Date: 
Mon, 04/12/2021 - 7:00pm to 10:00pm

PrideArts has announced a one-night festival of ten short LGBTQIA films, to be screened in the Main Theatre of the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Avenue, Chicago; on Monday, April 12, 2020 at 7:00 pm.

Film themes include stories of heroic LGBTQ people dealing with such life and death issues as the aftermath of violence, health, the COVID pandemic, aging, war, romance, and Bollywood movies. Tickets for the one-night only festival are $10.00 and may be purchased in advance at www.pridearts.org or at the door. Masks must be worn throughout the screening (except while eating or drinking) and socially distanced seating is required. Attendance is limited to 50 persons. More information on the Music Box’s COVID-19 safety precautions is available at https://musicboxtheatre.com/covid-19-update.
 

62-84, I Didn't Copy That, HQ (Turkey, 15:00)
Directed by Timucin Ipekusta

Lives that get united and get threatened in a night...a woman who is running away because she was subjected to domestic violence by her husband, a trans person trying to hold on to life by cooking and an illegal immigrant who is at the edge of suicide.

cancer is gay (Canada, 10:14)
Directed by Saffron Cassaday

Maggie is 17 years old, fresh out of the closet and going through cancer treatment. While getting chemo, Maggie escapes by re-watching the same bad lesbian movie. When she meets Jesse, a fellow teen cancer patient, she plunges into an imagined affair that further distracts her from reality. The script by Macaulee Cassaday is based on events from her real life.

Ek Ladki (USA, 2:25)
Directed by Raashi Desai

Everyone deserves to see themselves fall in love on screen or picture themselves starring in a Bollywood movie. We’re thrilled to see a movie like 'Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga" moving the needle and trying to tell stories that have been overlooked in mainstream Bollywood. Here’s our spin on the title track as inspired by new (and old!) music and the excitement of telling untold stories.

Eve (UK, 13:04)
Directed by Joe Solomon

Comedy-drama of a young woman who has just got married to her long term boyfriend and now has doubts. She acknowledges she has been repressing her sexual attraction for women for some time, but that these feelings are genuine. Especially relevant at this moment, after kissing the groom’s sister, Olivia, an out and confident lesbian, at the hen party the night before.

I Used to Write with My Left Hand (USA/Chicago,10:51)
Directed by Luzzo

Shame and violence have tethered the queer relatives of a Chicago southside Irish Catholic family. As the youngest of the family reckons with his own pain, he works to grab hold of his inherited narrative in an attempt to redirect it, to stop the pattern. Directed by the Chicago-based filmmaker Luzzo.

Lilies (USA, 9:10)
Directed by Joni Renee Whitworth

“Lilies” is a queer love story set during 2020’s COVID lockdowns. In quarantine, the personal and political collide and comingle, forcing one woman to interrogate birth, becoming, class, femme health, and gay sufficiency against a backdrop of farm simulator games, archival agricultural footage, b-roll, domestic scenes, and psychedelic abstraction.

On the Ride, (USA, 13:24)
Directed by Jen McGowan Glazer

On his morning bike ride, Scott grapples with the memories of a trauma he experienced with his husband Todd. When his route suddenly takes an unexpected turn, Scott finds himself on the doorstep of a stranger intimately connected to the past he can’t shake.

The Great Artist (USA, 23:00)
Directed by Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri

A gifted artist finds himself in a broken balance between creating world class art and the all too silent struggle of self care as his life begins to unravel because of his Dissociative Identity Disorder.

The Winds of War (Mexico, 14:00)
Directed by Augustin Dominguez

After the death of his parents in a terrible misfortune, Antonio finds himself obligated to move back to Santa Ana, a small town that until now it has kept itself safe from all the armed conflicts in the Republic. 

Un métier comme un autre / A Job Like Any Other (English subtitles, Canada, 21:00)
Directed by Annick Roussy

A documentary film following Pierre - an ordinary 55-year-old man, solitary and very shy. He lives in his tidy and quiet apartment surrounded by his favorite figurine collections. However, his job is far from his low profile type. He’s been a drag queen barmaid for the past 30 years, a hard and restrictive work he never really chose. But for him, it’s a job like any other. Pierre passed away suddenly on June 2020. This film now pays tribute to his life and his drag queen character Aunt Gaby.

LISTING INFORMATION
 
PRIDEARTS SPRING FILM FESTIVAL
April 12, 2020, 7:00 pm
Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., Chicago
Tickets, available at www.pridearts.org or at the door, are $10.00.
 
One-night festival of ten short LGBTQIA films. Themes include stories of heroic LGBTQ people dealing with such life and death issues as the aftermath of violence, health, the COVID pandemic, aging, war, romance, and Bollywood movies. The program includes films from the US, UK, Canada, Mexico, and Turkey.
 
ABOUT PRIDEARTS
 
PrideArts tells queer stories on a variety of platforms, including both live and virtual performances. Since its founding in 2010, PrideArts has had several chapters, including operating as an itinerant theater for our first six seasons, and as the developer and primary tenant in the Pride Arts Center from 2016-21. The newest post-COVID chapter is still in development.

Pre-COVID, the company produced full seasons of plays and musicals, as well as events including cabaret, film, and more. The company has earned 39 Jeff Awards and nominations, and six nominations in the most recent (2019) ALTA Awards from the Alliance of  Latinx Theater Artists of Chicago. Programming has reflected the diversity of the LGBTQIA+ community by including work made by and illuminating the experiences of women, gay men, transgender people, and BIPOC.

PrideArts is supported by The MacArthur Fund for Arts & Culture at The Richard Driehaus Foundation, The Illinois Arts Council, City of Chicago’s City Arts Fund, the Elliott Fredland Charitable Trust, The Pauls Foundation, The Heath Fund, The Service Club of Chicago, the AmazonSmile Foundation, Arts and Business Foundation, Tap Root Foundation, Arts and Business Council, and Alphawood Foundation.
 
PrideArts is a member of the Smart Growth Program of the Chicago Community Trust. PrideArts is a member of the LGBT Chamber of Commerce of Illinois, Northalsted Business Association, Lakeview East, Uptown United, and The League of Chicago Theatre.
 
For more information and to donate, visit www.pridearts.org or call 1.773 857 0222.