'Representation matters': Provincetown film fest hosts stars, directors and 'Pink Flamingos' in diverse lineup

Even in a big city, when most people go out to see an independent art film, Andrew Peterson says, they’re often among just a handful of audience members.

Not so at a film festival, particularly the Provincetown Film Festival, he says, where people are invested in and enthusiastic about the lower-budget films they’re getting a chance to see by moviemakers representing all types of backgrounds.

Being part of an audience paying attention changes the moviegoing experience, he says, and he calls a film festival “a launching pad," "a place to connect" and "a place for community.” Plus a place to see and hear from the movies' stars and filmmakers.

“Everybody’s there to discover, everybody’s there to be surprised, and to fall in love with something,” says Peterson, the festival’s director of programming, in a phone interview. “A lot of times right now, we lean into streaming, and yes, almost all of these films will be available to watch at your home at some point down the road. But here's your opportunity to see it the way that the maker intended, oftentimes with the maker in the room and an audience full of people that are there with the same spirit as you.”

That’s just one of the beauties of the 24-year-old Provincetown fest, says Peterson, and why its thousands of fans are looking forward to the largest experience there in three years at the June 15-19 event. Dozens of filmmakers will be on hand, too, as well as awardees Luca Guadagnino, Bowen Yang, Jenny Slate, Dale Dickey and veteran emcee/host/filmmaker John Waters.

Another attraction is just what the movies' content is.

More than 50% of the dozens of feature and short films chosen for this year’s festival were directed by women, Peterson points out. Because of its Provincetown location, the festival’s schedule has always featured LGTBQ+ themes and filmmakers, he says, but it has also given voice to women, Indigenous filmmakers and stories of other races, rather than just work by the straight white males who have had the most power in Hollywood.

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“All of this representation matters to us,” Peterson says. “It feels like it's a recent conversation (in the film industry), but we've been walking this walk from the beginning. (People in Provincetown) know what it's like to be othered and to not be seen or represented on screen.”

Other topics important to the location matter in film choice, too, such as climate change, the ocean and the art community. “Oftentimes these are films that are made by people from outside that sort of mainstream straight-white-male gaze,” he points out. As far as focusing on representation is concerned, “we’ve been that way and I’m just really proud of that.”

With its commitment to “unflinching cinema,” the Provincetown festival has a multi-venue, five-day plan this year honoring four key voices with awards, spotlighting a few classics alongside the new films and holding parties to celebrate it all.

The full schedule and information is at https://www.provincetownfilm.org/. Peterson helped to guide us through some of the highlights:

Movies on the wharf

Added to the festival under new executive director Anne Hubbell are free outdoor night screenings on MacMillan Pier of cult-favorite comedies. Actress Parker Posey will be on hand for 1996’s “Waiting for Guffman” on June 17 and Excellence in Acting Award honoree Dale Dickey and director Maria Maggenti will talk to audiences with 1995’s “The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love” on June 18.

Happy anniversary, John Waters

Filmmaker and festival/Provincetown staple John Waters will again be interviewer for the Filmmaker on the Edge Award for director Luca Guadagnino as well as do a book-signing for his new novel “Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance.” But Waters is also hosting one of the first screenings of the 50th anniversary 4K remastered digital version of his classic “Pink Flamingos” to close out the night on Thursday (June 16).

“It's a bright, shiny, new version of it that’s all been dusted off and shined up for everybody to rediscover and that’s exciting,” Peterson says. “I think it's a really special moment … we're celebrating with John, and how much he means to the festival and to all of us, so many people in town and on the Cape and his large fan base.”

Celebrating Luca Guadagnino

Italian film director Guadagnino is best-known for his Oscar-winning “Call Me By Your Name,” as well as  “Suspiria” and “A Bigger Splash,” and he’s recently been in the Boston area filming “Challenger” with Zendaya. It’s a bonus, Peterson says, when filmmakers they want to honor for a body of work also have a new film to showcase and that happened with the closing-night film on June 19, Guadagnino’s “Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams,” about designer Salvatore Ferragamo.

“With a film about fashion and Ferragamo, we knew it was going to be of great interest to our town and he knew that as well,” Peterson says. “It's fun for a director to see a film like that with an audience like ours.”

