chew.”

KEYBOARD FANTASIES director Posy Dixon

U.S / 2019 / 63 minutes

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xLkZirOa4k

As a sci-fi-obsessed woman living in near isolation, Beverly Glenn-Copeland wrote and self-released the album “Keyboard Fantasies” in Huntsville, Ontario, in 1986. Recorded in an Atari-powered home studio, the cassette featured seven tracks of a curious folk-electronica hybrid, a sound realized far before its time. Three decades on, the musician — now Glenn Copeland — began to receive emails from people across the world, thanking him for the music they’d recently discovered. Courtesy of a rare-record collector in Japan, a reissue of “Keyboard Fantasies,” with support by such electronic musicians as Four Tet and Caribou, had finally found its audience two generations down the line. “Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story” tells an intimate coming-of-age story that transmutes the pain and suffering of prejudice into rhythm, hope, and joy. Half audiovisual history and half DIY tour video, the film provides a vehicle for this newly appointed queer elder to connect with youth across the globe and serves as a timely lullaby to soothe those souls struggling to make sense of the world.

PS BURN THIS LETTER PLEASE Directors: Michael Seligman & Jennifer Tiexiera

U.S / 2020 / 101 minutes

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqGRrAjYgq4

A box of letters, held in secret for nearly 60 years, ignites a five-year exploration into a part of LGBTQ history that has never been told. The letters, written in the 1950s by a group of New York City drag queens, open a window into a forgotten world where being yourself meant breaking the law and where the penalties for “masquerading” as a woman were swift and severe. Using original interviews, never-before-seen archival footage and photographs, and stylized re-creations, “P.S. Burn This Letter Please” reconstructs this pre-Stonewall era as former drag queens now in their 80s and 90s — including James Bidgood, director of this year’s Q Classic, “Pink Narcissus” — reveal how they survived and somehow flourished at a time when drag queens were both revered and reviled, even within the gay community. The government sought to destroy them and history tried to erase them, but now they get to tell their story for the first time.

TAHARA, director Olivia Peace and writer Jess Zeidman

U.S / 2020 / 78 minutes

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk_cB8HgDU0

In this queer coming-of-age dramedy, two girlfriends attend a “Teen Talk-back” after the funeral service of their former Hebrew-school classmate. Although the session is designed to help them understand grief through faith, it instead leads to other discoveries, with surprising sparks igniting when one of the girls is manipulated into a romantic encounter with her best friend. The Queer Review writes: “Filmed on location at the Rochester synagogue where (screenwriter Jess) Zeidman attended Hebrew school, there’s a claustrophobic authenticity to the film’s setting. Much of the success of ‘Tahara’ relies on her well-crafted, layered screenplay and the two rich, subtle lead performances by (Madeline Grey) DeFreece and (Rachel) Sennott (also wonderful in ‘Shiva Baby’) keeping things compelling and intriguing. Refreshingly it’s a teen film that doesn’t look down on or objectify its characters, examining our shared human foibles with humor and poignancy.”

SHORT FILM

Eleven Weeks – director Anna Kuperberg (Wash U grad)

U.S / 15 MINS / 2020

Faced with a fast and aggressive cancer, Carla Jean Johnson accepts her diagnosis with clarity and grace, as photographer Anna Kuperberg, her longtime wife, documents their final days and weeks together.

Lynn Venhaus

Lynn (Zipfel) Venhaus has had a continuous byline in St. Louis metro region publications since 1978. She writes features and news for Belleville News-Democrat and contributes to St. Louis magazine and other publications. 

She is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, currently reviews films for Webster-Kirkwood Times and KTRS Radio, covers entertainment for PopLifeSTL.com and co-hosts podcast PopLifeSTL.com…Presents. 

She is a member of Critics Choice Association, where she serves on the women’s and marketing committees; Alliance of Women Film Journalists; and on the board of the St. Louis Film Critics Association. She is a founding and board member of the St. Louis Theater Circle.

She is retired from teaching journalism/media as an adjunct college instructor.

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