Play or Pass? Weighing in on Three Films at Outshine Film Festival

The 15th anniversary of Fort Lauderdale's edition of Outshine Film Festival starts this week. The festival, which runs through October 29, gives the community a new lens to celebrate LGBTQ stories and creators. With 38 features, 26 shorts, and loads of premieres and parties, there is plenty to see and do across Broward County.

Here is a closer look at three films in the lineup that you may want to see or you may want to skip.

Femme

Directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping expand their 2021 short of the same name into their first feature, Femme, an erotic thriller set in the closet. Centering on the relationship between Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Candyman), a drag performer, and Preston (George MacKay, 1917), a closeted drug dealer and aspiring entrepreneur, the film is anchored by two strong performances. The two have a violent altercation at a convenience store following Jules' performance. Shaken by the attack, Jules retreats from the world but decides to visit a bathhouse one night and is surprised to see Preston, the attacker. Rather than contacting the police or confronting Preston, Jules plays a dangerous game of seduction, and what unfolds is a dark and disturbing tale primed with potential violence.

Femme's provocative premise is its greatest attribute. It keeps you on the edge of your seat during the film and thinking about it after the credits roll. What resembles a hate crime turned into a meet-cute as Jules and Preston appear to develop romantic feelings despite their histories is also about the ramifications of closeted sexuality as well as internalized and externalized homophobia, misogyny, and transphobia. Femme explores the importance of safe queer spaces while launching the camera into seedy and shadowy corners of the city like a queer neo-noir. Femme is held back by slightly faulty filmmaking. There is a hesitancy and confusion of the film's tone that undermines the provoking material. Femme remains a worthwhile watch, and the directors certainly establish themselves as ones to watch. 7:30 p.m. Saturday, October 21, at Savor Cinema.

Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field

The fashion documentary has become a ubiquitous sub-category in the genre. Nearly every famous fashion figure has a documentary behind their name, so much so that it's almost surprising that no one had done a film on Patricia Field, the costume designer of Sex & the City, before this year's Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field. Clearly a legacy project, Field celebrates her 80th birthday party during filming and pontificates about possible retirement and eventual death. Unfortunately, the film never goes too deep beyond the surface, with Field saying things like "I like happy clothes" and "I just want to live until I die, and that's the end of it."

The film is, at its best, looking at Field's past. There are interviews with former collaborators like Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, and Vanessa Williams, who share their experiences working with Field through the years. The film's best part, which sadly makes up the minority, explores Field's time before Sex & the City when she was a driving force in the queer fashion and creative scene of the East Village. The remaining part of the film follows Field during her work days, which feel like a rejected Bravo reality pilot from 2004. There's also a bitter aftertaste as the film feels like a promotional tool for Field's current TV projects and book Pat in the City, which all seems to go against Field's ethos. These sections are tedious and detract from the more compelling parts. The result of the equation leaves a middling documentary that makes you wish you knew more about the subject, where they came from, and where they are going. Noon Sunday, October 22, at Paradigm Cinemas Gateway Fort Lauderdale.

Oskar's Dress

Midway through Oskar's Dress, the main character reads the famous first line of Anna Karenina about happy and unhappy families. It's a pivotal moment in a film all about a messy German family in transition. Ben, played by Florian David Fitz, who also wrote the screenplay, is a police officer who recently separated from his wife and children. He's supposed to be working on himself during this time. However, Ben reunites with his children when his former partner, who is heavily pregnant, is placed on bed rest. He learns quickly that lots have changed in the meantime, especially the transition of his eldest child, who now goes by Lili.

Brightly colored and evocative of a bygone era of American sitcoms, Oskar's Dress is probably well-intentioned despite deadnaming the child in question in its title. As Ben resists change, asserts his patriarchal power, and struggles to understand, the film tries to explore both sides of the issue. Hopefully, this film is an entry point for someone to understand the experiences of trans children. It is certainly timely, as there are numerous attacks on trans children under the guise of "protection." However, Oskar's Dress has a rather reductive understanding of the issues at hand versus earlier films like Ma Vie En Rose (1997) and Tomboy (2011), which tackle similar material in more nuanced ways. Eventually, Oskar's Dress gets to the right message, but along the way and even in the film's final image, it feels like Ben, the film, and its makers are befuddled by gender. 6:30 p.m. Sunday, October 22, at Paradigm Cinemas: Gateway Fort Lauderdale.

Outshine Film Festival. Through Sunday, October 29, at various locations; outshinefilm.com. Tickets cost $15 per screening.