Groundbreaking when it was made and still fiercely innovative today, BY HOOK OR BY CROOK is a trans and butch buddy film that chronicles three weeks in the life of Shy, 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 birth mother. 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.