21 Must-See Films About LGBTQ People of Color at Outfest Fusion

21 Must-See Films and Events at Outfest Fusion 2019

Another year, another Outfest Fusion! Coordinated by Outfest, the country's foremost LGBTQ film festival, Fusion spotlights films that center on and celebrate queer people of color. There's also a host of parties, panels, and events in L.A. to help foster diverse voices and network with other artists and industry professionals. Visit Outfest.org for tickets and to see the full slate of events of the festival, which runs March 1-5.

Stills and descriptions courtesy of Outfest.

Amateurs

Friday, March 1
Directed by Gabriela Pichler | Sweden | 102 min | Swedish, English, Arabic with English subtitles

When the arrival of a chain store with hundreds of job appears on the horizon for a fictitious working-class town in Sweden, Aida and Dana become documentarians and capture the heart and diversity of the community to lobby for the store. This humorous, must-see film reflects on the beauty of immigrant families, the impact of globalization, and the agency of filmmaking. Gabriela Pichler's direction draws out the courage and power of youth with charming, vulnerable performances from Zahraa Aldoujaili and Yara Aliadotter.

Fusion Gala Shorts & After Party

Friday, March 1
The opening night gala showcases stellar shorts featuring LGBTQ people of color. Don't miss the DJed party in the Egyptian Theatre's courtyard after the screening.

About A Short Film
Directed by Kevin Yee | United Kingdom | 6 min
A gay Asian musical comedian makes a short film about making a short film.

Origin

Directed by Simone Lyles | USA | 19 min
In 1982, Kora's self-help conversion tapes only seem to push her closer to the truth about her feelings for her best friend Gina.

Full Beat

Directed by Kase Pena | USA | 10 min | English, Spanish with English subtitles
A trans teen reluctantly braces herself for court-ordered time with her unaccepting dad, but finds an unlikely ally in his fiancee.

Engaged

Directed by David Scala | USA | 17 min
Is the world conspiring against Darren proposing to his boyfriend or is it self-sabotage?

Military Dog (Jun Quan )

Directed by Pingwen Wang | Taiwan | 10 min | Mandarin with English Subtitles
Nothing gives a young officer more pleasure than being his master's loyal dog.

Razor Tongue, Ep. 1: The Colonizer

Directed by Rain Valdez, Natalie Heltzel, Sarah Poynter, Kalena Ranoa, Puppett | USA | 4 min
So, where are you from? I bet you're from someplace exotic.

Ponyboi

Directed by River Gallo & Sade Clacken Joseph | USA | 19 min
Looking for love and a way out of Jersey, Ponyboi discovers his worth through a magical encounter with the man of his dreams.

Shorts: Between The Sheets

Saturday, March 2
This shorts showcase is an "exhibition of profound closeness of the body and soul makes an impact."

Undone
Directed by Francesca Castelbuono | United Kingdom | 16 min
Two women wake up in the same bed, trying to come to terms with the way they feel about each other and themselves.

Sodom's Cat (Suo Duo Ma De Mao )
Directed by Huang Ting-Chun | Taiwan | 30 min | Chinese with English subtitles
An orgy is used as a window into gay life and love in Taiwan.

After You Left
Directed by April Maxey | USA | 10 min
The memories come flooding back when Andrea's ex-girlfriend returns the last few items from their prior life together.

Between Walls (Entre Paredes)
Directed by Ruth Caudeli | Colombia | 19 min | Spanish with English subtitles
When three people meet for a night of sex, it's clear that each of them are there for very different reasons.

Other Loving
Directed by Lise Angelica Johnson | USA | 7 min
A woman experiencing heartbreak rediscovers love in an unconventional way.

Thrive
Directed by Jamie Di Spirito | United Kingdom | 18 min
A hookup between two young men - they make a connection, but it quickly becomes apparent they're looking for different things.

Shorts: Desi Dreaming

Saturday, March 2
This showcase of South Asian shorts challenges taboos and presents "sumptuous stories."