The New Wave Awards

It’s only been in the past few years that the Provincetown festival has honored “those who have exciting and distinctive voices, take artistic risks, and have a passionate commitment to independent film” with New Wave Awards. This year, there are two winners: TV/film comedian/actors/writers Jenny Slate and Bowen Yang, both in town with new film work.

Slate, who’s from Massachusetts, is a favorite among festival officials, Peterson says, and they are happy to feature her writing and voice work on 2021’s “Marcel the Shell with His Shoes On,” a feature-length animated story of a 1-inch-tall shell character with a colorful existence.

For “Saturday Night Live”’s Yang, it’s “Fire Island,” a rom-com getting raves on its Hulu release last week that comedian Joel Kim Booster based on “Pride and Prejudice.” The movie, along with Billy Eichner’s rom-com “Bros,” filmed in part in Provincetown, are getting attention for representing LGBTQ+ life and what Peterson describes as “reclaiming a lot of queer narratives” along with representation among the actors, writers and behind the scenes.

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Peterson says that representation is also part of what he’s seeing with women and people of various ethnicities “having more agency and control over their stories” in film, including behind the camera.

“Fire Island’ and ‘Bros’ are going to be a conversation this year and that was a reason why we actively sought that out and really wanted (Yang) in attendance,” he says, and director Andrew Ahn, a festival alum and “exciting voice in film right now,” will also be on hand.

Festival organizers realized early on how special the project would be, Peterson says, because “of how authentic it was and how deep they were going into their representation … (that they took seriously that) we have choices when we put together our projects and we have power and we have the ability to influence people and change things to be the change we want to see.”

A career achievement

Dickey is a character actress that Peterson says so many moviegoers know by sight, but might not immediately recognize by name. Her more than 60 film credits and 50 TV credits include “Winter’s Bone,” “Flag Day, “Hell or High Water,” “Iron Man 3,” “True Blood,” “Breaking Bad,” “Justified” and the upcoming Amazon TV series version of “A League of Their Own.”

Featured in the festival will be Dickey’s newest film and her rare turn as the main star: “A Love Song.” “It’s a tour de force moment performance and it is her moment in the spotlight, and she’s here to be honored for a career of dozens of films,” Peterson says.

The movie has “a really interesting cast and really beautiful performances,” he says. “Most people might not have found it on their own. … Here, people can have a moment when they see ‘A Love Song’ and they get to meet Dale Dickey afterwards in the Q&A, and I think they'll love the film and they'll remember it.”

A movie you can’t see elsewhere

Writer/actor/director John Cameron Mitchell — a longtime festival supporter and its 2019 Filmmaker on the Edge — will be in town to host a June 18 screening of a 4K digitally remastered version of “Shortbus.” It’s a movie that Peterson says includes candid sexual situations and that “Amazon has notoriously rejected on their platform,” in part, according to reports, because of its “offensive content.”

“It's a very authentic film that predated a lot of what we're talking about now with inclusivity and authenticity, but for some reason, it feels very political why it's not being put onto more public platforms, so we're just really excited to spotlight the film,” he says.

Creating conversations

In programming the festival, Peterson says, he looks for opportunities for “conversations about ideas and topics” with an audience willing to take a chance on the unusual choices. This year, that includes the film “Klondike” from Ukraine as a “way to shine a light” on the Russian invasion.

There’s also the North American premiere of the documentary “Esther Newton Made Me Gay” about a “living lesbian icon” who identifies as both butch lesbian and between genders, and has spent six decades writing about queer communities. That includes her 1972 book “Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America” that festival organizers say is regarded as the first “rigorous academic/anthropological study of queer community in modern history.”

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Newton as well as director Jean Carlomusto will be in attendance. “Some people, within even queer culture, may not know who Esther Newton is," Peterson says, "but everybody should know.”

Short films

Dozens of short films have been curated into programs with various themes, and Peterson notes that shorts are often where movie fans find “the next generation of talent,” though often recognizable acting talent.

A shorts program “takes you on a journey and I would just encourage people that are adventurous to dive into a shorts program and take a look. There's something for everybody,” he says, including an experimental program, a queer program and one featuring New England filmmakers (including Eli Powers from Brewster) to watch “what's being made in your backyard.”

Contact Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll at kdriscoll@capecodonline.com. Follow on Twitter: @KathiSDCCT.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Provincetown film fest hosts stars, directors, John Waters, Bowen Yang