Outfest LA Closing Night Gala: They/Them

Outfest Los Angeles Presents

Closing Night Gala: They/Them

5:30PM Doors | 7PM Show

When a busload of queer and trans teens arrive in the deep woods at Whistler Camp — a conversion therapy camp with a mission statement to restore young people to a “gender normative lifestyle” — they see right through the counselors’ ingratiating attempts to set everyone at ease. Led by the iron-willed pair of Jordan (Theo Germaine) and Alexandria (Quei Tann), the campers band together to resist the psychological warfare wrought by short-tempered counselors and a perma-smiled therapist (Carrie Preston). But what about the masked, knife-wielding intruder lurking just outside their cabins?

This film from Academy Award-nominated screenwriter turned first-time director John Logan (Hugo, The Aviator, Skyfall) and horror connoisseurs Blumhouse Productions, They/Them represents a game-changer for the genre. Where queer characters and themes were once coded, assumed, or outright villainized, here is a story where our community are the heroes and avengers, combating both the horrors wrought by so-called conversion therapy, and the lurking, creepy dangers that make this genre such a thrill. There could not be a more perfectly timed, empowering rebuke to the idea that we can be wished, willed, or legislated out of existence.