FESTIVAL ROUNDUP



 

New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

With the summer season swinging into full gear, many Big Apple gays were puffing up their pillows in their Fire Island abodes. Meanwhile their more culturally bent — and financially poorer — brethren were stuck gleefully attending the 11th Annual N.Y. Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (June 3-13).

With over 200 independent films and shorts on view in four locales (including Brooklyn for the second year) plus representation from Japan, Germany, Canada and Norway, this was the Fest’s biggest year both in the selection of films and attendance, according to Basil Tsiokos, the new program coordinator.

As for content, Tsiokos says, "This year, we had pretty strong showings dealing with gays and their families. Also an overwhelming showing of documentaries and narratives about transgender people. Themes develop basically from what’s out there. Usually there’s a lot of the same kind of material, but it does change from year to year. Last year we had an opportunity to do a larger focus on African cinema. There was even a film from the Ivory Coast. Not this year."

Rose Troche's Bedrooms and Hallways
What’s really fascinating though about this festival is how every film attracted its own specific audience. Sidra Smith’s A Luv Tale was a look at two beautiful black lesbians, one a "straight" magazine editor, the other a "gay" photographer. This effort had the audience, which was heavily populated with black gals, cheering and laughing much more strenuously then anything on the screen artistically merited, except possibly the fine performance by rapper MC Lyte. Yet where else could you go and see two intelligent black women chat, let alone kiss?

Attracting a large group of gay Indian attendees was Kaizad Gustad’s enjoyably loony romp, Bombay Boys, a tale of three young men of Indian descent returning to their country respectively to find a lost brother, to become a star in Bollywood, and to become queer. They all succeeded to various degrees.

As for Marco and Maurio La Villa’s Hang the DJ, a beautifully accomplished documentary on a not exactly absorbing subject — whether playing and scratching records in discos is an art form — its audience was brimming with stunning, shallow twits. I mean dance enthusiasts.

The drag queens, though, saved themselves for the saucy spectacular Charlie!, an adaptation of the off-off-off Broadway show. This spoof on "Charlie’s Angels," which features Mistress Formika, Sherry Vine, and Candis Cayne as lovely detectives who are out to discover whether a certain manufacturer has created a lipstick that can make you retarded, was a hoot when you could hear the dialogue, which wasn’t that often. The main venue, The New School’s auditorium which has seating for 475, may be fine for its normal use — lectures by the likes of Susan Sontag and discussions on the future of mass transportation. But as a movie theater, its sound and projection is often irritatingly uneven, no doubt causing many of this year’s directors to throw in the towel and apply for sales jobs at Bloomingdale’s.

Another film of note was Gil M. Portes’ comic Miguel/Michelle, a touching look at how a small Filipino town reacts when one of its boys returns from the United States as a woman.

Festival favorite Rosa von Praunheim contributed a hilarious 28-minute short, Can I Be Your Bratwurst, Please? Porn star Jeff Stryker displays his infamous appendage here after he checks into a Los Angeles hotel, not realizing that all its inhabitants are cannibals who see him as their next meal. This is to be released internationally as part of a trilogy with two more erotic tales helmed by different directors.

Jim Fall’s sexy Trick, the closing night feature, dealt with the problem of finding a place to copulate in with a go-go boy you’ve just picked up on the subway, and Rose (Go Fish) Troche’s frantic farce, Bedrooms and Hallways, opened the fest with a bit of controversy. Its hero actually winds up in bed with a woman!

"That was kind of my mistake," Troche admits, "because a lot of people do see him as turning straight which I’m not an advocate of." Laughing, she added, "I’ve never been an advocate of anyone turning straight. But I am an advocate of gay and lesbian film festivals. It’s really funny. As we go on, everyone thinks that these festivals are no longer necessary because there’s so much love and acceptance of gays and lesbians. It’s just so untrue. It’s necessary to have these festivals to see each other’s work and to support each other as much as we can. They give us a place to meet, a platform to say what we feel, and to me, they’re totally crucial. Without this festival, I’d be nothing."

Jay Blotcher, producer of Sylvester: Mighty Real, agreed. He was there with director Tim Smyth, hoping to raise a few hundred thousand dollars so he could expand his seven-minute trailer on the disco legend into a full-length feature. "You know what being part of this festival is like?" Blotcher asked. "Do you know that feeling of completion that comes when you reach the center of the Tootsie Roll pop? It’s very similar."

What do you think the showing of Sylvester at the festival will garner you?

"Money. Acclaim. I don’t know," he admitted. "They’re all necessary evils. I guess what we’re looking for — and I should use the professional vernacular — is a sugar daddy."



 
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© 2005 Filmmaker Magazine