Baloney

Baloney follows San Francisco's wildly popular "Gay All-Male Burlesque Show" over 18 months as the group rehearses for their infamous New Year's Eve performance. Told through the eyes of the group's co-founders, as well as the larger ensemble, the film contemplates the struggles that come with being a performing artist in San Francisco, the most expensive city in North America. Through a mix of interviews, rehearsal footage and filmed performances, Baloney captures the group's unique combination of humor, confession and sex positivity in ways that directly reflect the private fantasies of people who come to the show. It's also a story of the people who choose to perform in the ensemble who, like their audience, find themselves in a world that constantly silences kinky, queer and gender non-conforming people. Finally, it spotlights that real failure is often not doing that thing you know you need to do - or being the person you know you need to be (even if that thing is daring to be an artist).