Jobriath A.D.

Jobriath A.D., dir. Kieran Turner, 2011, USA, 102 min.  [trailer]
Tuesday 6/19, 9:30 @ Victoria, JOBR19V

The true fairy of rock’n’roll

“Asking me if I’m homosexual is like asking James Brown if he’s black.” In the 1970’s, glam rock stars like David Bowie flirted with innuendoes that they might be bisexual, but Jobriath openly identified himself as “the true fairy of rock’n’roll.” He signed up with promoter Jerry Brandt, who spent lavishly to promote Jobriath, but the pair seemed unable to translate the saturation publicity into success. Jobriath’s picture was plastered on 2,000 buses in New York, Paris, and London, but there was no chart-topping single, no triumphant world tour, and not even enough record sales to cover the pre-release promotion costs. Jobriath rocketed from Broadway star to has-been in the blink of an eye. Sadly, Jobriath was ahead of his time in another respect: he was among the earliest AIDS fatalities, dead in 1983 at the age of 36. This documentary tells his story, pulling no punches in laying a large share of the blame at the feet of Jerry Brandt, and goes on to show some of the artists who were influenced by Jobriath’s two albums (which are now available on iTunes, a testament to their artistic staying power). It’s a fascinating story of what might have been, a cautionary tale about how not to do music promotion, an homage to the music itself as well as the artist, and a period piece. Audience reaction to the animated interludes was decidedly mixed, but on the whole the film was easily better than your average “behind the music” retrospective. Worth seeing, recommended.

Facing Mirrors • Aynehaye Rooberoo • آینه های روبرو

Facing Mirrors (Aynehaye Rooberoo • آینه های روبرو), dir. Negar Azarbayjani, 2011, Iran, 102 min., in Farsi with English subtitles,  [trailer]
Monday 6/18, 6:30 @ Castro, MIRR18C

Adineh/Eddie (Shayesteh Irani • شایسته ایرانی)
and Rana (Qazal Shakeri) in Facing Mirrors
(Aynehaye Rooberoo • آینه های روبرو)

Tuesday 6/19, 9:30 @ Elmwood (Berkeley), MIRR19E

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a study in contradictions. On the one hand, it is among the most barbarically repressive nations in modern history in regard to homosexuality, sentencing men to horrific torture executions for nothing more than the “crime” of loving another human being. At the same time, Iran is in some ways among the most progressive nations in its treatment of transsexuals. Shortly after the 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a ruling that changing one’s sex was acceptable under Islamic law, and the government now offers financial assistance for the transition. (Sadly, many gay men have been coerced to pretend to be heterosexual transwomen in order to escape persecution.)

It is against this backdrop that we meet a woman named Adineh who is in his heart a man named Eddie. Adineh is trying to get a passport to travel to Germany for gender reassignment surgery, not because it’s impossible to get the surgery in Tehran, but because his father is trying to marry him off to put an end to what he views as shame brought upon the family. Fleeing from a pack of goons his father sent to kidnap him, Eddie flags down a gypsy cab driven by Rana, a woman whose husband’s imprisonment has forced her to provide for herself and her son. In keeping with social and religious customs, Rana accepts only female passengers, so Adineh dons her chador and they head off. After an awkward incident involving the restrooms at a roadside rest stop, Eddie tries to explain that he is really trans, but Rana is overwhelmed; in a panic, she drives into the path of a bus. Eddie stays to help Rana return home to recuperate, in the process hiding where his father would least expect, right back in Tehran. To their own surprise, Eddie and Rana find a real bond between them, as each tries to navigate the narrow path their society allows them.

Shayesteh Irani, who was in the banned 2006 film Offside as a female fan of men’s soccer, brings Eddie and Adineh both to life, interweaving the two aspects of the character with sure-footed grace. Qazal Shakeri came to the project as a costume designer, but found her true calling playing Rana, a woman who is rooted in conservative religious values but who has a core of inner strength and conviction equal to a bra-burning feminist. Above all, Eddie and Rana never lose sight of their humanity. Facing Mirrors is the first Iranian film ever with a transgender protagonist, but even apart from that worthy achievement, it is a fine film in its own right, with skillfully drawn characters and an engaging story. Unquestionably a Must-See film for all audiences.

I Want Your Love

I Want Your Love (feature film), dir. Travis Mathews, 2012, USA, 71 min.  [trailer]
Sunday 6/17, 9:30pm @ Castro, WANT17C

I Want Your Love

I Want Your Love was a short film in 2010 [Frameline 35; trailer] that has blossomed into a feature film, making its world première at Frameline 36. Jesse is a performance artist in San Francisco, being forced by economic pressures to move back to Ohio, not sure he wants to attend the going away party thrown by his best friend. Along the way, various people hook up with new friends — or with exes they’re not yet really over — and have deep conversations.

