Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution

HYENAZ composed the original score for this Yony Leyser documentary about the emergence of the Queercore scene and the attendant history of queer and feminist music.

What happens when the community you need is not the community you have? Tell yourself it exists over and over, make fan zines that fabricate hordes of queer punk revolutionaries, create subversive movies, and distribute those movies widely—and slowly, the community you’ve fabricated might become a real and radical heartbeat that spreads internationally. This is the story that Queercore tells, from the start of a pseudo-movement in the mid-1980s, intended to punk the punk scene, to the widespread rise of artists who used radical queer identity to push back equally against gay assimilation and homophobic punk culture.
Interviewees discuss homophobia, gender, feminism, AIDS, assimilation, sex, and, of course, art. The extensive participant list includes Bruce LaBruce, G.B. Jones, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, John Waters, Justin Vivian Bond, Lynn Breedlove, Silas Howard, Pansy Division, Penny Arcade, Kathleen Hanna, Kim Gordon, Deke Elash, Tom Jennings, Team Dresch, and many more.
Underscoring the interviews are clips from movies, zines, concerts, and actions iconic to the movement. As steeped in the radical queer, anti-capitalist, DIY, and give-no-fucks approach as queercore itself, the movie reveals the perspectives and experiences of bands, moviemakers, writers, and other outsiders, taking audiences inside the creation of the community—and art—so desperately needed by the same queers it encompassed.

FESTIVALS/AWARDS

* Felix Award for Best Documentary – Rio International Film Festival
* Audience Award SOUNDWATCH Berlin Music Film Festival
* Audience Award homochrom Cologne LGBT,
* Best Queer Documentary – Melinka Festival in Serbia

Queercore: How To Punk A Revolution (2017)
Totho Films / ARTE
Teaser: http://vimeo.com/221229029
Screenings:
World Premiere (June 12 Sheffield Doc/Fest): http://sheffdocfest.com/films/6306
US Premiere (Frameline SF Jun 17) http://www.frameline.org/festival/film-guide/queercore-how-to-punk-a-revolution
LA Premiere (Outfest July 15 Redcat): https://www.facebook.com/events/645169192344933/
and many more to come
World Sales / Festival Booking CAT&Docs: http://www.catndocs.com/index.php/categories/cinema/890-queercore-how-to-punk-a-revolution