RELEASE DATE: Monday, Aug 04, 2025

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Recently named by The Guardian as one of the 25 best queer films of the 21st century, Jenni Olson’s The Royal Road (2015) offers up a primer on Junipero Serra's Spanish colonization of California and the Mexican American War alongside intimate reflections on nostalgia, the pursuit of unavailable women, butch identity and Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo — all against a contemplative backdrop of 16mm urban California landscapes, and featuring a voiceover cameo by Tony Kushner. This bold cinematic essay from acclaimed queer filmmaker Jenni Olson combines rigorous historical research with lyrically written personal monologue and relates these seemingly disparate stories from an intimate, colloquial perspective to tell a one-of-a-kind California tale. Preceded by Lenn Keller’s beautiful 1993 short, Ife’ — as the suave Black French lesbian Ife’ cruises the streets of San Francisco, she philosophically notes: “You can never experience too many women.” With Jenni Olson in attendance!