From the cinemas: I tried to ever see every lesbian film

Out the Movies is a two-week newsletter about the queer film for AF+ subscribers from Drew Burnett Gregory. The topic of this week: the recently launched car cyclopedia of lesbian cinema.

In the past I thought I could see every lesbian film that was ever shot. Now I know that this is not possible.

Since I made my way through every best image winner and various director filmographies as a child, my Cinephilia has been paired with a Capricon degree. It was primarily about the films, but the lists, the projects, the gigantic goals made it possible for me to understand the big world of cinema that I wanted to understand. I still find that useful. Regardless of whether you watch every film with an actor or go through the films referred to in a book, looking at projects is a tool for exploration, an apology to push me beyond the mere moods.

Watch how every lesbian film began as an identity project before becoming my job. When I changed at the age of 23, I felt back in almost all areas of lesbian culture. Every area except cinema. Although I hadn't seen popular in the community, how Debs or Imagine me and youMy love for the Arthouse Cinema had to film me how Water liliesPresent CarolPresent The watermelon womanPresent SummerPresent Everything about my motherPresent Blue is the warmest colorPresent The bitter tears of Petra von KantAnd of course, Mulholland Drive. When I expanded this lead, I found consolation and self -knowledge through further research.

When I was traveling for two years and was occupied in Autostraddle, I had seen more films about CIS lesben than all of the CIS lesben that I met. Looking back, maybe I asked the first night when I personally met giant. At the time I said it was only because I couldn't rest The watermelon woman listed number 30 and Free hero In the top 10 (to be fair, an understandable apology.)

Six months later I had a project budget and spent six more months to improve my expertise. There would be no film on this new list that I hadn't seen. And there would be no filler – every film on the list would be good if not great.

I saw everything I haven't seen on the streamers yet. I spent hours in the LGBTQ+ sections of Las surviving video shops for lost gemstones. I scrolled on IMDB through the girl-kiss and lesbian tags. In the meantime, 2019 and 2020 brought more new queer publications than ever before.

This revised list has carried out several reproduction since my work was published in 2020. Finally, we started the autostraddle cyclopedia of lesbian cinema, a separate, sortable website that starts an earlier attempt of this type of resource. Instead of updating every year, I can update as I look at it. After my personal lesbian+ list on Letterboxd I saw 690 lesbian films. The encyclopedia currently has 388. I still have entries, although I am not sure that some of the films earn a place in the encyclopedia on my personal list – even if Dodgeball: a true outsider story I imagined the concept of bisexuality.

While I kiss the 2000s comedies in which two women kiss briefly Lesbian film. Every day brings an online discourse about who can identify as a lesbian or not, but the historical truth is that it is an expansive category that is liquid due to period, place and the individual. Our cinema is like that too.

For every dark but undeniable lesbian film like Ann Hui's Everything about love or Patrícia Vidal Delgado's La Leyenda NegraThere are worthy films that flirt around this definition. From obvious works of the subtext that have been adapted by gay novels The color purple And Fried green tomatoes to film that show the queerness of a main character as a kind of turn The wife of the rich man And X, Y and ZEE To film too complex in their approach to gender and sexuality in order to classify how Yentl or Gigli. (Yes, Gigli.) All of these films deserve their place in encyclopedia.

There are lesbian films on Tubi that I have never seen yet, films in which two women almost kiss on the poster and safely (poorly) have the usual tropics. There is a place for these films – you will also find many of you in the encyclopedia – but they are rarely the films that I find most exciting as a cinephile or the most exciting person.

The more we get films like Love lies bleedingPresent The wedding banquetAnd Nimona In the mainstream we have to be all the less concerned with the lesbian cinema as a representation. There are still many lesbian and queer women's experiences, but there are also more opportunities to express lesbianism and queerness on the screen. Not every lesbian film is a love story stake.

My project, ever to see every lesbian film, began to belong to my new identity as a way, but now I have spread as widespread as our cinema. There is nothing to prove because each of our experiences with lesbianism and strangeness is unique to us. Now I only want to watch as many lesbian films as possible so that I can share this art with you all. No matter what kind of lesbian film you are looking for, you will find it in the autostraddle cyclopedia of lesbian cinema. And if you can't, I will help my part to find it soon.