From Hunter Schafer’s new film to stories of drag performers in Athens, there is something for everyone at this year’s independent film celebration
BY RAI POWELL, IMAGES PROVIDED BY RAINDANCE
Since 1993 Raindance has been bringing the brightest and best independent film to London. From 19—28 June you can bask in the radiance of summer with a programme of relevant, radical, and glorious premieres. By a wonderful twist of fate, not only will the Raindance 2024 be held during Pride Month, but the festival this year will be bookended by two feature films that star prominent trans women. Come and celebrate the best in independent film from around the world.
Cuckoo
The festival opens on 19 June with the UK Premiere of Tilman Singer’s horror-thriller Cuckoo, starring Hunter Schafer as a 17-year-old girl who is forced to leave her American home to live with her father and his new family as they move to a resort in the German Alps. Arriving at their future residence, they are greeted by Mr. König, her father’s boss, who takes an inexplicable interest in Gretchen’s mute half-sister Alma. Something doesn’t seem right in this tranquil vacation paradise. Gretchen is plagued by strange noises and bloody visions until she discovers a shocking secret that also concerns her own family. The film is a bold twist on the final girl trope.
National Anthem
The festival closes on 28 June with the European Premiere of Luke Gilford’s queer rodeo love story National Anthem, which stars Charlie Plummer as a young construction worker who joins a community of queer rodeo performers in New Mexico, each in search of their own version of the American dream. The film co-stars trans actress Eve Lindley and non-binary actor Mason Alexander Park. National Anthem is a film about the radical power of making friends. It creates a blissful pastoral paradise that imparts an important, hopeful view to anyone who feels like an outcast: you are not alone, you just haven’t found your people.
Avant-Drag!
An additional festival highlight is the UK Premiere of the documentary Avant-Drag!, a visually vibrant tale that follows ten drag performers in Athens, finding solace in each other as they rebel against their oppressive reality. Avant-Drag! offers an exhilarating and intimate look at the lives of the performers who deconstruct gender, nationalism, belonging, identity, transphobia and racism. As entertaining as it is thought-provoking, the film challenges societal norms and reshapes perceptions about LGBTQIA culture, proving that being othered never felt so familiar.
Árni
Sensitive and bird-like Árni works as a handyman at a small and dingy travelling circus touring rural areas. He lives like a monk, his days revolving around feeding the animals and doing odd jobs. Having fallen into unrequited love with one of the rugged roustabouts he has hired, Árni is unexpectedly rescued by another outcast: a hauntingly beautiful python with purple and green iridescent scales, more than four metres long, that has been deemed far too big for the menagerie. As Árni begins taming the circus’s new python, the process gradually makes an impact on him.
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