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Another round of the Tag! Queer Shorts Festival plays at the Hollywood Theatre on April 5–6. A diverse array of 42 short films within the theme “Create, Gather, Resist” spotlights local and international LGBTQ+ directors and their work.
Founded in 2013 as the Corvallis Queer Film Festival, Tag! was rebranded and relocated to Portland in 2020. This will be the first time in the festival’s 12 years to offer awards and cash prizes. Partnering with Milagro Theatre, Portland’s Latino arts and culture center, Tag!’s new accolades include the Milagro Award to the best film by a Spanish, Latin American or Latine director, as well as the Festival Director’s Award and the Quest Center Award for Resilience in Recovery.
“Tag! Queer Shorts Festival has always been about building community, and this year in particular the festival wants to be a place for queer Portland to celebrate our creativity, to spend time in the company of others who value our identities and experiences, and to build solidarity for the next stage in the ongoing struggle for the rights of our entire community,” Juan A. Trujillo, Tag!’s festival director, tells WW via email.
As a self-proclaimed act of defiance, Tag! strives to boost camaraderie and creativity within Portland’s LGBTQ+ community in a daunting social and political climate.
“Within hours of taking office, the current administration attempted to legally erase entire swaths of the LGBTQIA+ community by executive order,” Trujillo said. “This festival is a public affirmation of existence in the face of attempted erasure by the political right. The films and the act of gathering to see them together are proof that we are here; they are an assertion of our fundamental humanity and a reassurance that we are not alone—that we have community and we have a long history of organizing against unjust systems that will see us through this crisis.”
Short films ranging from a mix of animation, music video, narrative fiction and documentary will show in four time slot categories: Emergence, Local Action, ¡Presentes! and Connect. The following titles stand out among them as intimate glimpses of humor, vulnerability and tenacity as imagined by their queer creators.
Emergence
Object(s) of Desire (dir. Liberty Antonia Sadler, U.K., 2024) pulls back the curtain of XXL homoerotica and embraces each performer’s individual body and sexuality. Ghosted (dir. Ben Hirschhorn, U.S., 2024) is an American silent horror comedy in which a fake ghost falls in love with a real one. Queer Crush: Places (dir. Margaret Grant, U.S., 2024), which also showed at the Oregon Short Film Festival, asks if an arm wrestling match will win over a crush in ‘70s book illustration pastiche. Therapist Crush (dir. MJ Kaufman, U.S., 2024) centers on transmasculine protagonist Frankie’s romantic fascination with his counselor. 3 pm Saturday, April 5.
Local Action
Cowboy Boots (dir. Eric K. Delehoy, U.S., 2024) tells the tale of a gay cowboy from Nebraska visiting his first San Francisco gay club. Queen (dir. Kai Nealis, U.S., 2024) shows a teenager trying to understand their father’s ideology in a rural trailer park surrounded by a small town and its social roadblocks. The One of the Girl (dir. Lucas Salem-Rojo, U.S., 2024) is based on a true story in which a newly out nonbinary person comes to terms with their situationship. Bindweed (dir. Juliette Leach, Canada, 2025), a short featuring whimsical puppets that centers themes of self-care and mental health support in an overwhelming world, won the inaugural Quest Center Award for Resilience in Recovery. 7 pm Saturday, April 5.
¡Presentes!
Trujillo believes excitement galvanized by Milagro’s partnership helped Tag! receive enough strong submissions to build an entire program block highlighting Hispane/Latine creativity. The Milagro Award winner Eu não sei se vou ter que falar tudo de novo (I Don’t Know if I’ll Have to Say Everything Again) (dir. Vitória Fallavena, Brazil, 2024), a heartfelt short about a gay man confronting his aging mother’s declining memory, screens alongside the Tag! Festival Director’s Award winner, Viejito/Enfermito/Grito (dir. Dolissa Medina, U.S., 2023), a performance-based film that uses traditional Mexican Indigenous folk dance to explore the histories of people living with HIV/AIDS. Medina will appear to accept her award in person. The rest of the ¡Presentes! program offers a collection of experimental work and polished narrative from Chile, the United States, Brazil and Spain. 3 pm Sunday, April 6.
Connect
Trans Heaven, Pennsylvania (dir. Hansen Bursic, U.S., 2024) is a documentary interview about a Pennsylvanian town, New Hope, where gay men found refuge in the 1970s and ‘80s that is now embracing transgender women as a new generation of queer refugees. I Know Him So Well (dir. Chance Calloway, U.S., 2022) is an animated musical featuring mermen’s chronicle of teenage adoration. Orgy Every Other Day (dir. Samuel Döring, Germany, 2024) mixes documentary and animation to examine the intricacies of NSFW consensual play and boundaries. 7 pm Sunday, April 6.
SEE IT: Tag! Queer Shorts Festival at Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-493-1128, hollywoodtheatre.org.3 and 7 pm Saturday–Sunday, April 5–6. $12 per category, $40–$45 full festival pass.