Frameline Film Fest: FtF: Female to Femme June 21, 2006

FtF: Female to Femme

From femme conferences to books, essays, studies and graduate theses, there’s a fascination with the identity of the queer femme woman. Is the femme phenomenon a reaction to butchness? A capitulation to the patriarchy? The empowering ownership of a gender role by camping it up? A kind of female feminine drag? Or are they just trying to look straight? Everyone seems to have an opinion, but these two documentaries both manage to look at the issues in a relevant, sexy and informative way that actually starts to shine some light on the subject.

FtF: Female to Femme, directed by Frameline vets Kami Chisholm and Elizabeth Stark, takes a look at the femme identity that’s both light-hearted and academic. Listening to folks like Guinivere Turner, Bitch (of Bitch + Animal) and Leslie Mah (of Tribe 8), we hear how various people came to their own brand of femme identity. As the directors explore the full range of femme —including tomboy femme, retro femme, rockabilly femme, casual and high femme—it becomes clear that there’s no one way for a femme to define herself.

Like the poet sister to the academic, along comes Letters To Dolly, a gorgeous collection of short films linked by the narrator’s letters to Dolly Parton, exploring how, through Dolly, she found herself, her femininity and her power.

—CINDY M. EMCH

LETTERS TO DOLLY dir Haley Ausserer 2004 USA 21 min video,br> FtF: FEMALE TO FEMME dir Kami Chisholm & Elizabeth Stark 2006 USA 50 min video

Co-presented by Butch-Femme Socials of San Francisco/Oakland

This program is sponsored by CURVE.

Official Website: http://www.frameline.org/festival/30th/filmsevents.html