Austin’s oldest film festival and premiere LGBTQ+ film fest of the Southwest, aGLIFF announces the features program selection for the 37th annual festival PRISM 37 taking place in-person August 21–25, 2024 in Austin, TX. The annual event will be celebrated throughout the vibrant city of Austin with screenings, events, Q&As, and more. More information on the festival can be found at agliff.org/prism-37.
This year’s lineup boasts over twenty feature films from eight countries, including four U.S. premieres, two retrospective screenings, and a World Premiere for the festival’s closing night. Notably, PRISM 37 will also feature the previously announced hometown debut of Rent Free, directed by Austin filmmaker Fernando Andrés on its opening night.
On Friday, moviegoers are invited to don their favorite sports jerseys for dueling sports-themed Centerpiece Narratives: Riley, directed by Benjamin Howard, explores the clashing emotions and pent-up passions of a beloved high school football star, while Rivière, a French film by Hugues Hariche, follows a determined 17-year-old girl on her journey to become a professional hockey player, experiencing new friendships and first love along the way.
Saturday will be “Retro Day,” where guests are encouraged to dress in attire from past decades as they enjoy a nostalgic day of films. The retrospective screenings include the 20th Anniversary showing of Saved!, with director Brian Dannelly in attendance, and the 45th Anniversary screening of Jean Rollin’s French horror film Fascination. Additionally, the Centerpiece Documentary Join the Club chronicles the life of rebel activist Dennis Peron and his remarkable efforts to legalize medical marijuana after losing his lover to AIDS. Desire Lines, a docudrama by Jules Rosskam, follows an Iranian American trans man who travels back in time to an LGBTQ+ archive to understand his sexuality.
The festival wraps up with the World Premiere of American Schemers at Alamo Drafthouse Mueller. Directed by Jack Newell, this film introduces two scheming characters whose plans are hilariously thwarted by their equally crooked targets.
“We are deeply honored to premiere American Schemers at aGLIFF, a festival that has championed underrepresented voices and stories for so many years,” said Newell. “We’re grateful for the privilege to get to bring to the screen characters who embrace and find joy in their queerness. We couldn’t be more excited for aGLIFF to be the first to meet our crew of quirky characters.”
Named the 2022 Nonprofit of the Year by the Austin LGBT Chamber of Commerce, aGLIFF cultivates the Texas LGBTQ+ community by enlightening, educating, and entertaining moviegoers through programs that enrich LGBTQ+ and ally communities while developing LGBTQ+ awareness. The nonprofit organization’s programs include the “Queer Spectrum” Community Screening Series, and the Queer Black Voices Fund, all of which culminate around its annual film festival, PRISM.
More information including Queer Black Voices Dinner and Screening, shorts programs, special events, and more for the PRISM 37 festival will be announced over the coming weeks.
OPENING NIGHT
Rent Free
USA | 2024 | 93 minutes | English | Southwest Premiere
Director: Fernando Andrés | Writers: Fernando Andrés, Tyler Rugh | Cast: Jacob Roberts, David Treviño, Temple Baker, Neal Mulani, Sarah Bartholomew, Annabel O’Hagan, Bill Wise, Zeke Goodman, Jeff Kardesch, Megan Bitchell, Lorelei Linklater, Frank Mosley, Carson Barwinkel, and Kristin Slaysman
After hitting emotional and financial rock bottom, best friends Ben and Jordan come up with a scheme to spend an entire year living “rent-free” with the help of friends, family, and strangers alike in a rapidly changing Austin. A part social experiment, part buddy comedy, their quixotic plan all too soon reveals itself to be a bit untenable.
DOCUMENTARY CENTERPIECE FILM
Join the Club
USA | 2024 | 87 minutes | English | Southwest Premiere
Directors: Kip Andersen, Chris O’Connell | Writers: Adam Kaplan, Paul Marchand | Cast: Dennis Peron, Mary Jane Rathbun (Brownie Mary), Deborah Small, Joey Cain, Joseph Bannon, Greg Corrales, Dan Lungren
After losing his lover to AIDS, rebel activist Dennis Peron launches the first public cannabis dispensary in the nation, skirting the law in pursuit of true justice—the legalization of medical marijuana.
