This 35th Edition of the
San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival (June 16th through
the 26th at the Castro, the Roxie and Victoria theatres in the city,
with selected programs playing at the Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley) has
an ambitious array of over two hundred films from thirty countries. This year
the festival is putting special emphasis on a collection of narrative features,
docs and short films dealing with transgender issues and communities, kicking
off with a truly awesome opening night curtain raiser Gun Hill Road. This
year’s Frameline Award will be presented to comedienne Margaret Cho prior to
the screening of her latest comedy concert, Cho Dependent, Sunday, June
19th 6:30pm at the Castro. There will be special programs and
panels devoted to Transgender Images in Cinema (Victoria/6-19); Frameline:
the Early Years (Main Library/6-23) as well as a conversation with the makers of
the Sundance acclaimed Pariah, about the life of a black lesbian teen in
Brooklyn (Victoria/6-18) discussing the film’s commercial debut this summer.
Features:
Gun Hill Road: There’s an eruption of convict on
convict violence in the opening minutes of this extraordinary queer youth
melodrama that stays with you all through the tale of a female identified transgendered
teen whose life is thrown into turmoil upon the release from prison of his
fiercely macho daddy. We observe an inmate stabbing another prisoner before
he’s hauled away by the guards and tossed into solitary. The next time we see
Enrique Michael Rodriguez (a ferocious turn from Esai Morales) he’s headed for
his family’s apartment in the heart of a sprawling Puerto Rican ghetto, three
stops from the end of number 5 line in the Bronx. Despite his time away Enrique
expects to step right back into his patriarchal role, as husband and “Pappi” to
a brood that includes a beautiful teenage boy, Michael (awesome newcomer
Harmony Santana),
and a hardworking wife.
Michael has turned sixteen and is,
unbeknownst to Enrique, calling himself Vanessa, using the girl’s bathroom at
school, starting female hormones and performing a daring series of poetry raps.
It is a tribute to director
Rashaad Ernesto Green that the tension that he establishes
in act one never lets up – we realize that Enrique is a human volcano who will
not brook his namesake turning into daddy’s little girl. Michael/Vanessa only
nominally acknowledges Enrique’s return, spurning his offer of Yankee tickets
and keeping his pop from seeing how he dresses at school and on his frisky
dates with an aspiring artist.
Two moments standout: the scene
where Enrique cuts Vanessa’s beautiful hair – a beat comparable to the rape of Brandon
in Boys Don’t Cry -- and sequences where Vanessa tries in vain to
negotiate a sexual relationship of respect and equality with a lover who treats
her as trade.
Gun Hill Road will have you
tense right to end, worrying about the fate of a beautiful teen forever
awaiting a tsunami of macho violence.
(Castro/Opening Night/6-16)
Romeos: A German film that matches Gun Hill Road in
its honesty and raw portrayal of how hard it is for a young person to switch
genders is director Sabine Bernardi’s frisky comedy about the travails of a FTM
named Lukas (the spunky Rick Okon) who has the bad luck of landing in the
female dorm of a government run community service program. Desperate to live
among the boys – especially macho hottie Fabio (Maximilian Befort) – Lukas
makes a terrific nuisance of himself in his campaign to get a male dorm room.
There are a series of slapstick moments where Lukas manages to keep his cover
even when pushed into the swimming pool by a group of rowdy lads. There’s
poignancy in Lukas’ late night internet chats in English with FTM comrades in
transition and finally there’s a growing doubt that Lukas will finally earn his
new body without losing his mind and all his old friends. (Castro/6-21)
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Weekend: Fans of P.J. Castellaneta’s classic claustrophobic
chamber piece Together Alone will appreciate Andrew Haigh’s
imaginative update as two British lads of totally opposite temperaments and
politics find themselves going steady over a couple of bumpy nights. The
emotionally closeted Russell and the pranky Glen (“I don’t do boyfriends”) hit
it off at a dance club and through a series of quirky breaks find themselves
getting naked in more than just a one off physical way. Their time together has
an automatic expiration date since Glen is soon to leave for a two year stretch
in the States. At first we watch amused as the two slug it out on queer hot
button topics between bouts of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. Gradually we start
rooting for this queer Before Sunrise couple to find a lasting bond.
