Review

#SLACabaret, Salt Lake Acting Company’s summer debut, shows plenty of examples about leveraging comedic punch celebrating Utah’s peculiarities

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Provocative comedy is an underappreciated, underutilized art form in Utah. The state’s social character and pop culture are sufficiently peculiar, offbeat and unusual to produce spot-on satires and farces. Some segments of Utah’s independent film industry (think of the HaleStorm comedies, for example) have aspired to achieve crossover appeal by highlighting weird, quirky aspects of … Read more

Standup comedy, world premiere, contemporary Shakespearean adaptation, Utah cabaret spoof highlight Great Salt Lake Fringe 2021

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Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part series of reviews from the 2021 Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival. For the first part, see here. With the first weekend of the 2021 Great Salt Lake Fringe (GSLF) at The Gateway now in the books, organizers say that ticket sales for live performances are close … Read more

First weekend of 2021 Great Salt Lake Fringe offers strong slate of solid productions

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Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series of reviews from the 2021 Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival.  With the first weekend of the 2021 Great Salt Lake Fringe (GSLF) at The Gateway now in the books, organizers say that ticket sales for live performances are close to and will likely exceed 2018 … Read more

Utah Film Center Damn These Heels 2021: Award-winning Flee set for closing Liberty Park event, If It Were Love an unconventional, highly intriguing dance documentary

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With today’s Liberty Park screening co-sponsored by the Sundance Institue and two final days of films available for streaming on demand, the Utah Film’s Center’s 18th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival will close on strong notes. As for the online streaming options, the festival has attracted a broad national and international audience. This … Read more

Utah Film Center Damn These Heels 2021: Sublet, Cicada excel in authentic presentations of romantic relationships, highlighting queer cinema’s storytelling strengths

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Two feature-length narratives, each featuring romance-based story lines around gay characters, which are receiving Utah premieres in the Utah Film’s Center’s 18th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival exemplify distinct approaches to achieving authentic representations of sexual identity and relationships on the cinematic screen. From one of Israel’s best known directors of film and … Read more

Utah Film Center Damn These Heels 2021: More historical testaments of activism in Raw! Uncut! Video!, Rebel Dykes, Genderation

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In addition to Cured, No Straight Lines: The Rise of Queer Comics and P.S. Burn This Letter as outstanding testaments of archival activism, three other documentaries in the Utah Film’s Center’s 18th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival shine for their use of historical materials. They include Raw! Uncut! Video!, directed by Ryan A. … Read more

Utah Film Center Damn These Heels 2021: Five short films receive either world, North American premieres

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Five short films are being screened for U.S. viewers for the first time in the Utah Film’s Center’s 18th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival. These films are part of the festival’s various short film programs, which are available for streaming on demand, with purchased tickets, through July 18. Two short films — The … Read more

Utah Film Center Damn These Heels 2021: Wonderfully eccentric odysseys in Shit & Champagne, Saint-Narcisse

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Two wonderfully eccentric odysseys popping with 1970s aesthetics along with an enlightened sense of sex positivity are part of the slate for the Utah Film’s Center’s 18th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival are generously entertaining — Shit & Champagne, directed by D’Arcy Drollinger, and Saint-Narcisse, directed by Bruce LaBruce. The films are available … Read more

Utah Film Center Damn These Heels 2021: Masterful examples of queer historiography and archival activism in Cured, No Straight Lines, P.S. Burn This Letter Please documentaries

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Call it archive activism. The historiography on the topics of social change in the U.S., queer rights and queer culture is advanced significantly in three documentaries being presented in the Utah Film’s Center’s 18th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival.  In each film, primary sources, archival footage and letters and documents not seen for … Read more

Utah Film Center Damn These Heels 2021: Innovations in narrative treatment shine in We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, Madalena

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Outstanding innovations in thematic treatment are prevalent in numerous feature-length narratives in the Utah Film’s Center’s 18th annual Damn These Heels Queer Film Festival. Two of the most compelling examples are Jane Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, which premiered at this year’s Sundance, and tthe Brazilian film Madalena, directed by Madiano Marcheti. … Read more