Boston brings LGBTQ representation to the big screen at 2023 Tribeca Festival

This week in New York City, movie theaters were a more than a metaphorical escape as wildfire smoke from Canada decended on the city.

GBH arts and culture reporter James Bennett II was among those who sought refuge in a theater at the Tribeca Film Festival, looking specifically for films with Boston ties out of more than a hundred films that the festival will show by next Sunday. He joined GBH’s Morning Edition co-host Jeremy Siegel to talk about two of those movies.

“Playland”

Viewers may come into “Playland” expecting a documentary, Bennett said. But the film is more than that.

“‘Playland’ is a new project from artist Georden West, who is faculty at Emerson,” Bennett said. “And in their words, their art deals with, quote, ‘duration’ — the relationship between queerness and temporality. And I think that is a beautiful way to describe this film.”

Playland Café was a gay bar on Boston’s Essex Street, open from 1937 to 1998. West heard a mention of it while doing research, but initially could not find much information about the space apart from a handful of newspaper clippings.

“I went into [‘Playland’] expecting to call it a documentary,” Bennett said. “I guess maybe you could call it that, insofar as it does pull factual, archival journalistic footage and sound to kind of give this whole project some structure and framing. But if you’re expecting a narrative film, you’re not going to get it.”

Instead, viewers get a tribute to Playland Café told through archival footage and actors like Danielle Cooper and The Lady Bunny.

“What you get are these striking visuals of the ghosts of Playland past, while you have these voices of people involved in the queer joy of Boston, the fight for liberation in Boston,” Bennett said.

“Chasing Chasing Amy”

“Chasing Amy,” the 1997 Kevin Smith movie in which Ben Affleck’s character, Holden McNeil, falls in love with a lesbian — Alyssa Jones, played by Joey Lauren Adams. The new “Chasing Chasing Amy” takes a look at the movie’s complicated legacy.

The original “Chasing Amy” “kind of perpetuated this myth of a [lesbian] woman is waiting for the right man,” Bennett said. “It's like, oh, you can be like, ‘Saved.’”

But director Sav Rodgers grew up loving “Chasing Amy,” and even gave a TED Talk about it called “The rom-com that saved my life.” It was the first time Rodgers saw queer characters being fully formed, good people on screen, Bennett said.

In short: It’s complicated.

The new film “really examines that relationship between a piece of art existing and it being meaningful to you, while also reconciling how your own community views it now,” Bennett said.

“Chasing Chasing Amy” ultimate offers a lesson about the power of art.

“Art and the impact that it has for an audience cuts both ways,” Bennett said. “There's a responsibility of the artist making something to listen and be present, but also, art-making isn’t frivolous. ... This impacts people’s lives, and it can impact them in a profound and beautiful and deep way.”