Showcase Feature (Castro/6-17)
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August: Eldar Rapaport’s ennui laced tale of an LA
couple whose union is threatened by the sudden reappearance of an old flame is
not for all tastes, but if you’re patient with its very slow rhythms it has a
lot to say on the subject of letting go. (Castro/6-18)
The Green: This ripped from the headlines feeling
melodrama reveals a gay couple finding anything but paradise in a snooty New
England village.
Michael (the sexy, taciturn Jason Butler Harner) is the butt
of irrational paranoia when a teen at the private school where he teaches goes
missing after charges that Michael was improperly involved with the boy. The
legal flap threatens not only Michael’s freedom but puts a severe strain on his
15-year relationship with Daniel (Cheyenne Jackson). Director Steven Williford’s
setup is more believable than its resolution but there is a great supporting
cast: especially Michael’s canny lesbian lawyer (Julia Ormond). (Castro/6-17)
Private Romeo: Fans of Alan Brown’s small but terrific
body of work – the Matthew Shepard inspired O Beautiful and the Greg
Smith vehicle Book of Love – should be thrilled to learn that Brown’s
latest piece, an all-boy update on Romeo and Juliet, is his best yet. Set in a
male military academy the play commences as a classroom exercise but soon the
boys are living out the star-crossed lover roles, complete with luscious
physical moments. The production is enhanced by a terrific cast of Shakespeare
trained young actors. (Castro/6-20)
Absent: Even a very careful viewing of Argentine
director Marco Berger’s creepy, suspenseful stalker tale left me puzzled about
just what actually transpires between a fiendishly clever sixteen-year-old
swimmer and his high school coach. (Castro/6-19)
Kawa: New Zealand director Katie Wolfe makes full use
of her country’s gorgeous setting to grab our attention concerning a Maori
family man’s struggle to keep his world from imploding once his family
discovers he’s gay. The filmmaker draws on this little known outside of New Zealand
minority’s complex tribal history to create empathy for a man who literally
risks everything.
(Castro/6-21)
The Night Watch: UK director Richard Laxton provides
a lively history of the collateral damage arising from the WWII Nazi bombing of
London, with an emphasis on its peculiar impact on the capitol’s
burgeoning queer minority. Among the casualties as the film opens are a lesbian
ambulance worker who remains emotionally stuck back in a time of peril but also
great promise and a British teen who’s imprisoned for allegedly assisting in
the suicide of his next door neighbor boyfriend. (Castro/6-17)
Bumblefuck USA: Aaron Douglas Johnston turns
to the mumblecore film school to hook us into a love story between a fiercely
independent lesbian bartender/artist and a visiting Dutch doc maker
investigating the suicide by revolver death of a young gay friend. The film
takes it sweet time to suggest links between the queer oral histories Alex
(co-writer Cat Smits) is collecting for her film, her friend Matt’s death and
the rather brutish mores of the local male folk. This one succeeds on the
opposites attract chemistry between Smits and Heidi M. Sallows’ convincing turn
as a sadder but wiser country gal. (Victoria/6-17)
Judas Kiss: J.T. Tepnapa borrows the central conceit
from Back to the Future, the cosmetics from squeaky clean white boy gay
porn, the overly earnest acting from Dawson’s Creek with a Frank
Capra-corn worthy message to deliver a queer time travel comedy – whenever
inspiration fails Tepnapa has his comely cast interrupt their speeches with
long lovely kisses.