Yaman
Directed by Raghuvir Joshi | India, Australia | 17 min | English, Hindi with English subtitles
After trying to salvage the illusion of love for too long, two true soulmates wait for their turn at a divorce court.

Becoming Leela
Directed by AJ | Canada | 11 min
"How much longer are you going to hide under these dresses?" Oceans away from her homeland, Leela seeks the answer.

The Homestay
Directed by Priyanka Mattoo | USA | 12 min
Visiting California with her husband, loving but overbearing Meera discovers that her homestay is a bit more than what she bargained for.

Monogamish
Directed by Nardeep Khurmi | USA | 12 min
A sexually fluid couple maneuvers through a non-monogamous, committed relationship where agreements are pushed and boundaries are challenged.

Decoding Darkmatter
Directed by Crystal Waterton | USA | 22 min
LGBTQ activists and performers Alok Vaid-Menon and Janani Balasubramanian discuss being trans and South Asian, and how it's not about the "costume."

Sisak
Directed by Faraz Arif Ansari | India | 16 min
Sitting across from each other on their daily commute, two men wrestle the inches between them and a valley of social taboo.

Shorts: Family Matters

Saturday, March 2
These shorts feature stories of "the sensitive balancing act we play between fulfilling the expectations of those who are supposed to love us unconditionally and our very own desires."

The Pick Up
Directed by Giovanna Chesler | USA | 10 min
When her mom picks her up from swim practice and their trip gets derailed, Melanie must choose a new road.

Break Me (Knus meg)
Directed by Irasj Asanti | Norway | 14 min | Norwegian with English subtitles
Mansour's love for Andreas is put to the test when his religious father decides to marry him off.

Bo & Mei
Directed by Camille Liu Nock | United Kingdom | 15 min | English, Mandarin with English subtitles
With the help of their sister, a young Chinese immigrant stands up against prejudice externally and within their home.

The Serenade (La serenata)
Directed by Adelina Anthony | USA | 12 min | English, Spanish with English subtitles
Two parents struggle with their beloved Mexican musical tradition when their son requests a love song for another boy.

Sununu: The Revolution of Love
Directed by Olivia Crellin | United Kingdom | 24 min | Spanish with English subtitles
A trans couple in Ecuador navigate parenthood while challenging complex ideas of gender roles.

Home Girl
Directed by Poonam Brah | United Kingdom | 12 min
When Roya's mom dies suddenly, she must reconcile who she really is with who she believed her mother wanted her to be.

Outdooring
Directed by Maxwell Addae | USA | 18 min
Following a traditional Ghanian ceremony, a young man must confront the hatred his infant nephew might be doomed to face.

Fish Bones

Saturday, March 2
Directed by Joanne Mony Park | USA | 82 min | English, Korean with English Subtitles
On a winter break to support her Korean family's restaurant, Hana struggles to balance creative expression and cultural expectations alongside her emerging affection for Nico, a Latina music producer. Delighted to explore seascapes and sound waves together, Hana must come to terms with her life's desires after a family emergency. Joanne Mony Park directs model Joony Kim in this warm nonlinear collage of neon glow, passionate soundtrack, and intimate, subtle performances.

Preceded by: Party of Two (Dir. Maria Alvarez, USA, 15 min)
A young woman's suicide plans are put on hold after a night of self-discovery when she befriends another woman.

Retablo

Saturday, March 2
Directed by Alvaro Delgado Aparicio | Peru | 101 min | Spanish, Quechua with English Subtitles

Fourteen-year-old Segundo follows in his father's footsteps crafting retablos, vividly hand-painted folk altars immortalizing family and religious life. But the discovery of his father's secret threatens to upend their family's already precarious existence amid a staunchly Catholic and honor-based society in the rural Andes. Junior Bejar delivers a captivating, deeply felt performance as a youth torn between the family profession and his own coming of age in this heart-wrenching Quechua-language drama.

Shorts: Queer Truths

Saturday, March 2
These nonfiction shorts showcase "defiant narratives of QPOC visibility" from the Pacific islands to the projects in North Philadelphia.

