Beyond the Down Low
Being African American and gay has very often been diminished to the overused cliché of "being on the down low." But from the rich history of homosexual contributions during the Harlem Renaissance to the modern fear of being outed within close-knit organizations such as the black Greek system, this shorts program presents different facets of a culture within a culture. Betrayal (Reggie Coleman, USA, 2009), Carmen's Place (Anna Wilking, USA, 2009), Jackson Parish (Edward McDonald, USA, 2009), Take the Gay Train (Robert Philipson, USA, 2008), Mothers (Dexter Davis, USA, 2009). Total: 88 min.
Family
Faith Trimel (USA, 2008, 111 min.)
Not being able to live out in the open is sometimes a small price to pay compared to the fear of familial and professional backlash. But the price becomes too high for thirtysomething Felicia, as she finds herself coaxing her lesbian lover into a closet due to a surprise visit from her mom. Her relationship now in jeopardy, Felicia has a proposal for her similarly repressed group of sapphic friends: all six must come out within thirty days. Tackling relevant African American LGBT issues such as church values and coming out in Hollywood, writer-director Faith Trimel effectively transcends color lines with her powerful story of confronting your own truth.
Straightlaced: How Gender's Got Us All Tied Up
Debra Chasnoff (USA, 2009, 67 min.)
Straightlaced, a moving documentary by Oscar-winning director Debra Chasnoff, interviews teens from around the country on their perceptions of gender and sexuality. A lot is covered in this film, as gender messages are ever-present. Chasnoff calls into question the conundrum of not identifying as either gender and profiles those daring souls who push the envelope, but also shows those who play the game of denying who they are every day for safety's sake. The film doesn't ram the obvious message of tolerance down the viewer's throat as much as it lays out the reality of society's hypocrisy and how everyday teens navigate through it.
Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss
Tommy O'Haver (USA, 1998, 92 min.)
In Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss, Will & Grace's Sean Hayes plays Billy, an unsuccessful, gay photographer with a penchant for Polaroids and women's melodramas. Tired of being the "other man," Billy's love life is just as fruitless as his career. Then Billy meets a dreamy waiter named Gabriel (Shelter's Brad Rowe), who agrees to model for Billy's photography project: all-male recreations of famous Hollywood screen kisses. As they form both a friendship and an artistic relationship based off of mixed signals and sexual ambiguity, Billy finally reaches a new level of romantic understanding and hits his creative peak through his disappointment and heartache.
Switch: A Community in Transition
Brooks Nelson (USA, 2009, 52 min.)
Sexual and gender identity can be a moving target going beyond the pronoun problem of he, she, hym, hys, zie, or anything in between. Switch: A Community in Transition is a unique, touching documentary that explores the impact of gender transition on the friends, lovers and coworkers of the transitioning individual. Interspersed with vintage archival footage, this film covers issues of abandonment, race, invisibility, safety, gender privilege, and how one moves through the world.
Also showing is A Drag King Extravaganza (Meaghan Derynck & Clare Smyth, Canada, 2008, 22 min.), a documentary that gives an inside look at the underrated art form of gender bending and playing on opposites.
Bandaged
Maria Beatty (Germany, 2009, 92 min.)
An overbearing doctor hires a live-in nurse, Joan, to care for his daughter Lucille, who has third degree burns on her face after attempting suicide. The still beautiful but disfigured Lucille refuses to eat, has periodic fits and is overmedicated by her mad scientist-like father, as he attempts to grow reconstituted skin for her on lab mice. Skilled in the art of eroticism, sexy nurse Joan, whose shady past is revealed through flashbacks, finds more than one way to soothe her patient. Somewhere between sponge baths and skin grafts, Joan and Lucille begin to develop a passionate bond and Joan must sacrifice some of herself for love...literally.
Rivers Wash Over Me
John G. Young (USA, 2009, 86 min.)
Rivers Wash Over Me is a compelling drama centered on Sequan, a sensitive, gay teen from New York City, who is sent to live with family in Alabama. Slight of frame and sticking out like a sore thumb in his hipster jeans, Sequan has a hard time adjusting to the ways of the South. The other students mercilessly tease him, he is ignored by authority figures, and his cousin violently rapes and assaults him almost every night. The only person who takes any interest in him is Lori, a privileged, listless drug addict with a gay brother. As they ponder ways to escape the hell that is their town, a murder changes their plans and their lives.
Life is a Movie
These shorts ask the age-old question of which came first: the filmmaker or the film? When the behind-the-scenes visionary becomes the subject and vice versa, the result is a reflective push in the medium, both in front of and behind the camera. From receiving life advice from a sage drag queen, to living out gangster or porn fantasies, these shorts are challenging, provocative, unconventional, innovative, personal and lyrical. I'm Sorry, Sterling (RM Vaughn, Canada, 2009), On the way to the videostore... (Ryan Halun, Canada, 2009), Projecting the Body (Walter McIntosh, Australia, 2008), Delphinium: a Childhood Portrait of Derek Jarman (Matthew Mishory, USA/UK, 2009), Toward the Blue (Randy Caspersen, USA, 2009). Total: 87 min.
Filed under: Film