The hero, Zack Wells, is a failed
prodigy film- maker who fifteen years out of school survives through the
graces of a successful boyfriend. Given a chance to go back in time and correct
his misspent youth Wells proceeds to both sleep with his younger self and keep
the lad from stumbling down the same stupid path. Definitely one of the
festival’s guilty pleasures, I found myself smiling through some wildly
implausible plot points. (Victoria/6-19)
Christopher and His Kind: This nimble BBC produced
queer boy true life adventure opens with a handsome young writer trading the
suffocating suburban English domestic tyranny of his widowed mum for Gotterdammerung:
the giddy, irresponsible caprice of pursuing straight boy trade in the dying
days of Weimar Germany. The made for TV film opens on a starry-eyed fugitive:
the boyishly handsome Christopher Isherwood (Matt Smith/Britain’s youngest ever
Doctor Who) – having rejected mommy’s plan for his life (by dropping out
of Cambridge) is speeding off to join his erstwhile boyfriend and
co-conspirator, the poet Auden for an assault on the boy bar precincts of
Berlin. Wystan (Pip Carter) is the one person who sees through Isherwood’s
protestations of political ideals. “The only cause you care about Christopher
is yourself. You’ve turned it into an art form.”
Briskly directed by Geoffrey Sax
from a meticulously researched script by Kevin Elyot that is a miraculous
funny/sad synopsis of perhaps the best warts and all memoir composed by a queer
man in the 20th Century, Christopher and His Kind dispenses
with the half-truths and commercially motivated heterosexist myth making that
have previously enveloped the screen treatments of Isherwood’s Berlin
Stories, notably the multi-Oscar winning musical
Cabaret.
In this at times deceptively closer
to the truth version Isherwood is no longer the oddly asexual objective
observer of the follies of others, but rather an eager, selfish, rather
self-absorbed hedonist for whom Berlin stood not for apocalyptic politics but
the 24/7 pursuit of boys.
The terms of that pursuit are
candidly laid out by Wystan in the bowels of their favorite boy bar, The Cosy
Corner.
“We’ve become somewhat of a
feature, perhaps a B feature. I’ve never had any illusions about the pitfalls
of loving a whore.”
“Are they all on the game?”
“Most of them, yes, you can’t
imagine what a
state the economy’s in.”
“They look really good.”
“They try to keep themselves fit.
It’s good for business, of course, they’re famously vain. The fact that we find
them desirable only proves how masculine they are.”
“What do you mean, we?”
“They’re nearly all rampant heters
and use our money to buy cunt (alternative: muff), but don’t let that put you
off they’re frightfully good at it.”
Rebuffing the mercenary future
storm trooper Caspar, Christopher falls for a doe-eyed street sweeper, Heinz,
who, himself is trapped supporting a TB afflicted mother and a Nazi leaning unemployed
brother. Attempting to smuggle Heinz into England on a servant’s visa
Christopher is thwarted by Mum’s suspicions of the Hun – “Remember,
Christopher, the Germans killed your father,” – and closeted, jealous minion in
His Majesty’s immigration service. Ultimately Christopher is haunted by a sense
that he has abandoned not only Heinz but his own tragically cursed brother,
Richard (a moving neurotic cameo from Perry Millward) who was also gay, a
compulsive diarist and a writer of (unpublished) short fiction.
This tasty reboot – with just a
hint of the robust bedroom antics that Christopher couldn’t properly savor
while sharing the same land mass as his ferociously controlling mother -- is a
long overdue corrective for a generation brought up to think that marriage
equality and military service have always been the twin pillars of the queer
liberation movement. (Castro/Closing Night/6-26)
Au Pair, Kansas: In J.T. O’Neal’s tart but winning
farm comedy a soccer loving Norwegian male au pair learns the complex rules
that govern life on his new home, a Kansas family bison ranch. Mom’s a recent
widow and is adjusting with difficulty, combining too many house rules with
cozy chats with her dead, bisexual hubby’s ghost; sons, Atticus and Beau fend
off mom’s bossy frigidity with sassy innuendo: jokes on women and Viagra,
“penis” cracks for the coach who’s auditioning to be dad two and some lovely
bison gags: don’t sneak up on them, bison hate yodeling and don’t piss on the
fence it’s electric. O’Neal’s covert agenda to spoof American vs. European
models for guys around kids is perfectly realized in the silly but nurturing Oddmund
(Havard Lilleheie), but the boys steal the show: Beau as an impish ten-year-old
aspiring dancer and sixteen-year-old Atticus who rejects mom’s suspicion of Oddmund’s
hands on approach to her boys. Recalling Chris O’Donnell’s breakout turn in Men
Don’t Leave, Spencer Daniels brazenly confronts mom’s homophobia.
