Queersighted: Class Acts

Queersighted: Class Acts

7 Episodes

Like any facet of human identity, queerness is inextricably linked to matters of class, race, and socioeconomic status. It’s impossible to truly reckon with our sexuality without acknowledging this intersectional reality. In this latest edition of Queersighted—an ongoing series that takes a look at film history through a distinctly queer lens—curator Michael Koresky and special guest Caden Mark Gardner present a cross section of titles from a variety of milieus: the outskirts of New York City, working-class South East London, the backstreets of Seattle and Memphis, the margins of Frankfurt and Brussels. With their keen observations about how sexuality is expressed, hidden, and wielded on a terrain of social inequality, these are films that foreground class identity and stratification as much as they engage in matters of queer identification.

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Queersighted: Class Acts

7 Episodes

  • Queersighted: Class Acts
    36:51
    Queersighted: Class Acts
    Episode 1

    Queersighted: Class Acts

    Episode 1

    This new conversation between critic and programmer Michael Koresky and film critic Caden Mark Gardner, discussing the films in Queersighted: Class Acts, was recorded in 2021.

  • Je tu il elle
    1:26:31
    Je tu il elle
    Episode 2

    Je tu il elle

    Episode 2

    Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1975 • France
    Starring Chantal Akerman, Niels Arestrup, Claire Wauthion

    Chantal Akerman’s first narrative feature is a startlingly vulnerable exploration of alienation and the search for connection. In a performance at once daringly exposed and enigmatic, Akerman pl...

  • In a Year of 13 Moons
    2:05:01
    In a Year of 13 Moons
    Episode 3

    In a Year of 13 Moons

    Episode 3

    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1978 • West Germany
    Starring Volker Spengler, Ingrid Caven, Gottfried John

    This heartrendingly compassionate tragedy from Rainer Werner Fassbinder traces the final days in the life of Elvira (Volker Spengler), a transgender woman spurned by her former lover...

  • Streetwise
    1:31:26
    Streetwise
    Episode 4

    Streetwise

    Episode 4

    Directed by Martin Bell • 1984 • United States

    Seattle, 1983. Taking their camera to the streets of what was supposedly America’s most livable city, filmmaker Martin Bell, photographer Mary Ellen Mark, and journalist Cheryl McCall set out to tell the stories of those society had left behind: hom...

  • The Salt Mines
    44:45
    The Salt Mines
    Episode 5

    The Salt Mines

    Episode 5

    Directed by Carlos Aparicio and Susana Aikin • 1990 • United States

    Released the same year as PARIS IS BURNING, Susana Aikin and Carlos Aparicio’s THE SALT MINES focuses on three homeless Lantinx trans women living in a parking lot of old garbage trucks on Manhattan’s West Side. Aikin and Aparic...

  • The Transformation
    52:35
    The Transformation
    Episode 6

    The Transformation

    Episode 6

    Directed by Carlos Aparicio and Susana Aikin • 1995 • United States

    In THE TRANSFORMATION, Susana Aiken and Carlos Aparicio find one of the most engaging subjects of their previous documentary THE SALT MINES living as a man in Texas, forced to transition back by an evangelical missionary that of...

  • The Delta
    1:24:04
    The Delta
    Episode 7

    The Delta

    Episode 7

    Directed by Ira Sachs • 1996 • United States
    Starring Shayne Gray, Thang Chan, Rachel Zan Huss

    The doomed romance between Lincoln (Shayne Gray), an affluent white teenager, and Minh (Thang Chan), the immigrant son of a poor Vietnamese woman and a Black GI, moodily evokes the wide space between d...

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