Back in June of 2001, at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco, a micro-budget indie called By Hook Or By Crook made its debut, a “trans/butch buddy movie” that was charmingly low-key yet quietly radical.
Following the New Queer Cinema wave of the ’90s, independent LGBTQ+ films were beginning to find their audiences with the advent of DVDs, and we were just a few years shy of Brokeback Mountain breaking down barriers for queer stories receiving mainstream acclaim.
In that sense, the turn-of-the-millennium was a real inflection point for queer life on screen—except that most of what we were seeing at that time only reflected facets of the cis gay male experience.
So when By Hook Or By Crook premiered, it felt like something wholly original, a gritty transmission from the margins of society that, to its very core, operated beyond definitions of genre or gender and created a cinematic language all its own. Follow the link in our bio to read more.
Handing in my episodes - including the season finale- of Ginny&Georgia! Ty to the whole cast & crew who were as generous as they are talented. Twas and honor to join them.❤️
@silash and I kept having the same conversation with friends: industry’s contracting, doors aren’t opening, everybody’s grinding alone.
So we pulled up some chairs and started bringing people together. For just under a year, we’ve been gathering, screening each others work, sharing resources and connecting collaborators. My favorite events, our Salons, have had me thinking about the Harlem Renaissance: artists in living rooms and parlors, sharing resources, making a movement because the rooms that were supposed to hold them wouldn’t. Feels familiar.
We decided to take things officially Off The Lot with this new collective of filmmakers. Queer-centered. Radically independent. We get offline, share resources, and greenlight each other.
Last month, we held our second Salon, Imagine an old school Renaissance style salon taking on the realities of today’s film industry.
30+ filmmakers, one real conversation about the realities of getting a feature made, seen, and sustained right now. We honored to have Effie Brown,
@iamfuriousblack , Tracie Laymon, @tracielaymonfilms , Krsy Fox @krsyfox & Julio Lopez @julio_lopez_velasquez hold the floor and drop valuable insights on their experiences with their films.
People stayed late. Collaborations started on the spot.
150+ members. Just getting started. Stay tuned for updates on our next event. Photos: @taniikeda
I was invited by the good folks at @songwriterpodcast to write an essay about caretaking for my mom through her dementia. Of course, what I wrote (and read on their latest episode) is a lot more than that. It’s about the weight of the complicated relationships we carry. It’s about being called to service and showing up, even when we think we can’t. It’s about addiction and not fitting in and a sense of humor about it all, all the way to the end. I’m especially grateful that one of my favorite artists, the remarkable @dorianwoodmusic collaborated on this and wrote and recorded a stunning song inspired by this essay. You can listen to the episode anywhere you listen to podcasts. It’s also linked in my profile. Thank you, Ben and Laurie for inviting me to write this difficult piece.
Wish I was there w you all for the final Park City @sundanceorg party! So very many stories, so much high altitude enhance emotions and brilliant films watch there. I was lucky enough to have 3 films screen there starting with By Hook OR By Crook in 2002 - when we paid cash for several condos for our 24 collaborators coming in from SF only to find out we rented from a con artist who escaped with our $ to Florida! The powerful spotlight the festival gave and still give independent filmmaker is life changing.
Please read this beautiful essay by @nazriahi in @harpersbazaarus ! In these times of corporate & tech bro owned media profiting from all the pain & outrage, its a gift to read complex & nuanced insight.
I love how Naz points to something authoritarianism count on us losing: our ability to feel. I’m not talking about rage - fascism loves rage. I’m talking about the ability to feel profound sadness. The ability to stave off numbness in these untenable times.
In numbness the system thrives. What they want to take away from us is what makes us human: the ability to critically think, to hold the paradox & to protect our radical tenderness.
Also Ty @kaitlyn_greenidge_author
We said goodbye to our angel Sister Mary today. When we adopted her (and Birdie) two years ago we knew she was a senior and wouldn’t have long, but we wanted to give her the best last years of her life. What really happened is she gave us the best years, expanded our hearts, made us laugh and was just the greatest daughter.
