Details:

DESIRE LINES (2024) and BROS BEFORE (2022) with filmmakers Jules Rosskam and Henry Hanson

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The Trans Portraiture film series closes with two recent films that offer joyful explorations of transmasculine desire and identity through acts of archival recovery and erotic imagination.

Jules Rosskam’s DESIRE LINES (2024), winner of the Sundance Special Jury Award, is a narrative-documentary hybrid that animates trans life and love through layers of past and present. The film weaves between a captivating fictional storyline of time travel and self-discovery in the LGBTQ archives and interviews with trans men who speak to the complexities of sexuality in all of its fullness. Ahmad (Aden Hakimi), an Iranian-American trans man researching the history of bathhouses, has a revelation when fellow archival companion Kieran (Theo Germaine) introduces him to the figure of Lou Sullivan, a gay transgender AIDS activist and author whose advocacy changed how we think about the relationship gender identity and sexuality. Ahmad’s transformative encounter with Sullivan’s story mirrors that of director Jules Rosskam, who says that “I genuinely feel like I wouldn’t exist if [Sullivan] didn’t exist.”

Sullivan’s radical life work is a throughline to Henry Hanson’s short BROS BEFORE, which brings Sullivan’s journal “We Both Laughed In Pleasure” (posthumously published in 2019) to the screen as a key symbol in the hands of Hanson’s characters. Influenced by the kaleidoscopic, punk spirit of Gregg Akari and New Queer cinema, as well as the everyday pleasures of buddy hangout comedies, Hanson’s film is the “gay camp/bro comedy starring trans men” that I think we all knew we needed.

Films Screened:

BROS BEFORE (Henry Hanson, 2022, 19 min, digital)
DESIRE LINES (Jules Rosskam, 2024, 83 min, digital) 

Followed by a conversation with filmmakers Jules Rosskam and Henry Hanson in person.

About the guests:

Jules Rosskam is an award-winning filmmaker, educator and interdisciplinary artist. He was named a 2021 Creative Capital Awardee for his new film, Desire Lines, which premiered at Sundance in 2024. The film received the NEXT Jury award at Sundance as well as six additional jury awards at festivals around the world. He is also the director of the award-winning films, Dance, Dance, Evolution (2019), Paternal Rites (2018), Something to Cry About (2018), Thick Relations (2012), against a trans narrative (2009), and transparent (2005). Recent screenings include Anthology Film Archives, Sundance, BFI Flare, Maryland Film Festival, Provincetown International Film Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Out on Screen, and Chicago International Film Festival. Rosskam holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was a university professor for 17 years.

Henry Hanson (they/he) is a filmmaker and programmer based in Chicago. His self-produced, self-distributed directorial debut “Bros Before” screened at dozens of venues internationally while gaining notoriety as an online cult hit, garnering several reviews deeming it “viral” and landing the highest Letterboxd rating of any short film with a 2022 festival premiere. As an independent programmer they partner with a variety of organizations — such as Facets, The Music Box, and Solidarity Cinema — to present fresh, radical, and under-seen cinema with an emphasis on the queer/trans underground. As the Curator & Exhibitions Manager for Full Spectrum Features, their goals are to legitimize short films as a serious art form with viable commercial potential, make media accessible for diverse audiences, and re-imagine equitable compensation structures for filmmakers.

Part of the series: TRANS PORTRAITURE

In March 2025, Block Cinema presents Trans Portraiture, a unique film series that explores early and contemporary representations of transgender lives on screen. At the heart of this series is a collection of rare documentaries from the 1970s and 1980s, rediscovered and preserved by Block Cinema after years of archival neglect. These pioneering short films, often created by student filmmakers and circulated in film festivals, medical schools, and professional conferences, offer some of the earliest empathetic portrayals of trans individuals in media.

The Trans Portraiture series will feature these early works alongside recent films by trans filmmakers, creating a dialogue between past and present perspectives on gender identity. Screenings will include discussions with leading curators, critics, and scholars who specialize in transgender film history, enriching the experience with expert insights and contextual exploration. In collaboration with filmmakers and archives from around the world, Block Cinema is restoring original 16mm materials to bring these films to a wider audience for both viewing and research.

This series is supported by the Alice Kaplan Center for the Humanities, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program, and The Workshop in Trans Studies at Northwestern.

Contact The Block Museum of Art for more information: (847) 491-4000 or email us at block-museum@northwestern.edu