While eagerly awaiting the BEST of SECS Fest 2024:
- Best of SECS Fest at Cicada Cinema, Bloomington, IN / May 28
- Best of SECS Fest at The Clinton Street Theater, Portland, OR / June 6
- Best of SECS Fest at The Beacon Cinema, Seattle, WA / June 7
you might want to check out some of the programming at SIFF, their 51st annual international film festival. After perusing their handy film guide, this is what we think you might be interested in seeing. We are.
*opinions are based on just the film descriptions and reviews, we have not seen these films.
THE BALCONETTES
(Noémie Merlant, France, 2024, 104 min.)
Noémie Merlant (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) co-writes, directs, and stars in this genre-bending feminist comic thriller, as a trio of Marseille roommates—a camgirl, a writer, and an actress—rage against toxic masculinity in the middle of a terrible heat wave.
Sunday, May 18, 9pm SIFF Uptown
Monday, May 19, 2025, 3:15pm SIFF Uptown
FUCKTOYS
(Annapurna Sriram, USA, 2025, 107 min.)
Annapurna Sriram writes, directs, and stars in this campy, vividly pastel-colored romp about a woman who embarks upon a sex worker odyssey through Trashtown with her nonbinary friend to break a terrible curse that has befallen her. SXSW Special Jury Prize winner.
Friday, May 16, 9:30pm SIFF Uptown
Saturday, May 17, 4:15 pm AMC Pacific Place
PAYING FOR IT
(Sook-Yin Lee, Canada, 2024, 85 min.)
Sook-Yin Lee (Shortbus) adapts her own ex-boyfriend’s welcomingly tender, autofictional graphic novel, centering on a Toronto-based cartoonist who begins hiring sex workers when he and his partner break up but decide to keep living together.
Saturday, May 17, 6pm SIFF Uptown
Sunday, May 18, 12:30pm SIFF Uptown
SCARECROW IN A GARDEN OF CUCUMBERS
(Robert J. Kaplan, USA, 1972, 82 min.)
In this camp classic from 1972 bursting with lo-fi queer cinema energy, Warhol Factory muse and trans actress Holly Woodlawn stars as a small-town girl hoping to make it big in New York City. This long-thought-lost treasure is newly restored by the Academy Film Archive.
Saturday, May 24, 11:59 pm SIFF Downtown
SPERMAGEDDON
(Tommy Wirkola & Rasmus A. Sivertsen, Norway, 2024, 80 min.)
In this raunchy yet sincere animated adult musical about the beginning of life, Simon must lead a squad of fellow semen on a high-stakes mission to achieve fertilization and defeat the nefarious Jizzmo from enacting Spermageddon! From co-director Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow, Violent Night).
Friday, May 16 11:59 pm SIFF Downtown
Monday, May 19 1:30 pm SIFF Uptown
SUDDEN OUTBURSTS OF EMOTIONS
(Paula Korva, Finland, 2024, 97 min.)
When a travel agent’s boyfriend suggests they open up their relationship to the wild world of polyamory, she is hesitant but joins him on a sojourn to an island-based party, only to fall for another woman, in this sex-positive dramedy.
Sunday, May 18, 8 pm SIFF Uptown
Monday, May 19, 9:30pm SIFF Uptown
Have fun and we’ll see you at Best of SECS Fest in June!
