Showing Saturday, September 27 11:45AM THEATRE TWO Shorts: Palm Springs Cultural Center
By Valerie Milano
Palm Springs, CA (The Hollywood Times) 9/25/25 – In a festival season brimming with premieres, few films stand out as vibrantly as Thanks Babs! a 14-minute documentary short about the indefatigable Babs Daitch. Screening at Cinema Diverse on September 27 at the Palm Springs Cultural Center, the film is equal parts portrait and performance, offering a deeply personal yet joyfully unvarnished look at an octogenarian who refuses to slow down.
I caught up with Babs during a lively interview from her room at the Dunes Hotel, where she was simultaneously attending the festival and promoting the legendary Dinah weekend. “Where is Babs right now?” I asked. With her signature warmth, she replied, “Babs is right now at the Dunes Hotel here in fabulous Palm Springs. I’m trying to re-familiarize myself with Palm Springs, but also the memories of when I was here before, the Palm Springs Film Festival, it’s called Cinema Diverse.”
Click below for our exclusive interview:
Described by the filmmakers as an “optimistic octogenarian in perpetual motion,” Babs lives up to the billing. She laughs about her “legendary” five-year plans, explaining during our interview, “At this stage, I have to conserve my energy so that I can use it when I want to use it. So, I’m still speed-racing through life … everything is in five-year pieces of a big, big pie. I’m not sure if it’s eating me or I’m eating it.”
Originally intended as a three-minute vignette of her life aboard a boat, Thanks Babs! expanded organically as co-directors Rivkah Beth Medow and Jen Rainin began following her through day-to-day moments. “The minute we all started to communicate and talk, it turned into something they knew audiences would want more of,” she said. “And what I want now … is more. More of that.”
The film captures Babs’ playful and reflective sides in equal measure. One highlight is a lap dance she performed for the “41st anniversary of my 39th birthday.” She laughed as she recounted it to me: “My friends know that I loved lap dancing … which is just something I used to do when I was a little younger, but I can still do it. Everything we did was very, very organic. There was no script.”
That sense of authenticity deepens in the film’s visit to the AIDS Memorial Grove, where Babs honors lost friends. “I lost at least 50% of my male friends in the late ’80s and ’90s,” she shared. “Even though physically they’re not here, it doesn’t mean that in my head they’re not there. I wanted to do that because I was living in Vegas, and I hadn’t been to what I call the circle of friends for a long time.”
The documentary ends with the long-awaited maiden voyage of her 40-foot motor cruiser, a moment as comedic as it is triumphant. “A boat isn’t like walking into a location where you have a lot of control,” she told me. “You’ve got tides, you’ve got the wind, you’ve got mechanical stuff. But after all these years, I finally steered the boat into the horizon … actually, it was just a creek,” she laughed. “That orgasm line? I didn’t plan it. It just felt like it to me.”
Beyond the entertainment, Thanks Babs! is a testament to the courage of self-reinvention. When I asked what she hoped younger queer women and non-binary people might take from her story, she answered without hesitation: “Get yourself out of your comfort zone. Take risks. You have to be honest with yourself, to thine own self be true. There’s nothing in yourself to be ashamed of once you choose who you are.”
Babs’ career, spanning work in entertainment, travel, and LGBTQ+ advocacy, exemplifies this ethos. She fondly recalled her years with Olivia Cruises and the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association, calling those experiences “my time when the world was my palette.” Today, she channels that same energy into social media, joking about becoming “a gay granny influencer” on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok under the handle @ThanksBabs.
Even with Portugal and an IGLTA screening on the horizon, Babs is already dreaming of what’s next. “I really would love to do commercials. Maybe even a sequel to this,” she mused. “But above all, I want my health. I can’t do anything unless I keep my health … and as many body parts as I can. I still have all of them except my appendix.”
With Thanks Babs! Rivkah Beth Medow and Jen Rainin have crafted a loving, unscripted portrait of a woman who turns every challenge into an adventure. As Babs herself summed up during our interview, “I did it my way, and I’m going to continue to do it the way I want to do it.”
Thanks Babs! screens September 27 at the Palm Springs Cultural Center as part of Cinema Diverse. Follow Babs’ journey on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at @ThanksBabs.
