Reel Queer Flix
Grand Lake Theater
3200 Grand Ave.
Oakland
Sept. 3, 2025
For its third year running—second at now-home Grand Lake Theater—Cinemama’s Reel Queer Flix has brought together local and indie filmmakers and their friends, families, loved ones, and fans, for an evening of short films celebrating the lives and artistry and the real people who make them. A community-building-driven enterprise, the org creates a network and physical spaces for the often isolated creatives to connect, collaborate, and commiserate. Full of strong voices and talents working hard to share often overlooked stories, the Bay is lucky to have folks like this fostering environments of support and creation.
The audience held up their end at last week's event, filling the theater, responding enthusiastically, a symbiotic relationship fostering respect and accessibility and care for all of our marginalized communities: This was by far the most masked crowd I have seen in years, all the films were subtitled, and an ASL interpreter accompanied all speakers on stage. Kind, respectful, and curious (and a little raucous now and then), it was a room ready to engage.
A kickoff to Oakland Pride, the event opened with remarks from Cinemama director Niema Jordan and Oakland LGBTQ Center and Oakland Pride founders and board members Jeff Myers and Joe Hawkins, followed by raffle drawings from Cinemama board members W. Kamau Bell, Cheryl Dunye. Bell, one of this year’s Pride Parade Grand Marshalls, expressed some bafflement at the appointment but gratefully credited the community for teaching him and calling him in with arms wide open, as the man who moved to Oakland in ‘97 would certainly not have been bestowed this title.
Then, on to the flicks. Six shorts of varying lengths and content, from ultra-short drag king seeks-relationship-with-father and dances in a hotel room taster (The Young King, directed by Larin Sullivan, planned to be a feature, and which I can easily envision as a gay-ass Coen Brothers-esque dark comedy) to silly and sweet love letter to female friendship, queerness and hometown of Sacramento (Me Porto Bonita, directed by Cecilia Romo). A swaying, tender, slow and dreamy footage of a real-life couple navigating life with immense gentleness for one another (Hold Me Close, directed by Aurora Brachman and Tajh Simmons-Weaver) and studio-shot exploration by dancer Gabriel Diamond’s The Space Between Us, created in the early days of COVID with two members of his community shared very vulnerable and intimate moments caught in real time. The brighter—though still quite heavy—Rainbow Girls, directed by Nana Duffuor, also based on real events, brought big laughs and cheers
All were strong works in their own rights. I found After What Happened at the Library directed by Syra McCarthy and written by Kyle Casey Chu & Róisín Isner, to be the star of the evening. Also based (closely) on a real event, Chu, the film’s subject and star, offered an emotionally powerful and tender performance clearly rooted in real feelings. A creator of and reader at Drag Queen Story Hour, Chu (as Panda Dulce) was the target of a Proud Boys in 2022, and sadly her treatment as a victim in the situation’s aftermath was retraumatizing, violating, and wildly insensitive to her situation. The pain, disorientation, anger, were channeled beautifully into 15 minutes, but also left me wanting more.
A brief set of questions from Jordan to the filmmakers after the screening was capped by fellow Cinemama board member and multi-hyphenate creative Boots Riley calling out more raffle winners of gift cards to local businesses, along with an invitation to meet up around the corner at the Cat House for a social hour. Putting those claims of in-person community building in action, with immediacy.
If you missed this event and want to get involved, join Cinemama’s community for upcoming writers meetups and happy hours.