This is the way my friends talk (about their sex lives and in general), which isn’t terribly surprising since some of the players are acquaintances of mine and we run in similar circles. Although most of the film is scripted, the actors had significant input to ensure that their lines would ring true. It’s real sex (nothing simulated), but with a real story and mostly realistic situations. Definitely not your run-of-the-mill “grunt and thrust” porno film. Highly recommended.

Note: I Want Your Love contains explicit scenes of actual fucking and sucking and S.E.X.

Funkytown

Funkytown, dir. Daniel Roby, 2011, Canada, 132 min., in English (without subtitles) and French with English subtitles; also available in French (without subtitles) and English with French subtitles 
Monday 6/18, 3:30 @ Castro, FUNK18C

Catching a little disco fever
at the Starlight in Funkytown

Funkytown is a period piece, set in the late 1970’s and early 80’s in Montréal. It’s loosely based on several true stories, revolving around the Starlight, a fictional disco. Bastien Lavallée is a radio DJ who also hosts the local TV show Disco Dance Party. Bastien is married with a daughter, but finds it impossible to resist the allure of fame, with all its accoutrements. His TV co-host is flamboyant trendsetter Jonathan, who holds court in his salon for the chosen few. Justin Chatwin (of Showtime’s US version of Shameless) is Tino, who shows up with his girlfriend (*cough* beard *cough*) Tina to show off their moves on the dance floor, as they both become friends with Jonathan. The dialogue shifts seamlessly between French and English, as conversation in Montréal is wont to do.


The music is fabulous and fun, with several fun characters, but this nice period piece is far too long at  2h12m, painfully predictable in several places, with a disappointing lack of character development, especially given its length. Good fun, but not a great film. Recommended.


Note: the official website is listed as Funkytown-LeFilm.com, although as of this writing it is not operational. There is also a Facebook page.

Stud Life

Stud Life, dir. CampbellX, 2012, UK, 80 min. 
Sunday 6/17, 7:00 @ Castro, STUD17C
Monday, 6/18, 9:30 @ Elmwood (Berkeley), STUD18E

Seb (Kyle Treslove) and
JJ (T’Nia Miller) in Stud Life

JJ is a black lesbian with so much “mad swagger and stone butch tendencies” that she sometimes almost comes across as macho. She lives with her best friend Seb, a slightly fem twink with a yen for rough trade. JJ’s day job is photographing weddings, gay and straight, with Seb assisting; by night, they go clubbing together, the complete lack of overlap in their sexual tastes enabling an easy camaraderie. But then JJ meets Elle, a sexy femme who immediately rubs Seb the wrong way, Seb tries to warn JJ that Elle is trouble, but JJ is resolute. Meanwhile, Seb has been brushing off the advances of “Smack Jack,” a low-level drug dealer who clearly hails from more privileged circumstances, as he pursues an online connection.

Stud Life breaks some new ground in terms of its setting, in multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-gender London, in the east of the city rather than the more well-worn West End. As Campbell X put it, it breaks out of the mainstream attitude that “Oh, we’re all in one lovely bubble of assimilation and acceptance.” Unfortunately, it also falls into a number of clichés and predictable plot points in other respects, sending the characters into broadly telegraphed situations that are entirely too familiar, with a mishmash of rom-com tropes and episodic scenes with little to connect one to the next. Still, T’Nia Miller (a high femme in real life!) and Kyle Treslove have a fabulous chemistry together that saves the effort. One caution for American audiences, though: the East London slang and accents are occasionally a bit thick, so I’m guessing that the DVD release will have English subtitles for the benefit of non-Brits. Fun, worth seeing, Recommended.

Morir de pie (To Die Standing Up)

Morir de pie (Die Standing Up), dir. Jacaranda Correa, 2011, Mexico, 90 min., in Spanish with English subtitles 
Sunday 6/17, 2:00 @ Roxie, DIES17R

Nelida Reyes and Irina Layevska in
Morir de pie (Die Standing Up)

From early childhood, Irina Layevska has had a degenerative medical condition, requiring multiple hospital stays, often for many months at a time. The child of two prominent socialist political figures, Irina idolized Che Guevara, consciously imitating his look when she was a young man. She married fellow activist Nelida Reyes in Havana as part of a rally expressing Mexican solidarity with Cuba against the continued US embargo in the face of the collapse of Cuba’s primary benefactor, the USSR. Faced with losing her eyesight on top of progressive loss of the use of her hands and legs, Irina despaired, but when Nelida encouraged her to get in touch with her feminine side, she went farther in that direction than either of them ever imagined. Doctors told Irina’s parents that she wouldn’t live past age 20, but her steely determination has kept her going through all the hardships. Mexican journalist and anchorwoman Jacaranda Correa (Twitter @jacarandilla) produced this moving documentary about a remarkable activist. Highly recommended.

