Pink Narcissus closes out our Pride Month programming with a special one night only presentation. A landmark of queer underground cinema—it’s an erotic, dreamlike fantasia shot entirely within the confines of a New York apartment over the course of seven years.
Originally released anonymously, the film became a cult object of fascination, long believed to have been made by Andy Warhol or one of his Factory acolytes. It wasn’t until decades later that James Bidgood—a former fashion photographer and drag performer—was revealed as the true auteur behind the film.
Today, Pink Narcissus is rightly celebrated as a foundational work of queer cinema and a forerunner to later visual artists and filmmakers—from Pierre et Gilles to Derek Jarman to Todd Haynes. It is a reminder that even in the most constrained circumstances, beauty and radical vision can flourish.
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Ridley Scott’s girl trip Thelma & Louise winds down our Pride Month programming with a brand new 4K restoration!
The story follows Thelma (Geena Davis), a timid housewife, and Louise (Susan Sarandon), a no-nonsense waitress, as they embark on what starts as a weekend getaway and turns into a flight from the law. After Louise kills a man who attempts to rape Thelma, the two hit the road, realizing that the justice system is unlikely to see their side. Their journey becomes one of personal awakening, radical defiance, and ultimately, tragic liberation.
Thelma & Louise is more than a road movie—it’s a feminist landmark, a genre-defying tale of friendship, freedom, and fury that still resonates over three decades later.
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Has it really been thirty years since To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar came out? Yes. Are we screening it two times for absolutely no charge on the weekend of Santa Ana’s Pride celebrations? Also yes!
Manhattan drag queens Vida Boheme and Noxeema Jackson impress regional judges in competition, securing berths in the Nationals in Los Angeles. When the two meet pathetic drag novice Chi-Chi Rodriguez — one of the losers that evening — the charmed Vida and Noxeema agree to take the hopeless youngster under their joined wing. Soon the three set off on a madcap road trip across America and struggle to make it to Los Angeles in time.
Join us for this bold, campy, and surprisingly tender film that helped bring drag culture—and a message of acceptance—to the mainstream in the mid-1990s.
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It’s not Santa Ana Pride weekend at The Frida without a screening or two of Hedwig And The Angry Inch! And this year, the showings are completely free!
Raised a boy in East Berlin, Hedwig undergoes a personal transformation in order to emigrate to the U.S., where she reinvents herself as an ‘internationally ignored’ but divinely talented rock diva, inhabiting a ‘beautiful gender of one’.
At a time when few films dared to center queer and trans experiences with this much raw honesty and visual style, Hedwig and the Angry Inch carved out a space that felt radical and necessary.
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Join us for some free screenings of The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert as we celebrate Santa Ana’s official Pride weekend!
Two drag queens and a transgender woman contract to perform a drag show at a resort in Alice Springs, a town in the remote Australian desert. As they head west from Sydney aboard their lavender bus, Priscilla, the three friends come to the forefront of a comedy of errors, encountering a number of strange characters, as well as incidents of homophobia, whilst widening comfort zones and exploring new horizons.
Released at a time when positive queer representation in film was still rare, Priscilla broke ground simply by putting LGBTQ+ characters front and center—and letting them shine.
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Our Page To Screen series for June is Denis Villeneuve’s 2016 masterwork Arrival! Adapted from Ted Chiang’s celebrated 1998 novella Story of Your Life, the film retains the cerebral complexity of its source while transforming it into a moving cinematic experience.
The story follows Dr. Louise Banks (played by Amy Adams), a linguist enlisted to communicate with mysterious alien visitors whose ships have appeared around the globe. As she works to decode the heptapods’ intricate written language, she begins to experience time in a radically new way—past, present, and future folding into one.
Emotional and visually stunning the way only a filmmaker like Villeneuve can deliver, Arrival has quickly become a Science Fiction classic.
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Frida Cinema Film Club members are invited to a treat for the senses as we present Krzysztof Kieślowski’s radical exploration of fate, Blind Chance!
The story revolves around Witek, a young medical student disillusioned after the death of his father. At a train station, he runs to catch a train—and in a sudden narrative split, the film shows three divergent versions of Witek’s life, each depending on whether he catches the train, misses it, or is stopped by a guard.
Shot in 1981 but shelved by censors until 1987, the film resonates as both a deeply personal reflection and a subtle political critique.
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For the first time in The Frida Cinema’s history, we are finally playing Juno!
Juno MacGuff (Elliot Page), a smart, sarcastic 16-year-old in the Minneapolis suburbs, finds herself unexpectedly pregnant after a casual hookup with her shy best friend, Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). Opting against abortion but not ready for motherhood, Juno sets out to find the perfect adoptive parents—a seemingly put-together yuppie couple played by Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman.
Written by Diablo Cody in her Oscar-winning debut, Juno pairs quippy, stylized dialogue with sincere emotional beats, carving out a space in indie film where teenage girls are allowed to be complicated, self-aware, and funny without being reduced to tropes.
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Our Hallucinations series continues in June with the mash-up of historical drama, exploitation cinema, and art-house in Toshiya Fujita’s revenge tale Lady Snowblood!
Yuki’s family is nearly wiped out before she is born due to the machinations of a band of criminals. These criminals kidnap and brutalize her mother but leave her alive. Later her mother ends up in prison with only revenge to keep her alive. She creates an instrument for this revenge by purposefully getting pregnant. Yuki never knows the love of a family but only killing and revenge.
A cult sensation upon release, Lady Snowblood gained international fame in the decades that followed, particularly after Quentin Tarantino cited it as a major influence on Kill Bill, borrowing both stylistic elements and its iconic theme song (“Shura no Hana,” performed by Kaji herself).
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Our first Volunteer Of The Month pick comes from Ellie, who has chosen Jacques Toureur’s 1948 classic I Walked With A Zombie!
In this haunting reimagining of Jane Eyre by way of Caribbean folklore, Canadian nurse Betsy Connell (Frances Dee) travels to the West Indies island of Saint Sebastian to care for Jessica Holland, the mysteriously catatonic wife of a sugar plantation owner. As Betsy uncovers more about the family’s tragic past, she becomes entangled in an atmosphere thick with secrets, sorrow, and superstition.
Drawn toward the eerie pull of local voodoo rites and emotional tensions within the Holland household, Betsy’s journey becomes one of descent—into both personal obsession and the island’s enigmatic spiritual world. What emerges isn’t just a horror tale, but a ghostly meditation on colonialism, love, and the things that refuse to die.
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