Clash
Directed by Amrou Al-Kadhi | United Kingdom | 8 min
Does Britain's obsession with period dramas erase the landscape of the country today?

In This Family
Directed by Drama Del Rosario | USA | 12 min
A teenage boy is outed by his teacher and revisits raw audio recordings of his Filipino family's reactions.

Sistergirl
Directed by Alexandra Edmondson | Australia | 11 min | English, Tiki with English subtitles
The Tiwi Islands are home to one of the world's oldest living cultures, as well as one of the world's largest populations of transgender women.

Marquise
Directed by Matthew Puccini | USA | 7 min
Marquise Vilson prepares to make his Off-Broadway debut, transitioning from a very private life to a very public spotlight.

Sweetheart Dancers
Directed by Ben-Alex Dupris | USA | 14 min
A Two-Spirit couple are determined to rewrite the rules of Native American culture through their participation in the "Sweetheart Dance."

Sigueme
Mariana Rizo struggles and triumphs as a Mexican transgender woman living in LA.

Victoria Sin
Directed by Amrou Al-Kadhi | United Kingdom | 6 min
Victoria Sin's drag constantly challenges, provokes and rejuvenates London's queer spaces.

Going Foward
Directed by Tim Harris | USA | 15 min
Malcolm Kenyatta is campaigning to become the first openly LGBT candidate of color elected to state office in Pennsylvania.

Sidney & Friends

Saturday, March 2
Directed by Tristan Aitchison | Kenya, Scotland | 75 min | Swahili, English with English Subtitles
A moving testament to the resiliency of the human spirit and power of community, this documentary follows Sidney, who is intersex, after he flees his violent home and heads to Nairobi, where he befriends a group of transgender people fighting discrimination. An honest exploration of gender, friendship, and love, their narratives -- painful and endearing -- paint a heartfelt portrait of the human condition and what it means to live and fight at the margins of an anti-LGBTQI+ Kenyan society.

Preceded by: October (Dir. Maegan Mann, USA, 9 min)
Dembe struggles against Ugandan attitudes towards gender, identity, and culture.

Cherish (Dir. Terrance Daye, USA, 6 min)
In the rural south, a black boy tries to fly.

The Skin of the Teeth

Saturday, March 2
Directed by Matthew Wollin | USA | 80 min

Trapped between dinner and drinks in the bougie apartment of his older white hookup, Josef slides helplessly down a rabbit hole of temporal sleight-of-hand after swallowing a mysterious pill with mind-bending effects. Tapping a surreal and Lynchian nerve, where clean surfaces suggest an underlying, insidious menace, director Matthew Wollin and star Pascal Arquimedes interrogate the imbalance of authority between subject and voyeur by summoning the out-of-body absurd and demoralizing panic of stolen agency.

Preceded by: Routine (Dir. Wes Akwuobi, USA, 6 min)
A stand-up comic explores the experience of being a black man dating in the modern gay world.

Shorts: Did You Really Say That?

Sunday, March 3
A "skin-crawling collection" of shorts that call out pervasive biases.

I Think She Likes You
Directed by Bridey Elliott | USA | 11 min
When Justine and Julia pick Jake up at a bar, it's not quite the threesome he was expecting.

My Loneliness Is Killing Me
Directed by Tim Courtney | Scotland | 15 min | Chinese with English subtitles
When Elliott lures the animalistic Jack to his apartment for a late-night hookup, he unexpectedly unearths a dark emotional connection.

The Morning After
Directed by Tricia Hagoriles | Canada | 19 min | English, Spanish with English subtitles
Two women, in the middle of their own life crises, have an emotional one-night stand.

There's Still Good
Directed by Ciaran Maidwell | South Africa | 12 min | Spanish with English subtitles
A young black student and his white boyfriend's mother are forced to confront the stereotypes embedded in South African society.

Not Black Enough
Directed by Bryce Marrero | USA | 24 min
An African American filmmaker struggles to find investors for a film inspired by her grandmother's mysterious white-washed past.

