Hibiscus
2021
Ruminations
Robert James
Rumi Missabu, Cindy Williams
A documentary profile on Rumi Missabu, the iconoclast cofounder of San Francisco's infamous Cockettes. Through archive footage, animation and new interviews with stars from SF's queer art past, his lurid tales in and out of the spotlight are revealed as he reinvents himself at the end of his life.
Ruminations
Elevator Girls in Bondage
Michael Kalmen
Kreemah Ritz, Michael Bendle
ELEVATOR GIRLS IN BONDAGE ups the ante by taking on not just the Republicans but the entire capitalist system and its oppression of the working class. The underpaid staff of a seedy hotel rises up in revolt, and by the time head elevator girl Maxine (the fabulous Rumi) starts spouting a surreal mix of folk songs and Marxist maxims, followed by an uproariously explicit sex scene, you’ll be ready to join the cause. Rarely has the dissection of economic exploitation been so silly, or so much fun to watch.
Elevator Girls in Bondage
Pickup's Tricks
Gregory Pickup
Allen Ginsberg, Hibiscus
Pickup's Tricks is a beat documentary of Hibiscus and the Cockettes, who were pioneers of San Francisco’s underground queer theater in the early '70s. It is a multifarious blend of sexual anarchy; a raucous and unscripted mix of liberation and elation as rough and spirited as the lifestyle that created it. The film profiles Hibiscus, founding member of the Cockettes, the psychedelic drag queens that performed midnight musicals at the Palace Theater in San Francisco. The film includes a rare screen appearance of Allen Ginsberg, clean-shaven and costumed in "acute drag" as a Yiddishe Mama with a painted-on third eye. (pickupstricks.com)
Pickup's Tricks
