Lesbian cinema emerges from the shadows at NYC’s Sapph-o-Rama film event
Sapph-o-Rama, a new series at New York City's Film Forum, celebrates the decades-long history of lesbian cinema.
From ground-breaking silent films to windswept romances and sci-fi-inflected feminist masterpieces, cinema has been a powerful vehicle for sapphic storytelling for over a century. And a new series at New York City’s Film Forum, titled Sapph-o-Rama, aims to pay tribute to that rich legacy with 30 titles that represent 10 decades of defining works by lesbian-loving filmmakers, creatives and screen stars.
For many attendees, the series, which runs Feb. 2 through Feb. 13, will also provide a rare opportunity to watch generations of formative titles with other theatergoers, bringing sapphic cinema out of the shadows and into the multiplex.
“That’s what’s the most exciting: imagining people in these seats, encountering these films for the first time or for the 1,000th time,” Emily Greenberg, one of the programmers of Sapph-o-Rama, told NBC News ahead of the series’ Friday opening. “I remember where I was the first time I saw all of these films — to the hour.”
Andrea Torres, the series co-programmer, echoed her colleague and said Sapph-O-Rama will be “a celebration of self — a celebration of sapphism.”
The 1999 film "But I'm a Cheerleader."Courtesy of Film ForumGreenberg and Torres said the year-and-a-half process of putting together the series — which was inspired by a 2000 Film Forum program that highlighted lesbian cult films — was a labor of love. In revisiting the original Sapph-o-Rama lineup, the pair wanted to offer an updated approach to curating the cannon, expanding their selections to include underseen works from the 2000s, like “Pariah” and “Saving Face,” as well as newer cult picks like 1999’s “But I’m a Cheerleader,” starring Natasha Lyonne and Clare DuVall. But they also wanted to make space for early films that laid the groundwork for contemporary sapphic cinema and might still be unfamiliar to younger audiences.
Rating: 5