“He didn’t touch me. What’s this
about?”
“You being with a man.”
“I figure it runs in the family.
You actually think I didn’t know dad was bisexual? I love dad, he was a great
guy. He’s dead, mom, he was gay. Big deal! What if Oddmund’s gay? Good match
for you. What if Beau’s gay, pretty good chance of that. What if I’m gay?”
(Victoria/6-25)
Mangus: If there’s ever an award for a young queer
filmmaker who best embodies the substance and spirit of a young John Waters Ash
Christian will win it hands down. Giving his young hero a goal worthy of
Divine’s cha cha heels: to adhere to his trailer trash family’s tradition of
starring in the local high school’s Jesus pageant, up the stakes by having
Magnus Spedwick become wheelchair bound in a wonderfully feckless manner and
then add a church choir’s worth of zany supporting characters and you have very
funny, completely original screwball vision that ranks right up there with one
of the early Divine classics or such obsessive later day master works like Serial
Mom. Topping it all off is an inspired divine intervention cameo by Waters
himself. The result is a wild send up of Bible Belt America that much like
Broadway’s The Book of Mormon respects the soul and spirit of those been
spoofed.
(Showcase/Castro/6-25)
Harvest: Germany’s Benjamin Cantu sets an opposites
attract tryst among teenage farm students, and then shoots the slow drip beats
like Gus Van Sant’s astonishing skateboard thriller Paranoid Park.
The result, depending on your taste for minimalist drama, is either a lovely
rooted in life convergence of hormones that contains the seeds for some kind of
union or just thirty-minutes of 4 H style foreplay with guys who resemble 18+
rural calendar art. The brush cut blond Lukas Steltner is the damaged kid (drunk
mom & runaway dad) introvert Marco who digs dawn to dusk tedious farm work
but hates any kind of bureaucratic mambo. Curly head Kai-Michael Muller is the
low key seducer Jacob who risks everything on a hot barn kiss and the naked
ploy of luring Marco off to the filthy city that swallowed his dad.
(Castro/6-23)
Tomboy: In the opening frames of French
director Celine Sciamma’s lovely fable on how gender trumps everything as we
enter the potentially magical garden of adolescence a ten-year-old child is
sitting in daddy’s lap getting a playful first driving lesson. It one of those
rare moments where we are not immediately clued into out hero/heroine’s gender.
Observing Laure (the impeccably androgynous Zoe Heran) interact with her loving
parents and sassy but thoroughly feminine kid sister is getting a privileged
all access pass to a childhood paradise immediately before the loss of
innocence, sans that phrase’s religious baggage.
With just a whiff of Truffaut’s
simple genius for capturing kids at play Sciamma frames Laure’s bold move as
the new kid in town as she declares to her first new friend, Lisa, “My name is Mikael.”
(Castro/6-24)
Docs:
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Wish Me Away: Like many queer folks I’ve long
nurtured a soft spot for country music divas like the legendary Patsy Cline (Crazy/Sweet
Dreams) or Tammy Wynette (Stand By Your Man/D-I-V-O-R-C-E);
unlike many I worked my through college as a weekend country radio DJ; did I
ever expect to see a major country star pop out of the closet? Hell, no! As
depicted in Bobbie Birleffi & Beverly Kopf’s heartfelt doc the Kansas born,
Nashville nurtured modern country star Chely Wright would seem to have every
reason to stay in: raised in a Christian home by a loving dad and a hard ass
mom, Wright spent two decades working her way up the country music charts -- Shut
Up and Drive and Single White Female. Most of us have never gotten
closer to country’s modern White Christian God Fearing citadel than is afforded
by multiple viewings of Robert Altman’s Nashville. Wish Me Away
affords a peek at what Wright might lose from an insanely devoted fan base to
the pop fantasy dream of having your name linked romantically with pale male
vocalists like Brad Paisley – Wright’s decision to break off with nice guy Paisley
provides one of many poignant interludes. Haunted by a close brush with suicide
Wright ultimately decides to remake her twenty-year career by throwing herself
a coming out party complete with book tour with stops at The Today Show and
Oprah .This emotional journey – with its focus on Wright’s informal female and
gay male support group -- makes for an unforgettable Festival Centerpiece
(Castro/6-22)
The Grove: Director Andy Abrahams Wilson explores the
eye of a storm of controversy that unexpectedly envelopes a beloved if little
known Bay Area memorial. Originally created by a hardy band of volunteers as a
serene way to remember friends and lovers lost to AIDS the Grove had its
profile significantly raised in 1996 when Rep. Nancy Pelosi obtained for it the
status of a national memorial (one of 44). This perk became rather pesky when a
band of AIDS activists raised questions as to why visitors to Golden Gate Park
discover the leafy sequestered memorial largely by accident. An internal battle
to raise the profile of the Grove by erecting a Vietnam Veterans style memorial
there provoked a public squabble with volunteers threatening to sit down in
front of the bulldozers.