NARRATIVE CENTERPIECE FILMS
Riley
USA | 2023 | 93 minutes | English | Texas Premiere
Director and Writer: Benjamin Howard | Cast: Jake Holley, Colin McCalla, Riley Quinn Scott
Navigating locker rooms, weight-training, post-workout showers, and the mob of toxic masculinity around him, a disciplined high school football star watches his life unravel when his queer identity competes against the idea of who he was supposed to be.
Rivière | France, Switzerland | 2023 | 105 minutes | French | Southwest Premiere
Director: Hugues Hariche | Writers: Hugues Hariche, Joanne Giger | Cast: Camille Rutherford, Flavie Delangle, Sarah Bramms
Crossing the border from Switzerland to France to find her estranged father, a young woman rebuilds her life in pursuit of her dream: becoming a professional ice hockey player.
CLOSING NIGHT FILM
American Schemers
USA | 2024 | 95 minutes | English | World Premiere
Director: Jack C. Newell | Writers: Michael Waller and Sydney Blackburn | Cast: Jean Villepique, Ithamar Enriquez, Michael Waller
Two flamboyant con artists pose as heirs to a deceased socialite, only to find that the community they’ve infiltrated is as crooked as they are.
20TH ANNIVERSARY SCREENING
Saved!
USA | 2004 | 92 minutes | English | 20th Anniversary Screening
Director: Brian Dannelly | Writers: Michael Urban, Brian Dannelly | Cast: Jena Malone, Mandy Moore, Macaulay Culkin
Mary is a good Christian girl who goes to a good Christian high school where she has good Christian friends and a perfect Christian boyfriend. Her life seems perfect, until the day that she finds out that her boyfriend may be gay — and that she’s pregnant. A 20th Anniversary Retrospective Screening with director Brian Dannelly in attendance.
45TH ANNIVERSARY SCREENING
Fascination
France | 1979 | 80 minutes | English | 45th Anniversary Screening
Director and Writer: Jean Rollin | Cast: Franca Maï, Jean-Marie Lemaire, Brigitte Lahaie
A dangerous criminal breaks into an eerie chateau, taking its two frightened chambermaids hostage. As night falls, a group of mysterious aristocratic women arrive, and the criminal realizes it’s the women who are the true danger. A 45th Anniversary screening of the Erotic Thriller from Jean Rollin, the master of Vamploitation.
NARRATIVE FEATURES
Chuck Chuck Baby
Wales | 2024 | 102 minutes | English | Southwest Premiere
Director and Writer: Janet Pugh | Cast: Louise Brealey, Annabel Scholey, Sorcha Cusack
Helen’s mundane life at the chicken factory takes an unexpected turn when her secret teenage passion returns to town. As they fall in love, a new zest for life tries to overcome something darker from the past. Also, it’s a musical.
Duino
Argentina, Italy, USA | 2024 | 108 minutes | Spanish, Italian, English | Southwest Premiere
Directors and Writers: Juan Pablo Di Pace, Andrés Pepe Estrada | Cast: Juan Pablo Di Pace, Santiago Madrussan, Krista Kosonen
Argentine filmmaker Matias, now in his forties, struggles to finish his film inspired by a schoolboy crush who was expelled from their international academy before Matias could express his feelings. 25 years later, he travels to Sweden to confront the memory of his young love and find the ending of his story.
Eudaimonia
Canada | 2024 | 99 minutes | English | US Premiere
Director: Dylan Rhys Howard | Writers: Dylan Rhys Howard and Alexandra Dawkins | Cast: Elena Porter, Georgia Irwin, Kristine Nutting
Housecleaner Prudence, who creates eccentric characters from clothes stolen from her clients and stages confrontational street performances, hides a mysterious gift: the telepathic ability to eavesdrop on people’s thoughts. Reconnecting with her dying mother, the only other person who shares this psychic talent, she might finally learn how to forge meaningful connections with others.
