Frameline50: Macho Dancer

Small town hustler Pol (Allan Paule) moves to big city Manila to find a new living performing in male strip shows, only to be thrust into the shadowy underworld of sexual exploitation that lies just beneath the glitz and glitter (and soap suds).

Famously heavily censored by the Filipino government for its homosexual content, filmmaker Lino Brocka had to personally smuggle his personal print out of the country so that its uncut version could be saved and seen by audiences around the world. Macho Dancer is a seminal work of Filipino queer cinema that set the stage for a long line of soapy male stripper dramas by filmmakers like Mel Chionglo (whose own male dancer trilogy of Midnight Dancers, Burlesk King, and Twilight Dancers were Festival hits). Though this is the first time that Macho Dancer will be screening at Frameline (in a gorgeous, brand new 4K restoration from Kani Releasing and Carlotta Films), the film has a long history with San Francisco: its 1989 North American premiere run at the Strand launched the iconic Strand Releasing.