Gender Role

This month, an innocuous-looking 14-year-old launched the most terrifying YouTube video we've seen since the Jesus Camp movie trailers. In it, the stone-faced teen calls for a Girl Scouts cookie boycott and warns that the organization is pushing a "radical homosexual agenda" because it allowed a 7-year-old transgendered girl into a troop in Colorado. We, on the other hand, suggest investing in a lifetime supply of Thin Mints and Samoas, and heading to Miami Beach Cinematheque to catch French director Céline Sciamma's Tomboy. The coming-of-age film that won accolades at LGBT film festivals around the world tells the story of 10-year-old Laure, who moves to a new suburb and pretends to be Mikael, a boy, around her new friends while acting like a girl at home. She navigates the tricky road toward forging a new identity, encountering tense moments such as having to choose swimming attire that won't give away her secret and traversing a friendship with a girl who falls in love with "Mikael." All the while, it hints at what a tolerant world could look like if little kids didn't grow up to be bigoted adults.
Jan. 27-Feb. 1, 6:30 p.m., 2012