As the final film in Queer|Art|Film’s Winter’s A Drag series at New York’s IFC Center, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar screens tonight Monday 8th April 2019, presented by Untitled Queen.
Directed by Beeban Kidron from a screenplay by Douglas Carter Beane, the film stars Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze and John Leguizamo as drag queens stranded in small-town America.
As quoted on the IFC Center website, Untitled Queen on selecting To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar: “When asked what queer movie to present that had a significant impact on me, there was no hesitation that it had to be To Wong Foo. This was the the type of movie, there probably is a word for it, where as a young GLBTQ person that isn’t out, and doesn’t realise it yet, but senses it in the air: in media and books and in people, that you go out looking for your beacons.”
“It made me laugh, it made me curious, confused, and enthralled. Like most things that deeply affect you, they continue to change and unfold in different ways in your life as you age. When I watched this film, I didn’t have a particular desire to be doing anything they were doing necessarily, and its such an ironic twist that after loving this film for so many years, that I would then join this community and creative outlet of drag in New York in my late 20s.”
“I would then also start a deep friendship with two other close queens when I started, and have thought much about the parallels of this relationship to the one in the film, as well as the lessons we pretend to know and teach each other. The queens that I grew up with did not have role models or drag moms or families. We learned from trying and looking at a smattering of small film references and written culture, and then ultimately experimenting and growing through friendship.”
The details: To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar presented by Untitled Queen screens tonight 8th April 2019 at 8pm at IFC Center, 323 6th avenue, New York, NY 10014.
For more details and to buy tickets head to the IFC Center website.
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