Black Lips
Directed by Adrian Chiarella | Australia | 15 min | English, Mandarin with English subtitles
A lonely abalone trader is awakened by a longing he's never explored before.

José

Sunday, March 3
Directed by Li Cheng | Guatemala, USA | 85 min | Spanish with English Subtitles
Winner of Venice's Queer Lion Award, this intimate neorealist story follows Jose, a 19-year-old who finds escape from his working-class existence in Guatemala City through hook-up apps and casual meetups. He discovers meaning in his encounters with Luis, a migrant construction worker from coastal Itzapa, who dreams of a better life for them together. But can this passionate new relationship -- and the promise of change -- rival Jose's bond with his doting, religious mother?

No Regret – Three Short Films by Marlon Riggs

Sunday, March 3
Directed by Marlon Riggs | USA | 60 min
A quarter-century after his death, Outfest Fusion honors the legacy of filmmaker Marlon T. Riggs (1957-1994). In these rarely-screened shorts, Riggs leans upon his journalistic and documentary instincts to elicit confessional, cutting insights on race, gender, nationality, sexuality and serostatus from his Black male subjects. Spurred by the ongoing crisis of HIV/AIDS in the early 90s, and abetted by his editorial collaborators, Riggs pushed aesthetic boundaries by clipping, pasting and remixing from a dynamic corpus of lived experience, spoken vernacular, and aural and textual tradition, yielding profound truths about gay life that still resonate today.

Now Apocalypse

Sunday, March 3
Ulysses (Avan Jogia, Tut, Twisted) and his friends -- Carly (Kelli Berglund, Lab Rats, Dolly Parton's Christmas of Many Colors), Ford (Beau Mirchoff, Awkward, The Fosters), and Severine (Roxane Mesquida, Kaboom, Gossip Girl) -- pursue love, sex, and fame while trying to navigate the surreal and bewildering city of Los Angeles. Between sexual and romantic dating-app adventures, Ulysses grows increasingly troubled as foreboding dreams make him wonder if some kind of dark and monstrous conspiracy is going on, or if he is just smoking too much weed. Followed by a conversation with creator Gregg Araki and cast.

Rafiki

Sunday, March 3
Directed by Wanuri Kahiu | USA | 83 min | Kenya | English, Swahili with English Subtitles
Kena and Ziki fall into the light of young love against the backdrop of community gossip and familial political ambitions while exploring the soulful colors, street soccer, and vibrant music of Nairobi, Kenya. Encouraging each other to pursue a life of abundance and freedom from cultural expectations, they must decide between love, safety, and their dreams. Challenging Kenya's mandates in producing the film, director Wanuri Kahiu leads an effervescent cast to mesmerizing performances in this Cannes-nominated and NewFest audience favorite.

Preceded by: Word Is Bond (Dir. Alexandra Mastoon, USA, 13 min)
In the twilight of rap's golden era, an upcoming LA emcee finds freedom and escape dancing alone to an inner soundtrack.

Shorts: Surrealness

Sunday, March 3
Experimental shorts that "invoke mystical, otherworldly, or even nightmarish settings to examine the dynamics embedded in the lived experiences of femme, queer, and gender nonconforming people of color."

Aphrodite
Directed by Nico Varela | USA | 10 min
Seeking a chance at stardom, an aspiring singer is scouted by a shadowy, fetishizing cabal.

Goddess House
Directed by Marion Hill | USA | 6 min
A courtesan is summoned to rouse a queen from her languor in this affirmative vision of consensual sex work.

Elmiteskuatl
Directed by Bretten Hannam | USA | 4 min
A poetic indictment of the language of queerness from a First Nations Two-Spirit perspective asks: Can an archive stand in for living memory?

The Bony Lady (La Flaca)
Directed by Adriana Barbosa, Thiago Zanato | USA, Brazil, Mexico | 20 min | Spanish with English subtitles
Arely attributes miraculous changes in her life to Santa Muerte, but what must she sacrifice in the name of faith?

Bear
Directed by Fred Guerrier | USA | 12 min
A man sells pleasure as a costumed stripper, leaving behind a trail of broken relationships.

