Blow-Up

A series of thirty-two trailers put together to illustrate the film industry's attitude to and packaging of African-American screen imagery.

A concise poetic summary of butch identity.

A fascinating and unlikely reinvention story, The Royal Road simultaneously explores cinematic spiritual channeling, the conquest and colonization of Mexico and the American Southwest, fading historical Californian urban landscapes, and the passions found in butch identity to achieve an achingly beautiful and poetic defense of remembering. Probing roads from El Camino Real, to the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, to the road right outside the front door, Olson crafts a deeply intelligent and transcending observation of the human condition that reaches for redemption in the embrace of history, nostalgia, mindfulness, and sheer beauty. If you give yourself over to it, it will crack you wide open.

Images set to a tape recording that slain San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk made in November 1977 to be played in case he was killed.

Through voiceover and static San Francisco landscapes this experimental narrative short tells the melancholy story of a butch dyke pining over a one night stand with a straight girl.

Dutch doors, warehouse windows, and empty streets provide the background for a short tale about past lust and lost love. This glimpse into the drama of a lesbian relationship is revealed through stark visuals and the measured pace of the voice-over, providing a clever contrast between how we see and what we hear.

Over 30 filmmakers and friends of Strand Releasing have come together to honor the company’s indelible contribution to independent cinema over the past thirty years. The participating filmmakers have each created a short film for the project, all shot on iPhones. Produced by Strand Releasing and Connor Jessup.

A provocative lesbian spoof of the famous early '90s ad campaign: "What do you do in your 501s?"

A brief reflection on faith, self-loathing and Studs Lonigan.

Film archivist and former director of the San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival Jenni Olson created this fast-paced and often funny, campy 75-minute film comprised entirely of spliced together movie trailers. Some of the segments have themes such as a breezy look back at John Travolta's career that includes trailers from such films as Saturday Night Fever, Staying Alive, Grease, Perfect, and Moment by Moment. Other trailers include Mae West in Sextette, the disco camper Thank God It's Friday, Raquel Welch in Kansas City Bomber, Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew and the rarely seen Chastity, the serious acting debut of Cher.

Hold your breath for this tempestuous ride through bondage, suspension and the power of the mind. Electrical impulses produce reactionary states in this adrenaline-packed spectacle, as charged sonic frequencies express various states of embodied dissonance and willful determination. Fight or Flight features a bound figure in flight, held in position by an unrevealed source. This unknown source points to whether or not the figure is in a consensual position with the goal of addressing what one may feel bound or liberated by, and what choices may be involved in those conditions. The universality of experiencing internal and external limitations, discomfort and anxiety in one's own skin and the trappings of mind contrasted by determination and liberation of spirit is explored.

This is the story of the first martyr of free speech. Socrates is on trial for his life. He will be put to death. 2,500 years later we remember his words.