Photo Credit: Alex Anwandter

Chilean musician Alex Anwandter’s debut film “Nunca Vas A Estar Solo (You Will Never Be Alone) is a profound exploration of homophobic violence with a deeply engaging young hero. 

Anwandter is a well-regarded musician who turned to film after he was impacted by the highly publicized murder of Daniel Zamudio, a young gay man in Chile. Zamudio’s murder galvanized Chile and eventually led to passage of national hate crimes legislation. 

Zamudio, it turns out, was a fan of Anwandter’s music, and he attended the young man’s funeral. When Zamudio’s family members met Anwandter and thanked him for talking about LGBT issues in public, Anwandter realized he had to do more to spark conversations and change in his native country and globally

The film presents us with the life of a young, gay boy and his father in the time before, during and after a brutal, homophobic attack. 

Anwandter had long been a fan of film particularly Fassbinder’s naturalistic approach, but he knew that whatever story he told had to be grounded in his understanding of the political and cultural environment in Chile after the dictatorship and the context that provided for the particular story he chose to tell. It was going to be “shot in Chile, using Chilean idioms” even though “it can be understood outside of Chile.” 

Turning to his new art form he found a respect and appreciation and kinship with the actors that helped him direct them drawing on his own understanding of performance as a musician. Popular both in and outside his country, Anwandter is known for mixing thoughtful socially conscious lyrics with driving dance beats. His thoughtfulness continued in his casting process; he turned to known Chilean veteran actors for many roles, but knew that he had to find fresh voices for the young lead. Out of 2,000 youth, he chose Andrew Bangsted and was not diasppointed.

“Andrew was a revelation to me, super sensitive, very intelligent. Although this was his first film by day two he was a natural camera actor.” 

The role is quite challenging. In the film we get to enter Pablo’s complex, funny, sweet, engaging and dangerous world. He sings, laughs with his best friend and has an intense, troubled relationship with a local youth. Throughout his father is disconnected from him. Not until the attack, does the father come to terms with who his son is and how his country has failed to protect him and what, if anything, he can do now to help him survive. 

Anwandter wanted to make sure the audience sat with the discomfort of the attack. He wanted to show how much effort it takes to “punish or end someone’s life.” His goal was not to be gory but to show the effort, to take the time with the scene so as to really to make the audience feel the impact of this violence and the hatred behind it. Otherwise, he says, audiences can minimize, forget or not really come to terms with human beings do to other human beings in this kind of attack and how a society contributes to it. 

He hopes the film will be a vehicle of reflection both in and outside of Chile.

Although his parents have always been supportive, Anwandter notes that even when you have family acceptance you could still go out on the street and be attacked. There has to be a strong message from the government in support of human rights, he says, in order to dismantle the violence in the culture, the micro-aggressions, the lack of protections, the lack of explicit rights and the physical violence. 

He is hopeful though that these issues can be confronted and resolved and this shows up in the film in the refreshing scenes between Pablo and his best friend Mari. Anwandter feels young people are more aware, more free and demand more justice from the world. He notices this in Chile and throughout Latin America in the generations born after dictatorships.

Anwandter also continues with music. He recently released his new album titled “Amiga” which he says puts himself out there more than he has in the past. The phrase he used in Spanish was very Chilean “poner el pecho a las balas”-literally put your chest out in front of the bullets. It is number one on iTunes and is on the Billboard Top 20.

The film premiered in Berlin and will have its US Premier at the Seattle Film Fest this weekend. Anwandter is eager to show the film in Chile to see what discussions it will provoke.

You can learn more about Alex Anwandter’s music by watching his new video below:

 www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTUWwUUa1WE

THE TRANS LIST Photo Credit: Frameline40

Frameline40: The King of Queer Film Festivals, the San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival, celebrates its 40th anniversary from June 16-26 with a new look and 11 days of ground-breaking films that reflect the diversity of queer stories from across the globe.

As the world’s longest-running and largest LGBTQ film festival, Frameline will screen its slate of 155 stories in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland, California, of which 40% percent are made by women directors (including 50% of Documentary Features and 42% of Narrative Features), and an expansion to a full week of programming in the East Bay.  With its mission “to change the world through the power of queer cinema”, the themes of Social Justice & Identity are as strong and relevant today as they were in the past.