Swarm of Selenium
Directed by SJ Rahatoka, Maude Matton | Canada, Germany | 23 min
In this surreal dystopia, two queer feminist crews merge forces to try to care for one another through dance, visual work, and anti-work.

Paisa
Directed by Graham Kolbeins, Dorian Wood | USA | 8 min | English, Spanish with English subtitles
An immersive fever dream that celebrates the beauty of queer brown sensuality, body positivity, and individuality.

Speak Easy, B
Directed by Becca Park, Jun Shimizu | USA | 15 min
In therapy, B breaks through cultural conditioning, past loves, and psychological defenses to arrive at True Self.

The Third Wife

Sunday, March 3
Directed by Ash Mayfair | Vietnam | 96 min | Vietnamese with English Subtitles
May, a young girl in rural Vietnam, is chosen as the third wife of a wealthy man in the 19th century. When the pressure to deliver a male heir collides with the escalation and limits of her desires and challenges class, culture, and family, May must decide what kind of future she truly wants. Premiering at Toronto, Ash Mayfair's haunting directorial debut guides her young leads through lyrical and captivating performances.

Preceded by: Hoai (Ongoing/Memory) (Dir. Quyen Nguyen-Le, USA, 11 min)
A Vietnamese American queer woman's relationship with her refugee father is strained amidst anti-immigration protests.

Cassandro, The Exotico!

Monday, March 4
Directed by Marie Losier | France | 73 min
It's mascara over masks for Saul Armendariz, a.k.a. Cassandro, a gay Mexican American luchador who has made a career elevating the stock character of exotico from drag-clad machista stereotype to transcendent, rhinestone-studded hero. Shot in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez in lustrous 16mm, Marie Losier's beautifully crafted documentary captures the grit and glam of Lucha Libre as the fabulous Cassandro (ever the showman) navigates addiction, recovery, and pain both inside and outside the ring.

Preceded by: Dreamer (Dir. Marcos Davalos, USA, 9 min)
A gay undocumented "Dreamer" breaks into his high school auditorium to dance to his favorite Gloria Estefan song.

Shorts: Latinx & Chill

Monday, March 4
A collection of shorts that explore the diversity of the Latinx experience.

Waking Hour
Directed by Nava Mau | USA | 13 min
A young trans woman balances concerns about her safety and her desire for intimacy while figuring out what she wants.

Guarding Santos
Directed by Adelina Anthony | USA | 11 min | English, Spanish with English subtitles
A Mexican American child rebels against gender norms, forcing her traditional parents to make a choice about how to raise her.

Neither From Here Nor There (Ni de aqui, ni de alla)
Directed by Carlos Valdivia | USA | 14 min | English, Spanish with English subtitles
Jose spirals into a fit of anxiety preparing for an interview that could determine the course of his future.

Dive (Salta)
Directed by Mariane Amelinckx | Venezuela | 14 min | Spanish with English subtitles
Julia goes to the pool and remembers that, sometimes, life challenges us to make the decision to keep going.

Somebody Else
Directed by Abram Cerda | USA | 7 min
Abel and Pacheco have the deepest chemistry, but is it an intimate love affair or just a situation-ship?

Before Today (Ontem)
Directed by Thiago Kistenmacker | Brazil | 14 min | Portuguese with English subtitles
A transgender woman is haunted by her own past and faces the child she once was in order to truly be herself.

From Now On
Directed by Ivonne Coll, Javier Rios | USA | 11 min
Two Latinas stop on their way to Northern California to reflect upon the life-altering decision they've just made.

Victory Boulevard
Directed by Johnny Alvarez | USA | 12 min
In the heat and haze of a Van Nuys summer, two teenage boys discover an unexpected connection.

Fusion Finale & One Minute Movie Contest

Tuesday, March 5
Outfest Fusion wraps with a screening of one-minute films -- and the festival is encouraging submissions! Submit an entry at Outfest.org by March 4 and stop by the Japanese American National Museum to mingle with other filmmakers.