‘Sapph-O-Rama’ Is the Lesbian Movie Competition Sapphic Cinema Buffs Deserve

Because of the recognition of TV reveals and films like The L Phrase, Euphoria, Happiest Season, and Intercourse Schooling, the lesbian expertise has, of late, loved (pretty) strong illustration on display. But that wasn’t at all times so; for a lot too lengthy, lesbians (and different members of the LGBTQ+ neighborhood) noticed their identities and relationships both ignored or performed for reasonable sitcom laughs. That context makes Movie Discussion board’s new “Sapph-O-Rama” pageant—a 30-film sequence that describes itself as “exploring the eccentric, enduring, and genre-encompassing historical past of the Lesbian picture in cinema”—really feel not solely well timed however deeply needed.

“Sapph-O-Rama,” which runs at Movie Discussion board from February 2-13, is spotlighting lesbian classics, together with Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Girl (1996), Chantal Akerman’s Je Tu Il Elle (1974), and Alice Wu’s Saving Face (2004), together with many, many extra movies that even this self-identified queer movie stan hadn’t heard of. 

Vogue lately spoke to “Sapph-O-Rama” co-curators Andrea Torres and Emily Greenberg about reviving an aughts-era concept in a distinctly 2024-appropriate manner, sorting by way of the lesbian movie canon to be able to make their programming choices, and the way forward for queer cinema in New York Metropolis and past.

Vogue: What sparked the concept for “Sapph-O-Rama”?

Andrea Torres: Emily and I’ve the good pleasure of working collectively at Movie Discussion board. She manages print visitors for the theater, and I lead publicity efforts for our programming. Due to that, we’ve had the distinctive privilege of entry to the cinema’s archival materials and, primarily, 50 years’ price of historic data; data that embody every little thing from print-outs of disgruntled patron emails demanding butter at concessions, stacks of pictures from Agnès Varda’s The Gleaners and I Movie Discussion board premiere social gathering 24 years in the past, press binders with opinions of each movie to ever open on the theater, authentic manufacturing notes, deadstock merch, and, most attractive, all of Movie Discussion board’s program calendars relationship again to Karen Cooper’s first present in 1974. One afternoon, we had been rifling by way of Repertory calendars and located one from the yr 2000 with a sequence known as “Sapph-O-Rama” on it.