Pioneers of Queer Cinema

Three classics of early LGBTQ+ cinema, all way ahead of their time, come to the Avalon for Pride Month in gorgeous new restorations. Choose a single film, or see all three for $15.

Victor and Victoria

(Reinhold Schünzel, 1933)
Produced in the final days of the Weimar Republic, this dazzling, gender-bending musical romance about a female singer posing as a man performing in drag received limited exposure in the United States, and is today best known by Blake Edwards’s 1982 remake and the 1995 Broadway production. Viewers will be delighted to discover that the original is every bit as charming and outrageous, reminiscent of the sly sex comedies of Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder. NR, 98 min, German with English subtitles.

Mädchen in Uniform

(Leontine Sagan and Carl Froelich, 1931)
As a new student at an all-girls boarding school, Manuela falls in love with the compassionate teacher Fräulein von Bernburg, and her feelings are requited. Experiencing her first love, lonely Manuela also discovers the complexities that come with an illicit romance. This artfully composed landmark of lesbian cinema – and an important anti-fascist film – was the first of just three films directed by Leontine Sagan. NR, 88 min, German with English Subtitles

Michael

(Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1924)
Danish film master Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Michael is a mature and visually elegant period romance decades ahead of its time. Michael takes its place alongside Dreyer’s better-known masterpieces as an unusually sensitive and decorous work of art and is one of the earliest and most compassionate overtly gay-themed films in movie history. NR, 94 min, Silent, German (Silent), with English subtitles.