CHICAGO — A local staple for more than four decades, this year Reeling, Chicago’s LGBTQ+ international film festival, has scored a possible Oscar contender for its opening night film.

An epic inspired by an unfinished work by the Spanish playwright and poet Federico García Lorca, “La Bola Negra” (“The Black Ball”) premiered at Cannes in the spring, where it won the best director award before Netflix picked it up. The film opens in theaters Oct. 16, but audiences can get an early look courtesy of Reeling on Sept. 17 at the Music Box Theatre.

“We’re so excited to have it,” said Brenda Webb, Reeling founder and executive director. “It’s taken a long time to get to a place where our film festival, and others like ours, are given an opportunity to show a film like ‘La Bola Negra.’ This does not happen, that we get films of this stature, because most studios ignore gay and lesbian film festivals. We might be invited to a preview screening, but that’s like going on a date and they take you to an out-of-the-way restaurant where nobody will know you, whereas this feels like we’re being invited to meet the parents. It’s very legitimizing and Netflix deserves a lot of credit.”

According to Webb, each year she and her fellow programmers do seek out big, prestigious films. Rarely do they get a response to their inquiries. Is it because queer film festivals are considered too niche? “Yes, I think that may be what’s going on,” said Webb. That is why it’s “remarkable that Netflix is rolling out this film in the United States at gay and lesbian film festivals. It feels like a strategic and cultural choice.

“I was just reading an interview with the co-directors of the film and the headline was: ‘We deserve to have big movies too.’ They were talking about the fact that, so often, LGBT stories are considered niche and small and independent — and those are the kinds of films we show at the festival and we love them and we’re proud of them — but the directors wanted to make a big movie with gay actors portraying gay characters in an epic film.”

Set in Spain, the story has intertwining timelines spanning the 1930s through 2017 and is based on the aforementioned four-page play fragment by Lorca. In it, a “queer character from an upper-class family is trying to gain entry into an elite club and is denied because of rumors that he is queer,” said Webb. “That’s where the title comes from. There used to be a practice of secret votes where ‘yes’ was a white ball and ‘no’ was a black ball, so when there were more black than white, you were blackballed. That’s one of the three stories.”

That takes place in 1932.

Another narrative thread takes place in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. “A soldier is fighting for Franco’s Nationalists and he falls in love with a soldier from the other side, who is based on a real person who was a lover of Lorca’s. So it’s about these two people on opposite sides of the war and the love that they have for each other.”

A third segment picks up in 2017. “A gay playwright gets this mysterious inheritance and it turns out it’s this four-page story ‘La Bola Negra.’ But really,” said Webb, “the film is about how much was lost, in terms of culture, through fascism and the suppression of gay stories.”

Glenn Close and Penélope Cruz have small supporting roles.

The festival runs Sept. 17-27 with most screenings at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema in Lakeview. Other screenings will take place at the headquarters for Chicago Filmmakers in Edgewater.

Webb highlighted a few more titles on the lineup:

“Test”

An amateur bodybuilder in rural Ohio attempts to go pro and becomes involved with his new coach and manager. “It was written by a bodybuilder who also stars in the film, Brock Yurich, and it feels like a very personal and raw story.” (Sept. 19)

“Caity”

The debut feature from filmmaker Lindsay Calleran, who Webb says is a talent to watch. “The film takes place on a haunted house farm in October. Just the setting is fascinating. A teenage girl lives there with her dad, who is played by Morgan Spector of 'The Gilded Age,' and he’s struggling with addiction. So she has to step up and run things and she has a crush on one of the girls that they hire. But it’s such a fun film because you get to see the behind-the-scenes of setting up a haunted house, it’s very droll.” (Sept. 22)

“Loves Company”

Rachel Dratch stars in this queer twist on Stephen King’s “Misery.” According to Webb, “Dratch is the kidnapper who is a big fan of a fallen TV star whose celebrity is waning, and he decides that he’s going to go along with it to boost his career. It’s a dark comedy.” (Sept 20)

“A Free Man”

A documentary about the Spanish writer Agustín Gómez Arcos. “He lived in Franco’s Spain and became an exile because his plays were too transgressive and radical as queer work. So he went to France and ended up becoming a famous French author, but is just now being rediscovered in Spain. This ties in with ‘La Bola Negra’ and the cultural loss as a result of fascism, when your best artists have to leave, or they’re suppressed, or in the case of Lorca, literally murdered for being gay.” (Sept. 22)

“Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders”

A documentary about the controversial making of William Friedkin’s 1980 erotic thriller “Cruising” starring Al Pacino. “It actually shows the power of the gay community because, when you watch the documentary, you realize it’s kind of amazing that ‘Cruising’ even got made. There was such a grassroots queer movement against this film because people were concerned that it was exploitative and negative because it was about a queer serial killer and this would reinforce unfairly negative stereotypes. So they didn’t want to see the film get made and literally shut down the set at certain points.” Though the film is polarizing, “one thing that is valuable about ‘Cruising’ is that it does document this leather scene in New York that was then decimated post-AIDS, so it has historical value in that regard.” (Sept. 23)

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If you go

Reeling: The 44th Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival runs Sept. 17-27 at Music Box Theater (3733 N. Southport Ave.), Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema (2828 N. Clark St.) and Chicago Filmmakers (1326 W. Hollywood Ave.); tickets and more information at reelingfilmfest.org

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