To his credit Wilson gives both
sides of the flap a fair hearing while making it clear which side he favors. A
crucial moment has backers of a design competition for a radical Grove
attention grabber parading their handiwork before Pelosi, who, as one
participant notes, has a pained expressed on her face as if she had just been
stabbed in the neck: a complex, moving exploration of an overlooked local
landmark. (Castro/6-21)
Miwa: A Japanese Icon: He’s all of five foot
three, although a bit taller in heels, but even well into his seventies Akihiro
Maruyama (known to his legion of fans as Miwa) is a national treasure: Japan’s
David Bowie or Boy George but even more rare an openly queer
activist/entertainer in a nation where the obstacles to LGBT freedom are more
elusive than in Bible belt America. Pascal-Alex Vincent – writer/director of
the delicious twin boy road movie Give Me Your Hand – begins his story
with Miwa’s early success as an androgynous skinny boy pop singer who in the
late 60’s suddenly turns into a female dressing seductress in a breakout pop
movie Black Lizard. With healthy slices of archival performance pieces
to illuminate esoteric moments of Japanese theatre/pop/film, the now elderly
Miwa – dressed somewhat like an elderly geisha, a role he explicitly demurs –
tells his story in a frank, disarmingly charming style. Among other things he
has a wryly funny story about his first meeting with literary icon Yukio Mishima:
they would eventually be friends and lovers but not without a bit of resistance
on Miwa’s part. (Castro/6-20)
This Is What Love in Action Looks Like: Morgan Jon
Fox provides an emotionally riveting account of a how a small group of Southern
teens banded together to rescue a friend from the clutches of a Christian
“Ex-Gay” group dedicated to abducting and brainwashing vulnerable queer
adolescents. Friends of Zach Stark learned from his blog that he had been
involuntarily committed to a Love in Action (LIA) compound by his
fundamentalist parents. The kids boldly decided to set up an information picket
outside the LIA facility which quickly attracted the media spotlight. Laced
with revealing insider stories from former LIA “inmates” the story takes an
unexpected turn when the protests provoke an apparent change of heart from the LIA’s
ex-gay leader. An exhilarating illustration that it does indeed gets better and
sometimes much more quickly than we expect, this doc provides an inspiring peek
at a feisty new generation of young queer activists and their straight kid
allies. (Victoria/6-18)
Tales of the Waria: Kathy Huang’s intimate doc
explores this vibrant Muslim society’s surprising tolerance for biological men
who conduct their daily lives as women – including having de facto marriages
with straight men – while expressing no desire to have surgery. Suharni – an
HIV positive, former sex worker – has a solid relationship but feels a need to
leave the nest to make extra cash in the tourist haunts of Bali. The aging Mami
Ria gets a nip and tuck in a desperate attempt to hold on to her status as
number two wife of a cop. The youthful Agus – who abandoned cross-dressing for
a traditional marriage – has lately felt more of a need to hang with his old waria
friends. While beauty pageant trainer Tiara considers her female ways to be
part of god’s plan. It’s clear that while these “lady men” have avoided the
deadly perils of a queer identity in a Muslim society, the aging process produces
new challenges for which there are few comfortable answers. (Roxie/6-18)
Making the Boys: During the festival the Little Roxie
offers this reprise from Frameline 2009:
Crayton Robey assembles friends and
foes of Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band and spices up the cat fight
with vintage footage – playwright Edward Albee tartly recalls his
misgivings with Crowley’s script and his own refusal to invest in the original
Off-Broadway production, while Hedwig creator John Cameron Mitchell praises Crowley’s
