SHORTS: HEARTLANDS, USA

Home is where the heartland is in this compelling shorts program that captures LGBTQ+ resilience and perseverance across rural USA. Including both documentary and narrative films, the stories feature trans stormchasers, Black queer dreamers in the South, intergenerational connections at small-town bars, and a lesbian trucker—from Oklahoma to Alabama to Oregon. Queer folks are out here, and always have been.

Presented in partnership with

Something in the Air
Dir. Niamh Barry, 17 min, USA/Ireland
Transgender stormchaser Raychel Sanner confronts extreme weather and political hostility in Oklahoma, turning the pursuit of tornadoes into an act of visibility and survival.

Julie Takes a Walk
Dirs. Frankie Pedersen & Shea Vassar, 15 min, USA
When Julie shows up disheveled to a dive bar in the middle of nowhere, her connection with the bartender is a nice surprise.

Searching 4 Saturn
Dir. DW McCrary, 15 min, USA
During Alabama A&M’s Homecoming Week, poet and scholar Joshua Baker muses on southern inheritance across time and space.

Marshland
Dir. Ray Chambers, 15 min, USA
In Sprague, a small rural community in Central Oregon, a quiet and guarded young trans man attempts to build a life and find belonging.

Rainbow Rider
Dir. Georgia Krause, 26 min, USA
Outspoken lesbian trucker Shelle Lichti hauls freight cross-country in her iconic rainbow semi-truck. Chihuahua sidekick in tow, she’s met with the open road, grumpy dispatchers, and lots of middle fingers.

This screening will be followed by a Q&A.

Part of the 38th Annual New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival