Masc II: Mascs plus Muchachas

January 17–February 23, 2025

Last year’s wildly popular Masc film series returns with a fresh new installment, offering an opportunity to experience several rarely seen AFAB (assigned-female-at-birth) masc movies from around the world. Filmmaker Cheryl Dunye joins us in person for a rare screening of Stranger Inside (2001).

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Shusuke Kaneko: Summer Vacation 1999, 1988
Alfredo B. Crevenna: Muchachas de uniforme, 1951
Cheryl Dunye: Stranger Inside, 2001
Paul B. Preciado: Orlando, My Political Biography, 2023
Dee Rees: Pariah, 2011
Sérgio Toledo: Vera, 1986

Upcoming
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Upcoming
Events
Selected
Objects
Past
Films
Past
Events

Upcoming Films

Orlando, My Political Biography
Paul B. Preciado
France, 2023
Friday, January 17 7:00 PM
Introduced by Jenni Olson
This innovative “New Trans Cinema” essay film from trans philosopher Paul B. Preciado reflects on trans identity, culture, and history via Virginia Woolf’s gender-changing novel Orlando.
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Stranger Inside
Cheryl Dunye
United States, 2001
Free Admission
Sunday, January 19 5:00 PM
Cheryl Dunye and Allegra Madsen in Conversation
Yolanda Ross stars as a tough young butch in this terrific, rarely seen women’s prison drama from Cheryl Dunye (The Watermelon Woman).
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Vera
Sérgio Toledo
Brazil, 1986
Wednesday, January 29 7:00 PM
Introduced by Jenni Olson
One of the earliest portrayals in world cinema of a transmasculine character, a rarely seen Brazilian drama based on the life of the Brazilian trans poet Anderson Bigode Herzer.
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Pariah
Dee Rees
United States, 2011
Thursday, February 6 7:00 PM
Introduced by Jenni Olson
A Black butch teen navigates her senior year of high school in this poignant coming-of-age drama from writer-director Dee Rees (Bessie, Mudbound).
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Summer Vacation 1999
Shusuke Kaneko
Japan, 1988
35mm Archival Print
Friday, February 14 7:00 PM
Introduced by Jenni Olson
An ethereal Japanese melodrama with cult status about the shifting attractions between four boys (played by girls) at an isolated country school. Long unavailable, it is shown in a rare 35mm print.
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Something Special
Paul Schneider
United States, 1986
35mm Archival Print
Thursday, February 20 7:00 PM
Introduced by Jenni Olson
Pamela Adlon (Better Things) stars in this long-unavailable, whimsical 1980s teen comedy about a girl whose wish to become a boy is fulfilled overnight.
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Muchachas de uniforme
Alfredo B. Crevenna
Mexico, 1951
Filmoteca-UNAM’s Collection
Sunday, February 23 7:00 PM
Introduced by Jenni Olson
A rare Mexican girls school melodrama of a student in love with her teacher, a remake of the 1931 German film Mädchen in Uniform (considered to be the first lesbian film ever made).
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Past Films

Masc II: Mascs plus Muchachas

Butch Dykes, Trans Men, and Gender Nonconforming Heroes in Cinema

January 17–February 23, 2025

Member-exclusive presale begins November 6 at 11:00 AM.

Tickets for the general public go on sale November 8 at 11:00 AM.

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Last year’s wildly popular Masc series returns with a fresh new installment. The majority of last year’s screenings were sell-out hits, so get your tickets now for the singular opportunity to experience such rarely seen AFAB (assigned-female-at-birth) masc movies from around the world as the cult-status Japanese boys school melodrama Summer Vacation 1999, the Brazilian transmasc poet biopic Vera, and Paul B. Preciado’s innovative must-see hybrid feature documentary Orlando, My Political Biography. More recent US gems include Cheryl Dunye’s long-unavailable women’s prison drama Stranger Inside (with Dunye in person for a post-screening conversation); Dee Rees’s Pariah, a pioneering feature about a Black butch teen in Brooklyn; and a whimsical 1980s teen comedy about a girl who becomes a boy, Something Special (Willy/Milly). As a bonus non-masc treat, the series concludes with an extremely rare screening of the 1951 Mexican girls school melodrama Muchachas de uniforme.

There are several interconnected animating ideas behind this series: First, as is true for all historically marginalized groups, it is vitally important for the LGBTQ+ community to see ourselves represented on screen. Second, it is an even more amazing thing to see these representations together as a community. And lastly, Masc reflects the solidarity and common bonds of butches, trans men, and gender nonconforming AFAB folks, which is so important right now. In this era of unprecedented attacks on the basic rights and lives of LGBTQ+ people, especially trans and gender nonconforming people, we all need—and deserve—to experience the joy of cinema.

—Jenni Olson, Guest Curator

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Jenni Olson is a Berkeley-based queer film historian, writer, and filmmaker who is the proud proprietor of Butch.org, which features more information about all of her work as a longtime champion of LGBTQ+ cinema.

Copresented with the Frameline San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival and the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, UC Berkeley. Special thanks to the original Masc series cocurator Caden Mark Gardner.