The showing of “By Hook or By Crook,” a ground-breaking film pushing issues like gender-identity and mental illness, left viewers mesmerized Tuesday night.

The three dozen viewers gathered in Jack Arends Hall seemed intensely fascinated, openly sighing and laughing during the film’s two-hour entirety.

The movie, filmed in San Francisco, told a story of two women grappling with social taboos like gender ambiguousness and mental illness. But above the sensitive subject matter within the characters, the film successfully depicted an intense emotional journey of two friends driven by their dreams.

Despite powerful overtones, the crowd enjoyed the movie’s subtle comic punch as well.

The audience seemed to pick up on the film’s impact by staying afterward for roughly an hour-long Q&A.

Co-writers, directors and stars of the film, Silas Howard and Harry Dodge, answered both broad and personal inquiries from the audience about the film and about themselves.

“Overall, we spent about three years working on the film,” Howard said. “It was very effortful.”

Besides winning awards, the film went on to be internationally translated and can now be rented from some video stores.

The film has since been picked up by Wolfe Video and can be ordered on the Web site www.steakhaus.com. The film also can be frequently viewed on the Sundance Channel.

“The process of making the film was very humbling,” Dodge said.

Initially, the movie was merely a dream of the two women on a modest budget.

“We began with about $40,000,” Dodge said.

The movie was the first that either of the two had ever made. Some of the audience members wanted to know how they felt about how the gay community would feel about the film.

They had been nervous about it; they didn’t know how the community would take to the characters, Howard said.

Dodge stressed all they wanted to do was give a voice to a community of people that were largely unnoticed by the typical Hollywood movie.

“We wanted to represent the unrepresented,” Dodge said.

Some audience members asked about the time setting of the film; the year it was intended to take place was somewhat in question. Although it seemed modern in its issues and dialogue, none of the vehicles were over the ’70s era, and much of the furniture and telephones were nostalgic.

“We made a timelessness in the setting deliberately,” Dodge said.

The event closed with final questions and a meet-and-greet with Howard and Dodge.