Extremely Unique Dynamic
USA | 2023 | 73 minutes | English, Mandarin | Southwest Premiere
Directors and Writers: Harrison Xu, Ivan Leung, Katherine Dudas | Producers: Harrison Xu, Ivan Leung, Noel Do-Murakami | Cast: Harrison Xu, Ivan Leung, Hudson Yang
Ryan and Daniel, childhood best friends and aspiring actors, spend one final weekend together before one of them moves to Canada with his fiancé. Wanting to create one lasting memory, they decide to make a movie… about two guys making a movie. To prepare for the next chapters of their respective lives, it’s time they unpack (from the closet) their decades-long friendship.
Haze
USA | 2024 | 76 minutes | English | Southwest Premiere
Director and Writer: Matthew Fifer | Cast: Cole Doman, Brian J. Smith, David Pittu
A young man returns home after rehab and uncovers the secrets of his town’s abandoned psychiatric center.
In the Summers
USA | 2024 | 98 minutes | English, Spanish | Southwest Premiere
Director and Writer: Alessandra Lacorazza | Cast: Residente, Sasha Calle, Lio Mehiel
Set against the sun-drenched backdrop of Las Cruces, New Mexico, two sisters embark on a journey through their formative years, navigating the complexities of their loving yet volatile father during annual summer visits. This poignant tale marks the acting debut of multi-Grammy Award® and Latin Grammy Award®-winning Puerto Rican rapper and activist, Residente.
Light Light Light | Finland | 2023 | 91 minutes | Finnish | US Premiere
Director: Inari Niemi | Writer: Juuli Niemi | Cast: Rebekka Baer, Anni Iikkanen, Laura Birn
Mariia visits her childhood home and reminisces about the summer of 1986 when a girl named Mimi arrived in her remote village and filled her 15-year-old life with light.
Perfect Endings
Brazil | 2024 | 100 minutes | Portuguese | Southwest Premiere
Director and Writer: Daniel Ribeiro | Cast: Artur Volpi, Michel Joelsas, Marcos Oli
Like some sort of movie script ending, filmmaker João remains best friends with his (now ex) boyfriend of 10 years. However, reentering the dating scene brings a whirlwind of emotions, revealing that reality can’t be controlled as easily as the screenplay structure.
The Astronaut Lovers
Argentina, Spain | 2024 | 116 minutes | Spanish | Southwest Premiere
Director and Writer: Marco Berger | Cast: Javier Orán, Lautaro Bettoni, Iván Masliah
Returning to Argentina for a vacation at his family home, Pedro is amused by Maxi’s curiosity about “gay shit” and his playful “straight dude” flirtations… but things get real when Maxi tries to make his ex-girlfriend jealous by saying Pedro is his boyfriend.
The Senator
Brazil | 2024 | 86 minutes | Portuguese | US Premiere
Director and Writer: Mauro Carvalho | Cast: Sérgio Harger, Johnny Alcântara, Juliana Zancanaro
Senator Arthur Alencar leads a double life. In the media and to his constituents, he plays a family man, a strict defender of morals and good values. However, behind the spotlight, he is entangled in corruption schemes and maintains his sexual boy-toy, the young Renan in a secret apartment. That seems maintainable, right?
TOPS
UK | 2024 | 70 minutes | English | Southwest Premiere
Directors: Amy Pennington, Jos Bitelli | Writer: Amy Pennington | Cast: Maz Murray, Yaz Senghor, Elliot Davis, Oskar Marchock
A satirical pastiche of brash, self-deprecating reality TV, TOPS follows self-proclaimed ‘future award-winning filmmaker’ Amy Pennington on an invasive and sometimes uncomfortable odyssey through the lives and homes of four unique individuals, exploring the crucial question that defines trans masc experience, “What TOP did you wanna wear after TOP surgery?” A mockumentary like the original British version of The Office, but with more cringe!
DOCUMENTARY FEATURES
Bulletproof: A Lesbian’s Guide to Surviving the Plot
Canada | 2024 | 105 minutes | English | Southwest Premiere
Director and Writer: Regan Latimer | Cast: Lindy Zucker
An insightful, funny, and personal look at queer representation’s power to shape how we see ourselves. This pop culture doc follows a filmmaker across North America in her quest to understand the forces that influence the stories we see on our screens and why the lesbian always seems to get it before the end.