With a focus on Youth & Teens, Frameline40 will look at these communities in ways that go beyond coming-of-age stories or opposition from parents or society.  These fully-fleshed depictions of youth allow for complex and nuanced storytelling, beginning with the Opening Night documentary KIKI.  (Here is a sampling of Frameline40’s lineup.)

KIKI clip #1 from Hard Working Movies on Vimeo.

KIKI   2016 / USA, Sweden  Thursday June 16, 7pm, Castro Theatre:   More than two decades after Paris Is Burning, this vibrant documentary fast-forwards to the ballroom scene of today:  an unapologetically flamboyant and political subculture centered on LGBTQ youth of color, for whom dance is far more than performance.  Kiki reveals a world that is not only a fun safe haven for people who might feel on society’s margins, but also an important rallying point for youth development and activism.

POLITICAL ANIMALS Festival Trailer from POLITICAL ANIMALS on Vimeo.

POLITICAL ANIMALS  2015 / USA   Sunday June 19, 11am, Castro Theatre:  In 1994, Sheila Kuehl became the first openly gay member of the California State Assembly. “People think it was earlier,” she says in this eye-opening documentary. “It wasn’t.” She would be joined in short order by Carole Migden, Jackie Goldberg, and Christine Kehoe, who together took the LGBT civil rights struggle from the streets to the state capitol. Political Animals tells the story of these four pioneering lesbian politicians and the battles they fought to pass a wide range of anti-discrimination laws. 

BI CANDY  A program of indie shorts.  Wednesday June 22, 7pm, Roxie Theatre:  Binary-breaking shorts in this year’s batch of Bi Candy range from the adorable and romantic to the real and raw.  Viviane meets an attractive stranger while sightseeing, and they discover How to Kiss in Paris. Noam, a young Israeli transman now living in NYC, is anxious to reconnect with his childhood friend Natan in The Friend From Tel Aviv.  Male participants in the popular #StillBisexual campaign reveal how they came to accept their identity in Why Should I Give a S#*t about Bisexuals? (and many more)

GROWING UP COY   2016 / USA   Saturday June 25, 11am, Castro Theatre:  In a highly conservative Colorado town, a pink-loving, pigtailed six-year-old girl named Coy becomes the unlikely poster child for transgender rights, in a landmark case that is reverberating in state courts across the country. Although she was born as a boy in a set of triplets, Coy’s gender identity was evident even as a toddler, leading her parents, Kathryn and Jeremy, to accept her early on as the girl she wished to be.

The Freedom to Marry Trailer from Eyepop Productions on Vimeo.

THE FREEDOM TO MARRY  A Frameline40 World Premier!  2016 / USA  Saturday June 25, 1:15pm, Castro Theatre:  The documentary traces the marriage equality movement’s historic progress through the four decades of work by Evan Wolfson, the architect of the movement (who is the founder and president of Freedom to Marry), and pioneering civil rights attorney Mary Bonauto, who join forces to argue the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision. This doc celebrates that momentous day – and with fascinating depth, profiles the LGBT heroes that worked tirelessly for decades to make the dream of marriage equality a reality.

STRIKE A POSE  2016 / Netherlands  Saturday June 25, 8:30pm, Castro Theatre: In 1990, Madonna’s taboo-busting Blond Ambition tour blew the roof off of global pop culture and raised AIDS awareness while turning a sudden spotlight on seven male dancers.  A quarter century after these intense formative experiences, the extraordinary new documentary Strike a Pose reunites the talented corps of dancers—who dispersed as suddenly as they came together—not only to relive a seminal cultural moment through their eyes, but also to try to make sense of the momentous changes they’ve lived through. 

Frameline40 closes with LOOKING, the movie.  2016 / USA  Sunday June 26, 7pm, Castro Theatre: Rendered in the same radically real style that made the HBO series a watershed in the presentation of ordinary gay lives, the movie reunites the show’s sexy San Franciscans in a romantic drama that delivers the sweet satisfaction of closure.