A while ago, we highlighted the relatively new film club/ cinephile-friendly streaming service, Galerie. This is a service, unlike Netflix, Prime Video, and the rest, that is all about acclaimed filmmakers curating lists of films. Launched by Indian Paintbrush, what sets Galerie apart from streaming services alluded to above is that this is a destination to find curated lists of collections crated by esteemed filmmakers and industry folk. So, each month, you’re getting only the very best films. And for Pride month, they have LGBTQ+ filmmaker Kimberly Peirce, who has cultivated a hell of a list.
Peirce really exploded on the scene thanks to her feature directorial debut, “Boys Don’t Cry.” That film earned an Oscar for Best Actress for its lead, Hilary Swank. She then followed it up with the underrated “Stop-Loss” and the horror remake, “Carrie.” When compiling her cultivated Galerie list, the filmmaker was really only interested in films that met a specific criteria.
“What I really yearn for is a story where I fall in love with the characters,” Peirce explained. “I love when they bring something out in one another that deepens their soul.”
Here’s an excerpt from Peirce’s written statement about director Federico Fellini’s surreal masterpiece “8 ½” from 1963, one of her June Galerie picks.
“When I was younger, movies were such an escape for me. The movies had a coherent structure, which was good because there was no coherent structure with me growing up. I came from a really challenged background. My parents were young; they were lower middle class, but they both were very beautiful. My mom went off and dated a lot of very rich men in Morocco, and I didn’t see her for years at a time. My father ended up down in Miami, and he was a big builder until he got a lot of money from the Mafia and they wanted it back. So he had to run drugs in and out of Colombia with his seaplane. All to say that, for me, life was just bigger than life. I think in many ways the movies were my organic unity.”
In honor of Peirce’s list of Galerie films arriving this month, we’re thrilled to give our readers an exclusive look at a clip of the filmmaker discussing her most recognizable work, “Boys Don’t Cry.”
You can see her full list of curated films here and watch her thoughts on making “Boys Don’t Cry” and directing some of her first sex scenes in a video below.
A Place in the Sun, dir. George Stevens, 1951
Some Like It Hot, dir. Billy Wilder, 1959
Jules and Jim, dir. François Truffaut, 1962
8½, dir. Federico Fellini, 1963
Badlands, dir. Terrence Malick, 1973
Chinatown, dir. Roman Polanski, 1974
Annie Hall, dir. Woody Allen, 1977
Coming Home, dir. Hal Ashby, 1978
Mala Noche, dir. Gus Van Sant, 1986
Happy Together, dir. Wong Kar-wai, 1997
Y tu mamá también, dir. Alfonso Cuarón, 2001
Images of Kimberly Peirce courtesy of Galerie.