Crossing Lines
Films by Raymond Rea
Sunday, Jan. 25th · 2PM

Join us at the Brattle Theatre for a special retrospective screening of works, Crossing Lines, Films by Raymond Rea—filmmaker, writer, and genre-defier. Spanning four decades of experimental moving image, this program features 11 films from 1985 to 2025, showcasing Rea’s signature LoFi aesthetic, theatrical undertones, and a persistent push against cinematic and cultural assumptions.

Rea’s films have screened at renowned festivals and venues across the globe—from Ann Arbor to Frameline, BFI to Outfest—while his writing has been brought to life on stages in San Francisco and Minnesota. Whether grappling with gender, memory, or form itself, Rea’s work is always intimate, layered, and sharply aware.

Walk Out (1982)
2 min, 22 sec, 16mm

For Nelie and Maria (1994)
6 min, 19 sec, 16mm

Third (1996)
8 min, 32 sec, 16mm

Straightboy Lessons (1999)
8 min, 22 sec, 16mm

Wanted (1997)
4 min, 35 sec, 16 mm
16mm prints from Canyon Cinema

HEAR (1991)
4 min, 24 sec, Digital

cat’s cradle (2010)
2 min, 53 sec, Digital

AUGMENTED (2025)
8 min, 27 sec, Digital

13th Ave, Fargo Mine Cart (2022)
2 min, 52 sec, Digital

The Album (2015)
14 min, 36 sec, Digital

Put the Brights On (2021)
17 min, 2 sec, Digital

Total: 72 mins

Brattle Tickets

Post Screening Q&A
with Genevieve Carmel and Raymond Rea

Genevieve Carmel is a writer, filmmaker, film programmer, and arts/culture organizer who grew up in Cambridge, MA. She works as Program Director for the LEF Foundation, a regional funder that supports New England-based nonfiction filmmakers and values artistic risk-taking and experimentation. Previously, Gen co-founded and co-programmed the screening series Crows & Sparrows, she has served on the selection committee for the Revolutions Per Minute Festival(2018-2020), and she has served as a media arts panelist for the Boston Cultural Council and National Endowment for the Arts. Currently, Gen is a member of the AgX Film Collective, an artist-run film lab and all-volunteer collective of 40+ Boston-area artists with an interest in the unique possibilities of photochemical filmmaking.

Walk Out (1982)
2 min, 22 sec, 16mm

a protopunk music video
Production format: 16mm
Selected Screenings and Awards: Ann Arbor Film Festival; She's Leaving Home, Boston, MA

For Nelie and Maria (1994)
6 min, 19 sec, 16mm

For Nelie and Maria is a contact improvisation dance film with original choreography by Wes Staats and an original music score by George Spies. Three women start by playing paper/rocks/scissors and the game expands into an examination of the ability of siblings to use each other in movement and sound.

Third (1996)
8 min, 32 sec, 16mm

Third is an experimental narrative with a second life in its deeply layered soundtrack. Lit for night, and gelled for theatricality, Third looks at a trapped couple and their final release/demise.

"A cross between Chantal Ackerman and Blade Runner" -- Bill Nichols, author of Representing Reality

Straightboy Lessons (1999)
8 min, 22 sec, 16mm

Straightboy Lessons is an experimental documentary that reenacts a conversation, and a friendship, between a transitioning Female to Male transman and a non-transsexual man. To-the-point imagry and the structure of a numbered lesson plan allowed the film to examine gender in an innovative new light.

"Straightboy Lessons is the first film to show that straight male identity is as constructed as any." -- Inside Out, Toronto

Winner: Planet Out National Queer Short Movie Award Best Documentary.

Wanted (1997)
4 min, 35 sec, 16 mm

Wanted is a look at the contrast between gay male and lesbian personal ads. Gender is reversed in the readers, leading towards a comic and confused mix of walks on the beach and sex in public. The film is shot in the straight-on style of a Warhol screen test.

Co-Directed with Krisi Gosney

HEAR (1991)
4 min, 24 sec, Digital

Shot on 16mm, edited on 3/4" Video,4:16 min, tinted B&W:

A triptych contrasting the noise of the street with the forced silence of institutionalization.

cat’s cradle (2010)
2 min, 53 sec, Digital

Cat's Cradle is an experimental animation and a collaboration between filmmaker Raymond Rea of Density Over Duration and sound artist Helena Thompson of Purest Spiritual Pigs. Combining analog 16mm xerox animation and traditional rotoscope with digital visual effects, this raw film/video plots the beauty of a failed attempt.

AUGMENTED (2025)
8 min, 27 sec, Digital

AUGMENTED was sparked through noticing that my massive spinal surgery was labeled medical augmentation, while my Transgender surgeries were named as alignment. I started to dig into the different ways that "going under the knife" is described, and by who, and why. Interviewing close friend and Transmale author Max Valerio was an obvious choice since he has his ear to the ground of what the current debates are about Trans existence on the internet. We are now under bombardment and an effort to erase us and at least part of that is due to our radical and futuristic interfacing with medicine.Shot completely on 16mm.

13th Ave, Fargo Mine Cart (2022)
2 min, 52 sec, Digital

13th Avenue Fargo Mine Cart was made driving down one big box store strip in the Midwest. Only conversation with a friend is redemptive.

Camera and Interview: Raymond Rea & Luke Safely
Edit: Raymond Rea
Sound Design: Purest Spiritual Pigs

Production format: Super 8

The Album (2015)
14 min, 36 sec, Digital

I was given a photo album that had been created by a late Great Uncle, Warren Sturgis, after his death in 1997. Turning the pages I found a document to his Pre-Stonewall New York City and Cherry Grove life. Incorporating a spread of ingredients, from the photos themselves to research in the Manuscripts and Archives Division of the New York Public Library, The Album tells a story about objects from the past, their legacy in the present, and all photography.

Put the Brights On (2021)
17 min, 2 sec, Digital(2015)

Put the Brights On combines 16mm, s8, archival footage, and interviews with four Trans people who choose to live outside the city. Shot and recorded in "Greater Minnesota" but applicable to the nationwide urban/rural divide.

Camera/Sound/Edit: Raymond Rea
Sound Design/Music: Purest Spiritual Pigs

Production format: 16mm, Super 8

Crossing Lines, Films by Raymond Rea

Brattle Tickets

Raymond Rea is a filmmaker and writer*. His work often challenges assumptions, hints at theatricality, and uses a raw LoFi aesthetic to address complexities. Ray's film work has screened widely including the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Light Field (SF), San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival (Frameline), BFI, London; Translations, Seattle; Lost & Found, Amsterdam; Outfest, Los Angeles; Inside Out, Toronto; Mix Mexico; Mix NYC; New Fest, NYC; Out on Screen, Vancouver; Inside Out, Toronto; Reeling, Chicago; Hamburg LGBT Film Festival; Melbourne GLBT Film Festival; Union Docs, Brooklyn, ATA, San Francisco; Flex Fest; and The Nightingale, as well as other national and international venues. His interactive work screened at the Plains Art Museum as part of the ND Human Rights Arts Festival. Ray's writing has been produced at EXIT Stage Left and EXIT Mainstage in San Francisco and at Theatre B in Minnesota.