She and Birdie were together their whole lives, and spent pretty much every waking and sleeping hour entangled in each other. Today, Birdie stayed close by Sister Mary (second to last photo). After she passed Birdie watched us bury her, looking into the grave the whole time. And then she laid on Mary’s blanket next to her grave and slept (last photo).
Sister Mary was a catholic nun, and a badass. She tricked us every night into giving her treats by walking out of the front door and right back in, pretending she had gone potty, over and over again; she got the zoomies once a day right up until the end; loved staring at herself in the mirror; and lived her life as an out and proud lesbian, even when it wasn’t easy to do so.
She was also known as Walter Cronkite, Mermer, Bueberry, Mary Banelow and Sis. We are so grateful to @dogswithoutborders for bringing her into our lives. If you have the room in your heart and home to foster or adopt a senior dog, I can’t recommend it enough. It is truly rewarding. Or if you’d like, you can donate to them to support their good work.
Getting to direct episodes 4 & 5 of Boots was an absolute pleasure. The series is proudly queer, handles male vulnerability and camaraderie deftly and is so charming and funny. I’m immensely proud of the team that brought this series (adapted from @eatgregeat ’s memoir) to life and so grateful to have been a part of it. This is TV at its best. @bootsserie@netflix@sonytvofficial
Happy day of your birth @nazriahi my love!
You inspire me every day - with your art & all that it takes for you & ur heart to bring it out in the world, your fearless integrity, your love of animals, your incredible generosity (that puts me and many i know to shame).
I love learning the way you see the world, my life is made so much richer by your lens on the world.
And of course your sense of humor, that shows up at any given moment - good & bad - which makes life so much more bearable & sweeter.
This year you’ve been to Switzerland, the headland,
Montauk and flying home tomo from the Baldwin house. You’ve performed as part many storytelling events,
Wrote a 1st draft of a. New book, made a film about your father & so much more.
And while the world is being so loud in all it’s Fuckery, you have managed to keep your heart open and for that I’m incredibly grateful. So excited I get to share this time on the planet with you!
Earlier this year, I decided: this is my action era. And I didn’t just mean the genre—I meant taking action in all areas of my life.
Breaking my overthinking loop by making micro-films with creative peers. Small versions of big ideas. Action over paralysis.
Months later, @silash and I were having the same conversation everyone else was—industry contraction, backlash on marginalized communities, closed doors, creative isolation. We realized: why wait for permission? This is our action era too. Let’s hold space for each other.
Last week we held our second Filmmaker Collective Meet up and Screening at @whammyanalogmedia and proved what’s possible. Held in a video store, a place where so many of us first fell in love with movies, a foundational part of our creative DNA. Nearly 40 filmmakers and creatives gathered to connect, and share work, including those spring micro-films that started this journey, shorts on the circuit and some works in progress.
The room buzzed with possibility. Since then: abandoned projects revived, new collaborations formed, creative partnerships sparked.
This is what happens when we flip the consumption:creation ratio and choose community over isolation. We stop scrolling. We start making. We build our own doors.
At a time when industry says there’s less opportunity. I say our voices are needed now more than ever. And together? We’re unstoppable.
Stop waiting. Find your people. Make something messy. Share it before you’re ready.
Make this YOUR action era.
The collective continues. The door is open. Let’s build. 🎬✨
#filmcollective #actionera #createyourownlane #bmsfest #communityovercompetition #fyp #explore #actionoverperfection #indiefilm #makersnotscrollers
I got to direct two incredibly special episodes of #BOOTS for @netflix , a series about friendship and tender dudes and I can’t wait for you to watch it. This series feels somehow even more essential today than when we were making it. Based on the @eatgregeat memoir Pink Marine.
In a world where everyone who doesn’t fit into a box is being flattened into bigoted stereotypes, our rights and humanity stripped, it’s important to tell nuanced and complicated stories. BOOTS does just that. It is based on the memoir of a young gay man going into the marines under Don’t Ask Don’t and it portrays complicated characters We see their individuality and humanity, and how they navigate the complexities of life.