talent for encapsulating queer men’s unique capacity for survival. Crowley –
who has never had another comparable hit, despite a prosperous run as chief
writer for TV’s Hart to Hart – candidly recalls the wild rollercoaster
ride that climaxed in the play’s five year New York run and finally brought Boys
to the screen with every member of its original cast and the AIDS related
fates of many in the ensemble. (Little Roxie/6-17-23)
Becoming Chaz: If you’re old enough to rememberThe
Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (you probably shouldn’t admit it) when it first
slid into the CBS schedule as a 1971 summer replacement series in the old Ed
Sullivan slot, you’ll recall how these theatrical vagabonds had a ritual of
hoisting their brand new bouncing baby girl up on their shoulders as they
reprised their big hit It A’in’t Me Babe. This Ground Hog Day worthy
moment pops up early in Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato’s
investigation of how the Shirley Temple cute Chastity Bono slip-slidded away
through her childhood, adolescence, stabs at a singing career, the skiing death
of Congressman Sonny, drug problems and rehabs and more problems and rehabs
until finally settling down with girlfriend Jenny and deciding that this was
the time to claim her inner guy.
Since FTM transitions are still
just getting traction in our imaginations, there’s a lot that’s fresh and spicy
in this exhaustive and candid film about how a large woman becomes a slightly
smaller man – losing six and half pounds in the upper body reconstruction
alone. The physical specificities take a back seat to how the extended Bono
clan will receive their new brother/son. Cher, in a running guest slot, admits
that she misses her once daughter’s voice; Jenny confesses that the couple have
had their ups and down with the mood shifts and heightened male assertiveness
the hormones provoke. A relative notes that the Chaz’s late dad, Sonny, might
have had more understanding and empathy for his new son’s transition than Cher
can muster.
Ultimately there’s a triumphal
coming out – partly stage managed by the same consultant who advises Country
singer Chely Wright in her exit from a Nashville closet (Wish Me Away). (Castro/6-23)
Paris is Burning: There was a lovely
innocence surrounding Jennie Livingston’s pulsating excursion through the late
eighties world of queer and trans dancers/aspiring celebrities. Their stabs at
stardom (ironically unfolding at the moment Andy Warhol succumbs to medical
malpractice) had a fresh and distinctly non-decadent flavor. It’s fun to relive
the bloom of youth and wonder where are they now: featured on the same bill as
the Livingston short Who’s the Top (Castro/6-23).
East Bloc Love: The Slavic beauty Sergey Yenin –
imagine Rudolf Nureyev morphing into Cleve Jones – dominates this quixotic journey
through the unsettling universe of Eastern European queer liberation in
Australian director Logan Mucha’s
sensitive doc. Yenin and his friends from Belarus, Poland, Latvia
and Russia explain the perilous process of securing official permission for gay
lib marches, only to be assaulted by thugs wearing badges. Since this is a
multi-national enterprise English is the predominate tongue wagged at mean
spirited authorities and religious bigots.
Yenin’s sensitive eyes peer through horned rim glasses as he
recalls the beating death of a lover that christened his crusade in blood.
(Victoria/6-25)
Angel: The bittersweet return of a one-time boxer
turned transsexual prostitute from Paris to his native Ecuador becomes a
meditation on the efforts of millions of expatriate workers to send money home
to better the lives of those left behind in the developing world. French
director Sebastiano d’Ayala Valva allows us to see Angel’s reception by a
multi-generational brood: the kids greet him with affection, the adults
grudgingly acknowledge his crucial remittances but still call him “faggot.”
