Jamie Babbit satirizes right-wing programs that promise to turn gay teens straight in But I’m A Cheerleader, a transgressive coming-of-age comedy starring Natasha Lyonne (The Slums of Beverly Hills) and Clea DuVall (The Faculty). Megan (Lyonne) has a boyfriend and has yet to question her heterosexuality when she comes home one day to find her friends and family gathered for a horrifying "intervention." She is soon shipped off to the "rehab" camp, True Directions, where girls get makeup and sewing lessons and boys are taught how to fix a car. Megan resolves to "follow the program" so she can get out but is soon confused by a growing attraction to the program’s lone rebel, Graham (DuVall). Graham knows she’s gay but plays "straight" in order to collect the trust fund promised her by her parents. However, as the program’s methods become more intrusive, the teens get an unscheduled lesson in character, and Megan and Graham have to decide whether to face the world as one or blow a chance at love. Bud Cort and Mink Stole play Megan’s parents, and a squeaky clean Ru Paul is the camp rep who moderates her intervention.

Babbit graduated from Columbia University in 1993. She made her first short, Frog Crossing, with co-director Ari Gold in 1995, and it played at festivals like Telluride, Sundance and Rotterdam in ’96 and ’97. Frog was also selected for the Sundance-in-Tokyo fest delegation and purchased by the Sundance Channel, where it is still in rotation. Babbit’s second short, Sleeping Beauties, premiered at Sundance in ’98 and played over 30 festivals including London, the LAIFF and Washington D.C., where Babbit was voted Best Director. She and producers Andrea Sperling and Ignite Entertainment’s Leanna Creel made Cheerleader through the auspices of Ignite, a two-year-old Santa Monica production company with a seven-film track record that includes Six-String Samurai and Suburbans. Ignite also financed Morgan J. Freeman’s Desert Blue, which Sperling produced, and she says they came on based on Babbit’s pitch and shorts before the script was even on the page.

Cheerleader shot in Los Angeles and nearby Palmdale, California last December and January; it will premiere at this fall’s Toronto Film Festival. Ignite is selling international rights.

Cast: Natasha Lyonne, Clea DuVall, Cathy Moriarty, Ru Paul Charles, Mink Stole, Bud Cort, Douglas Spain, Melanie Lynskey, Richard Moll. Crew: Producers, Andrea Sperling, Leanna Creel; Executive Producers, Michael Burns, Marc Butan; Screenwriter, Brian Wayne Peterson; Story/Director, Jamie Babbit; Cinematographer, Jules Labarthe; Production Design, Rachel Kamerman; Costume Designer, Alix Friedberg; Casting Sheila Jaffe; Editor, Cecily Rhett. Contact: Andrea Sperling, 1208 South Stanley Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90019. Tel: (323) 938-2719, Fax: (323) 937-7058

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