 follows a big boned butcher into skirmishes, drag, and the arms of a beautiful recruit. The public and private lives of this "strange animal" are explored with the reverence and glee found in the educational exposés like Reefer Madness and bad-boy films like Rebel without a Cause. However, because this fictionalized lesbian history is a first-person narrative, it is filled with all the joy, pain, and ambivalence each of us experiences while negotiating a marginalized identity. 

Winner of second prize at the 1995 United States Super 8 Film and Video Festival and the 1997 Manitoba Motion picture Association Blizzard Award for “Best Experimental.” (Super 8 finished on video transfer)

For more information about Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, see shawnadempseyandlorrimillan.net. For distribution information, contact vpdist@videopool.org.

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A Day In The Life of A Bull-Dyke

An experimental documentary about the journey from butch dyke to trans man, visual time lapse photography of the filmmaker's beard growing in over a 21 day period in the 1992 when the filmmaker was a butch dyke with a beard, catches up with a poetic v.o. and text ten years later, in 2002, recorded and added to the film as the filmmaker was transitioning to male.

 was shot on my beloved Bolex camera. The film was conceived as a time-lapse documentary film experiment with shots of this once butch dyke filmmaker's beard growing in over a 21-day period in the early 1990's.


At the time it felt like it was a very transgressive act as an artist, transitioning gender, to grow the beard I had felt ashamed of for so many years, using my body to tell a story, coming to terms with the shame of being born Intersex in a creative and empowering way. Ten years later, in 2001, a potent voice over written and performed by the filmmaker after my transition from female to male was added; the film is an experimental documentary account of a butch dyke's journey to trans man, succinctly summing up the complexity of this journey in under 2 minutes. 

 was named one of the ten best trans films by Curve magazine.

Audrey’s Beard

This short film looks at queer imagery, fat-phobia, and reclamation through autobiographical narrative, black and white photography, and stop motion animation.

In Aztec mythology, the goddess Coyolxauhqui was severed into pieces by her brother, the god of war. This film recounts the lessons learned by a queer daughter from her round mother’s body, framed by the story of Coyolxauhqui. It opens with a bright gold and turquois rendering of the goddess breaking apart and trailing off the screen. It is quickly replaced by black and white photos of Pendleton Jiménez as a child beside her mother. She describes the comfort of snuggling into her mother’s big, soft body while recounting the hurtful comments about weight directed at this body. The daughter learns to take seriously her mother’s warning, “not to ever say anything bad about a person’s body.” Through childhood stories and then erotic photos of herself as a butch lover, Pendleton Jiménez attempts to reconcile the ambivalence she experiences over her own body, where maleness and femaleness collide. Using stop-motion animation, she returns to Coyolxauhqui’s story and image, looking for a way to feel beautiful. 

 was produced as part of an LGBTQ health centre program to create films about queer women’s bodies.

Butch Coyolxauhqui

A girl gang terrorizes and titillates girls with long hair.


Written, directed, edited and produced by Myra Paci


Cast: Cassis Henry, Katrin Hilbe, Myra Paci, Jennifer Payson, Amy Russell, Spencer Snygg

Butch Patrol

is an experimental film exploring the desire for transmasc, transmen, butch, stud, Agressives, masculine of center (MOC) people assigned female at birth. Stunning black and white images drift across the screen while transmen, femme women and butch and MOC people speak about the complexity of their desire. The soundtrack is by Campbell L Sangster. Animation is by Neelu Bhuman.

DES!RE

A short, playful, sexy video about a butch dyke/trans professor in teacher education.

Dancing on a Rainbow: Notes from a Butch Prof

Inspired by Hal Fischer’s book “Gay Semiotics”, 

 is a moving image study of queer visual coding.


Specifically leaning into the stereotypical queer looks of pre 2000's. Focusing on queer signifiers such as a set of keys clipped to the jeans, leather lace up boots, a blue handkerchief peering out from the back left pocket etc. Individually these things don't read as "queer" but when you put them all together, it’s a visual language and a way to communicate. 

I used some old lighting I had to create a kind of "nightclub atmosphere. I filmed in my cat enclosure to give the vibe of an outdoor smoking area of a club. To stabilise the camera, I employed an old council bin. i also used this to position the lighting. When I wasn't using the council bin to help film, I was using my own body. Even laying on the ground to get the specific shots I wanted. Every shot filmed was intentional. The only variable in the film was the pattern of the lighting. I utilised tilting, close ups and a LOT of zooming. The process behind that was to create a sense of disjointed viewing through
"mechanical eyes".