Desire Lines
USA | 2024 | 81 minutes | English | Southwest Premiere
Director: Jules Rosskam | Writer: Nate Gualtieri | Cast: Aden Hakimi, Theo Germaine, Em Modaff
Wandering through the LGBTQ+ archive of a long-gone Gay Bathhouse, a trans man finds himself lost in the steam of the past on a dizzying and erotic quest to unravel his sexual desires.
Our Baby: A Modern Miracle
UK | 2020 | 48 minutes | English | US Premiere
Director and Writer: Gussy Sakula-Barry | Cast: Jake Graf, Hannah Graf, Chloe Massey
What’s it like starting a family when you’re both transgender? This intimate film follows (former aGLIFF Jury Award-winning filmmaker) Jake and (his star actress) Hannah and Graf on a journey through prejudice and surrogacy to birth during lockdown. Jake was also awarded the 2018 aGLIFF Breakthrough Award.
S/He Is Still Her/e – The Official Genesis P-Orridge Documentary
USA | 2024 | 99 minutes | English | Texas Premiere
Director: David Charles Rodrigues | Writers: David Charles Rodrigues, Dillon Petrillo | Cast: Genesis P-Orridge, Clarity Haynes, David J
An introduction, conversation, and perhaps goodbye to Genesis P-Orridge, founder of the COUM Transmissions artistic collective, lead vocalist of seminal industrial band Throbbing Gristle, founding member of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth occult group, leader of the experimental pop-rock band Psychic TV, and declared (by Parliament) ‘wrecker of civilization.’ At 45 years of age, P-Orridge met Lady Jaye (née Jacqueline Breyer) in a BDSM dungeon in New York City and married for a second time. They embarked on the “Pandrogeny Project” — undergoing body modification to resemble one another, thus coming to identify themselves as a single pandrogynous being named “Breyer P-Orridge.”
TICKETS: aGLIFF encourages fans to consider membership to get the best access and support aGLIFF’s year-round programming. Members and badge holders have priority access to reserving tickets for individual films and events upon purchase.
PRISM 37: Early bird festival badges are available through August 5 for $95; regular price badges are available at $125 beginning August 6. Memberships get the best access, support aGLIFF’s year-round programming, and include festival badges and an array of other perks depending on the level. Memberships are available now; Festival badges are on sale now at agliff.org/badges. A limited number of single tickets for the opening night film are available now for $40 and include the opening night screening, live Q&A, the opening night reception with bites, and two complimentary signature drink tickets. All other single tickets will start at $15, plus applicable service fees, and will be on sale in early August.
aGLIFF MEMBERSHIP: Memberships start for as low as $25 a month and are available for purchase now. Memberships can be paid upfront or in monthly installments. Memberships include festival badges and an array of other perks depending on the level and range in price from $300 to $2500 and above. Memberships are available now at agliff.org/members.
SPONSORS: aGLIFF is made possible by the generous support of our annual partners Tito’s Handmade Vodka, KIND Clinic, Crunch Consulting, EDGE Media Network, Milam & Greene Whiskey, Midtown Title, Breath With Pride, Austin Film Society, Topo Chio, and Galaxy Theatres Austin with additional support from the City of Austin Cultural Arts Division and the Texas Commission on the Arts.
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About aGLIFF:
Founded in 1987 aGLIFF is Austin’s oldest film festival and became a 501(c)3 in 1995. The festival began as a four-day event with just four films primarily focused on coming out and the AIDS epidemic. It has grown into a multifaceted nonprofit organization with year-round community programs and events culminating each year in the annual film festival. Originally named the Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival (1987) the organization changed its name in 2018 to All Genders, Lifestyles, and Identities Film Festival to reflect the changing landscape of how queer people identify, and as of 2020 now goes by simply aGLIFF. In 2019, the Board of Directors selected PRISM as the festival theme to highlight the way the festival can refract a single beam of art into multiple viewpoints, showcasing all the voices in the spectrum of our LGBTQIA+ community through film.
The organization’s mission is to create positive and visible film programs relevant to the lives of LGBTQIA+ identified people, to educate the community about LGBTQIA+ issues, to produce and promote the best in LGBTQIA+ community-building events, and to support and partner with other organizations to enlighten the public.