Angel pals around with his old boxing trainers – asserting that he never made a
penny in the ring – and concludes the visit by observing that almost nothing
has been done towards fulfilling his request to have a house constructed for
his eventual return. One can indeed go home but don’t expect to like what you
find there. (Roxie/6-25)
Shorts
From the neurotic, navel gazing, horny
frustrated romantic denizens of the festival’s eagerly anticipated program for
young dudes, Blokes, to the it’s only possible down under sweaty
zaniness of Zombies, Aussies, Musicals, Oh My! this year’s batch of 151
queer shorts, from over two dozen countries, comprising 21 programs is truly a
festival within the festival. What follows is a quick gulp from six programs in
Frameline’s first week.
We Once Were Tide: This deliciously claustrophobic,
dripping with atmosphere, moody novella from Britain’s Isle of Wight distills
the last twenty-four-hours in a relationship between two lads who at first
glance appear to have everyone’s wet dream: a get-away-from-it-all ocean front
paradise almost all to themselves. Anthony’s increasingly frazzled with the emotional
toll from looking after his invalid mom while his humpy boyfriend is
suspiciously preoccupied with his Polaroid camera. Director Jason Bradbury
squeezes a proper English buttoned up weepy from all the fog and ennui. It
reminded me of my pre-out days of drinking in the murky sexual tensions of such
Harold Pinter penned classics as Accident or The Pumpkin Eater.
Family Affair: The truly nutty hard-on Brazilians
have for their soccer is the backdrop for a queer boy’s backroom first kiss in Caru
Alves de Souza’s family short. For the angelic Rossi all the taunts and petty
thug acting out is worth enduring for a quick lesson on how to inhale a
cigarette from one of his brutish older bro’s cute as a button buddies. (Blokes
Program/Castro/6-17)
Franswa Sharl: In Australian Director Hannah
Hilliard’s hilarious retro short a Justin Bieber worthy adorable blonde teen
nearly gives his manly super competitive dad a stroke at the climax of the 1980
Miss Fiji contest. This one is for those longing for a queer styling Aussie
episode of The Brady Bunch.
(Fun in Boy Shorts Program/Castro/6-18 & 26)
Poker Face: The perils of an all girls poker night
are nimbly essayed in Becky Lane’s tricky short about the never-ending process
of coming out.
(Fun In Girl Shorts Program/Castro/6-18 & 26)
Slut – The Musical: Australian Director Tonnette
Stanford proves once and for all that Priscilla Queen of the Desert was
no fluke in this high energy boys’ high school glitter dance extravaganza. (Zomies,
Aussies, Musicals, Oh My! Program/Victoria/6-20)
James Dean: Lucy Asten Elliott’s sassy UK backseat
talkfest is a highlight from the festival’s 44 transgender themed films.
Change: An African American teen is faced with an
agonizing choice of identities on the evening that witnesses the election of
President Obama and passage of California’s Prop 8. Director Melissa Osborne
makes effective use of TV election coverage to underline the emotional tsunami
in one family as equality and bigotry triumph simultaneously. The history
noting words of ABC anchor Charlie Gibson are still ringing in our ears as our
hero makes a brave stand with a queer white friend.
Coming Out: Swedish director Jerry Carlsson turns a
young teen’s conflicted inner monologue into a hair raising four minutes of
screen time as we realize why some rites of passage never grow stale when
properly showcased. (Coming Out Program/Roxie/6-19)
T’Ain’t Nobody’s Business: Queer Blues Divas of
the 1920’s: Growing up a jazz/blues obsessed teen in NYC’s golden age of DJ
radio I thought I had the lowdown on the ladies of the blues from WQXR’s John
S. Wilson. But Robert Philipson’s Jewelle Gomez narrated doc connects the dots
on why our musical heritage owes so much to ferocious women who kept their own
company. This thoroughly researched slice of history
illustrates the range of styles and strategies for passing
from the bisexual Ma Rainey to the audacious but largely forgotten “bulldagger”
Gladys Bentley.
Jay Dreams: Catherine Pancake invents her own format
to showcase issues of butch and fem among a bold array of African American
women. Riffing on material normal reserved for the fiction tropes, Pancake
listens in as women candidly discuss why they sometimes fanaticize outside
their type. This casual down home, witty essay is a lovely reminder of just how
far we’ve come. (T’Ain’t Nobody’s Business Program/Victoria/6-21)