Double Denim Blues

looks at the evolution of lesbian attire and identity—butch/femme, flannel, androgyny, cross-dressing and drag, queer fluorescent, S/M and leather, lipstick, and more. Featuring interviews with Sally Gearhart, JoAnn Loulan, Arlene Stein, Kitty Tsui, and others, 

 incorporates archival photos and personal stories to document the sociology and history of lesbian fashion.

Framing Lesbian Fashion

Captain Candy captures a virgin Butch with the promise that if Butch can find the Queen’s stolen treasure, he will receive his heart’s desire—the seductive femme Claudia. Soon Butch is sailing on treacherous seas, swept away by dangerous desires.

Girl King

After leaving behind her girlfriend to attend college in Chicago, young lesbian Max West (Guinevere Turner) is introduced to Ely (V.S. Brodie), a slightly older woman with quirky habits. While Max and Ely quickly develop an attraction to each other, a poorly timed phone call from Max's long-distance girlfriend, Kate, brings things to an abrupt halt. Meanwhile Max's roommate, Kia (T. Wendy McMillan), helps her girlfriend, Evy (Migdalia Melendez), cope with some tough times at home.

Go Fish

 looks at the stories of three lesbian couples from the '60s to the present (2000), creating a dramatic history of the modern lesbian experience.


Vanessa Redgrave, in a quietly powerful performance, leads the first story as a widow in 1961, loosing her partner and being forced to move out of the home she created with her lover. More than 10 years later, another lesbian moves into the house, which is now the home to a feminist collective. Oscar-nominee Chloë Sevigny (Boys Don't Cry) is the butch young paramour who falls for femme Michelle Williams (Dawson's Creek), in this story directed by Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl) and written by the Sichel Sisters (All Over Me). The final instal­lation, directed by Anne Heche, stars Ellen DeGeneres and Sharon Stone as the house's next occupants. Set in the present (2000), the couple faces the pressures of having a baby — the tribulations of finding semen and putting it to use.

If These Walls Could Talk 2

In this T4T heart-stopper, leather daddy Francisco puts newcummer leather boy toy Coyote to good use in a good old traditional queer leathersex ceremony. Boot worship, spanking, big clits and hitachi orgasms. 

Featuring Coyote and Francisco St. Laurent 

Leather Butches of Brunswick 

Suicidal or just a working class butch dyke caught in the wrong underpants? Seems that the boxers were the bigger problem, according to my treatment team. This video is based on actual meetings with hospital staff while in a psychiatric hospital system.

Krissy Mahan makes movies using humor as a feminist tool. Their films address social issues such as accessibility, gender identity, mental health, immigration, and working class post-industrial cities. Mahan has been recording visual records of people for 20 years, using whatever technology is available.

My Crazy Boxers

Philoctetes lives in a cave on a desolate island: the wartime hero is now a wounded outcast. Stranded for ten years, he sees a chance of escape when a young soldier appears with tales of Philoctetes’ past glories. But with hope comes suspicion – and, as an old enemy emerges, he is faced with an even greater temptation: revenge.

Paradise

In a society of the future, sugar has been declared an illegal substance. In order to obtain it, some women turn into "sugar-hos", selling their bodies to other women.

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Sugar High Glitter City

This pioneering documentary filmed in NYC from 1997-2004 follows a group of "Aggressives," or "AG's" - masculine presenting and/or identifying - queer people of color who were assigned female at birth. It explores their dreams, secrets and deepest fears as well as their social spaces like the "ballroom" and club scene.


Ultimately the film focuses on the humanity of the subjects while attempting to unravel evolving terms around gender definition.

The Aggressives

When Mac, a young butch Latina, dies, her girlfriend, Hope, must overcome both personal grief and homophobic hostilities from Mac’s family in order to respectfully send Mac off into the afterlife as she would’ve wanted.

Vámonos

This video documents Peggy Shaw's one-woman show 

 In this performance Shaw pieces together the challenges of growing up butch in the 1950's with a combination of both toughness and vulnerability. Using male role models such as an Army officer and Elvis, Shaw explores the controversial relationship between a butch and her mother, offering both affirmation and criticism.

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