The Cockettes' wildest founder reinvents himself at 70—glitter, chaos, and survival included.
A documentary profile on Rumi Missabu, the iconoclast cofounder of San Francisco's infamous Cockettes. Through archive footage, animation and new interviews with stars from SF's queer art past, his lurid tales in and out of the spotlight are revealed as he reinvents himself at the end of his life.
Production
Animated sequences resurrect lost performances with psychedelic reverence.
Acting
Rumi's own narration—unreliable, magnetic, devastatingly self-aware.
Director
Robert James
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Cockettes briefly owned midnight cinema in 1971 before imploding at their NYC debut—Rumi's absence from that disaster became his origin story.
Director Robert James spent seven years earning Rumi's trust; early footage shows Rumi testing whether James would exploit or witness him.
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