By Hook or By Crook - Co-directors Silas Howard & Harry Dodge

Groundbreaking when it was made and still fiercely innovative today, BY HOOK OR BY CROOK chronicles three weeks in the life of 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 birthmother. 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. BY HOOK OR BY CROOK is a trans-butch queer classic film, groundbreaking when it was made and still fiercely innovative today, and is one of the first successful and critically acclaimed queer indie films shot on Mini-DV. It was an immediate sensation upon its initial screenings at Frameline in 2001 and Sundance in 2002, galvanizing audiences of all stripes with its never-before-seen portrayal of two working-class, trans/butch buddy grifters willfully existing on the margins of society. The film has been digitally restored in 4K by the Academy Film Archive and UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with Frameline, Outfest, Steakhaus Productions, Inc., and the Sundance Institute. The film was remastered using the latest technology with improved color correction to achieve the filmmakers' original cinematic vision. BY HOOK OR BY COOK had an acclaimed World Premiere 4K Restoration Screening in 2024 at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles, and this release marks the newly restored film’s availability for audiences throughout the U.S. joining us to talk about the restoration and the high regard that By Hook or By Crook is held, 25 years since its release are the co-directors, co-writers, co-producers and co-lead actors, Howard Silas and Harry Dodge.