THE COCKETTES

It is the end of a decade, New Year’s Eve 1969. At the Palace Theater in San Francisco’s North Beach, a ragtag bunch of hippies take the stage. Kicking up their heels to a Rolling Stones song, they wow the crowd with their mix of flamboyant garb, nudity, and gender ambiguity. During the next three years, the Cockettes create 20 shows and are featured in four films. When Rex Reed writes a glowing review calling their performance «a landmark in the history of new, liberated theater», the Cockettes become national media darlings and are off to the Big Apple. The film begins with the star-studded New York opening night, then jumps back in time to experience firsthand the energy of these escapees from middle-class America. The directors have put together amazing archival footage and linked it with interviews with those still living to capture not just a history of the Cockettes, but their essence.