Houston’s Big Queer Picture Show picks up where QFest left off
While movies like the recently released (on Hulu) “Fire Island” and the upcoming Billy Eichner vehicle “Bros” have shown that Hollywood is becoming more open to releasing LGBTQ-themed rom-coms into the mainstream, there are those in the LGBTQ community who want to see edgier, more independent, more artistic fare by them/for them/ about them on the big screen.
And this is where the Big Queer Picture Show comes in.
Launched earlier this year, the pop-up cinema series is a response to the various local film spaces that have shut down these past couple of years, mainly because of the pandemic — like the LGBTQ showcase QFest, which was held for the last time last year.
“We never really wanted to be a film festival,” says Michael Robinson, BQPS co-founder and communications and marketing manager at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. “I think that was the most sustainable thing for us. And, so, we kind of thought of what we can make instead. We came up with a monthly film program that really is nomadic, that we’re bringing around the city.”
Robinson, who previously was the Houston Cinema Arts Festival’s associate creative director, joined forces with
Rice University postdoctorate teaching fellow Baird Campbell and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston projectionist Trey Ferguson in hitting various film venues around the Houston area screening alternative cinema for LGBTQ audiences (and their straight allies). They kicked things off with a February event titled “A Night of Naughty Nuns,” over at Rice Cinema. The evening began with nun-related stills, while shorts (this program was called “Nunsploitation Confirmation”) played outside Sewall Hall. A screening of last year’s “Benedetta,” Paul Verhoeven’s tale of sapphic sisters in a 17th-century Italian convent, was later shown inside the hall. “Basically, it’s always some combination of a space that is available and a film that we want to screen,” says Campbell.
During June — aka Pride Month — BQPS teamed with the MFAH for several presentations, including a 35 mm screening of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1972 chamber melodrama “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant” and showings of “Neptune Frost,” a 2022 cyberpunk/Afropunk musical co-directed by poet Saul Williams. MFAH film curator Marian Luntz says she’s excited about what the BQPS is doing. “There was a void left after QFest concluded its 25year run last year,” says Luntz, “and Houston will definitely benefit from the energy and creativity of this enterprising team.”
In April, BQPS also did an MFAH screening of the 2021 drama “Great Freedom,” followed by a panel discussion of the history of cruising in Houston. Panel members included locals who are working on bringing more LGBTQ cinema to the city, like Byron Canady, who runs Pride Houston’s Reel Pride branch. “I thoroughly enjoyed the event from start to finish,” says Canady, “meeting old and new filmmakers and other lovers of queer cinema.”
On Sept. 18, BQPS will be at Talento Bilingue Houston screening a Spanish-language double feature called “Transficciones.” First up is 2013’s “Naomi Campbel,” about a sex reassignment-seeking transgender woman who goes on a TV show about plastic surgery. This will be followed by “Casa Roshell,” from 2017, about a transformist club in Mexico City, where men come to watch, cruise or learn how to dress in drag.
“That is really kind of reflective of where we are looking to take this long term, really getting these films into spaces where people already are,” says Campbell. “There is a lot of queer programming in Montrose, obviously, and we obviously want to continue that legacy. But we also want to recognize that there are lots of queer people and lots of queer experiences that are not in Montrose and are not in sort of typical cinema spaces or typical queer spaces.”
Basically, the Big Queer Picture Show is out to give the entire LGBTQ community a chance to shine cinematically and give Houston’s LGBTQ community a periodic program where they can see themselves. Says Robinson, “One of the really great things about what we’re trying to do is really make sure that we cultivate our audience and ourselves and, also, that it encourages other programmers to take risks, to know that, you know, there is a hunger for queer films, for transvestite films, for films that aren’t just, you know, the big Universal Studios or ‘Fire Island’ or those movies. You know, people want to see smaller stories and, hopefully, this encourages other organizations in other places — if they want to partner with us or not.”