"Back in June of 2001, at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco, a micro-budget indie called By Hook Or By Crook made its debut, a "trans/butch buddy movie" that was charmingly low-key yet quietly radical."
"So when By Hook Or By Crook premiered, it felt like something wholly original, a gritty transmission from the margins of society that, to its very core, operated beyond definitions of genre or gender and created a cinematic language all its own. Twenty-five years later, its lens on queer friendship still feels as fresh and vital as ever."
"Co-directed, co-written (alongside Stanya Kahn), and starring Silas Howard & Harry Dodge, By Hook Or By Crook is the story of an unlikely pair who become partners in crime. Trans-masc Shy (Howard) is an aimless, small-town dreamer who decides to leave his Kansas home after his father's passing, heading to San Francisco resigned to a life of crime as his only means of survival."
"When he meets smooth-talking smart aleck Valentine (Dodge)-a self-described "butch dyke" on a journey of her own to find her mother-the two hit it off, having found a kindred spirit in one another. Once Val's girlfriend Billie (Kahn) is in the mix, the trio begin carrying out some harmless, low-level grift that get them into more trouble than they bargained for, but all in"
A micro-budget LGBTQ+ film premiered in San Francisco in 2001 as a trans/butch buddy movie with a low-key but radical tone. The timing reflected a shift in queer representation, when independent LGBTQ+ audiences were growing through new distribution while mainstream acclaim for queer stories was still emerging. The film centers on Shy, a trans-masc dreamer from Kansas who leaves after his father’s death and heads to San Francisco to survive through crime. He meets Valentine, a smooth-talking butch dyke searching for her mother. Their connection leads to a partnership in crime that expands once Billie enters, turning small grifts into escalating trouble.
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