“With a gritty survival adventure about friendship between two charming gender outlaws, this 20th-anniversary screening cements this groundbreaking film’s place in queer cinema history.” - Jude Dry and Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire
“Giving a key performance of early twenty-first century American film, Dodge pinballs between joyous abandon and heartbreaking vulnerability, a bebop riff searching for its elusive home chord.” - Barlo Perry, Paris LA
"Raw-edged and not afraid of hard, ugly stuff that hits you when you come out of a small town looking like a boy and liking girls, but with a poetic sharpness in there too, something to lift up trouble and let it rain down sweet." - San Francisco Bay Guardian
Opens June 26 | Groundbreaking when it was made and still fiercely innovative today, BY HOOK OR BY CROOK is a trans and butch buddy film that chronicles three weeks in the life of Shy, a handsome, gender-bending, small town dreamer with a nagging messiah complex. Emotionally defeated after the death of his father, Shy heads to the big city to sink himself into a "life of crime." He is quickly distracted by Valentine, a deliriously expressive, wise-acre adoptee on a misguided search for her birth mother. The two freaky grifters join forces and learn the true meaning of "poise under pressure" in this visually stunning and wonderfully acted, anti-authoritarian tale of friendship, trust and redemption. Siskel Film Center exclusive.
Awards & Nominations
2001 LA Outfest - Audience Award, Outstanding Narrative Feature and Grand Jury Award: Outstanding Screenwriting
2002 Sundance Film Festival - Official Selection
2002 SXSW Film Festival - Official Selection
2002 Pink Film day, Amsterdam - Official Selection
The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu