Six to See at Boston's Wicked Queer: Docs Fest

With 15 features and a slate of eight shorts, this year's Wicked Queer: Docs film festival focuses on compelling real-life stories that recognize and celebrate our culture, our community, and our contributions – all of which the wider society seems more intent than ever on erasing.

The festival runs Nov. 10 – 20, with screenings taking place at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Brattle Theater in Cambridge.

"Queer bodies are under fire and authentic representation is lifesaving," a release from the festival notes. "Wicked Queer: Docs will be a celebration of the LGBTQ+ community and our vibrant and underrepresented histories."

The release revealed that "The Opening Night selection, Alexandria Bombach's 'It's Only Life After All,' will screen at the Museum of Fine Arts on November 10th at 7:30 pm.

"The Closing Night selections, Paul B. Preciado's 'Orlando My Political Biography' and Jane M. Wagner's 'Break the Game,' will screen at the Brattle Theatre on November 20 at 7 pm and 9 pm respectively."

In between there will be documentaries like "BAMBI: A French Woman," the story of a transgender woman who has refused to allow others to dictate her innermost self to her, a follow up to the classic 2005 film "The Aggressives" with "Beyond The Aggressives," which picks up the story of "masc-presenting BIPOC individuals that gave voice to a community that hadn't seen themselves authentically represented in cinema before" nearly 20 years later.

The festival features Spotlight selections like "Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field," which is, well, a film about Patricia Field – the designer who dressed the four friends of "Sex and the City," not to mention the casts of "Ugly Better," Emily in Paris," and the feature film "The Devil Wears Prada" and kept them looking smashing week after week, season after season. Another Spotlight selection, "Playland," looks back on the Boston café that "was a vital queer hub in the city until 1998, when rampant 'urban renewal' projects led to its closure."

The shorts featured in this year's festival may not have such long runtimes, but they are nonetheless intriguing, from "The ABCs of Book Banning" to Mark Thomas' "Permissible Beauty" to "Big Sur Gay Porn!"

The festival will screen at the Brattle Theatre and the Museum of Fine Arts. With a virtual encore of the films from November 21st-30th."

Here are half a dozen features to be sure and catch while they are here:

1. "Hidden Master: The Legacy of George Platt Lynes"

Photographer George Platt Lynes pursued a singular passion with a unique talent for photographing the male nude across three decades, well before the LGBTQ+ equality movement gained momentum in earnest with Stonewall. Sam Shahid's film looks at the men, his life, and his work.

Screening at the Museum of Fine Arts on Saturday, Nov. 11 at 11 am.

2. "It's Only Life After All" – Opening Night Feature

Documentary filmmaker Alexandria Bombach looks back on the 40-plus career of The Indigo Girls, the pop duo comprised of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers – a lesbian musical act that never pretended to be anything else.

Screening at the Museum of Fine Arts on Friday, Nov. 10, at 7:00 pm.

3. "Orlando: My Political Biography" - Spotlight Feature

Paul B. Preciado revisit's Virginia Woolf's gender-defying novel "Orlando" not as a film adaptation (such as Sally Potter's 1992 movie), but as a means of examining gender identity, transition, and cinematic invention: In this documentary, Precio brings more than two dozen trans and non-binary people of all ages before his camera to reflect on the novel's prescience and the realities gender identities that transcend the illusion of a hard and fast male/female duality.

Screening at the Brattle Theater on Monday, Nov. 20 at 7:00 pm.

4. "A Big Gay Hairy Hit! Where the Bears Are: The Documentary"

The smash hit web series "Where the Bears Are" ran seven seasons on YouTube, mixing murder, comedy, and – yes! – burly men. Eduardo Aquino delves into the story behind the madcap series, which was a comic romp and a sexy sendup of murder mysteries of the week.

Screening at the Brattle Theater Sunday, Nov. 19, at 7:00 pm.

5. "Raw! Uncut! Video!"

Porn is big business, but Palm Drive Video, run by life partners Jack Fritscher and Mark Henry, had a larger purpose: Celebrating queer sex and delving into kink while promoting the desirability, in the midst of the AIDS crisis, of safer sex.

Presented with the short film "Big Sur Gay Porn" at the Brattle Theater on Nov. 18 at 8:30 pm.

6. "Who I Am Not"

Tunde Skovran's documentary looks at two intersex South Africans – "a beauty queen and male-presenting activist" – as they grapple with societal assumptions and their own deeply-held, personal truths.

Screening at the Brattle Theater on Saturday, Nov. 18 at 4:00 pm.