Petunia

Petunia, dir. Ash Christian, 2011, USA, 104 min. 
Sunday 6/17, 1:30 @ Castro, PETU17C

Petunia

In a nutshell (which is, after all, very nearly to say in a nut’s hell), the Petunia family is the Grand Central Station of emotional train wrecks. Charlie Petunia (Tobias Segal) is a blogger, supposedly celibate but in love with a man who lives in the apartment downstairs (who turns out to have a few twists to his own story). His brother Michael (Eddie Kay Thomas) is a newlywed with an emotionally distant wife, Vivian (Thora Birch), who is pregnant with a baby that may or may not be Michael’s: she’s been sneaking around with the third brother, Adrian, a sex addict who paints larger-than-life portraits of the yonis of his paramours. The parents, of course, are psychoanalysts, played by Christine Lahti and David Rasche, who can barely stand to speak directly to one another. Charlie finally hooks up with the guy downstairs (Michael Urie from Ugly Betty), who turns out to be Vivian’s cousin but also married to a woman (with a few screws loose herself, of course). It’s a rich tapestry of neurosis and family dysfunction that could easily devolve into audience disaffection and alienation, but the script is remarkably incisive without belittling the humanity deeply buried somewhere underneath this parade of misfits. It boasts numerous laugh-out-loud moments, including a few spots where the setup of the next joke was stepped on by the audience’s reaction to the previous punchline. Filmmaker Ash Christian brought us last year’s funny but flawed Mangus! but has an unqualified success with Petunia. Definitely a must-see!

Mystery Date (2012 shorts program)

Mystery Date (shorts program)
Saturday 6/16, 9:15pm @ Roxie, MYST16R
Silver Stiletto, dir. Luke Mayze, 2011, Australia, 15 min.  [trailer]
Sólo un detalle (Just One Detail), dir. Giovanni Maccelli, 2010, Spain, 3 min., in Spanish with English subtitles  [watch (w/o subtitles)]
Regrets, dir. Michelle Pollino, 2011, USA, 11 min.  [trailer]
The Rookie and the Runner, dir. Augie Robles, 2012, USA, 11 min. 
My Night with Andrew Cunanan, dir. Devin Kordt-Thomas, 2011, USA, 11 min.  [trailer]
Turno de Noche (Night Shift), dir. Carlos Ruano, 2011, Spain, 17 min., in Spanish with English subtitles 
La Victoria de Úrsula (Ursula’s Victory), dirs. Julio Martí & Nacho Ruipérez, 2011, Spain, 17 min., in Spanish with English subtitles  [trailer]

Gayby

Gayby, dir. Jonathan Lisecki, 2012, USA, 89 min.  [trailer: IMDB • YouTube]
Saturday 6/16, 7:00pm @ Castro, GAYB16C

Makin’ a Gayby the old-fashioned way

First, there was the short film Gayby [trailer], which played at Frameline 34 in 2010 to rave reviews, although regrettably this Film Queen missed the screening. The premise is simple enough: Jenn, a single straight woman, wants to have a baby, so she asks her gay best friend Matt to help out. Rather than going through an expensive fertility clinic, or even playing the turkey baster game, though, Jenn and Matt decide to actually have sex — with one another! — to produce an offspring. Throw in various friends, coworkers (including Nelson, played by filmmaker Jonathan Lisecki), and potential love interests, and a comedy is born.

The situation has obvious comedic potential, enhanced by several funny subplots and sharp dialogue. The characters mostly have just enough “edge” for comedy without crossing the line into dehumanized one-dimensionality. Some of the material around the yoga studio where Jenn works gets a bit over the top, but not enough to derail the fun. Several laugh-out-loud moments make this a must-see film. Strongly recommended.

Look at Me Again (Olhe Pra Mim de Novo)

Look at Me Again (Olhe pra Mim de Novo), dirs. Kiko Golfman & Claudia Priscilla, 2011, Brazil, 72 min., in Brazilian Portuguese with English subtitles 
Saturday 6/16, 4:30 @ Roxie, LOOK16R

Olhe pra Mim de Novo

The title of this documentary, Olhe pra Mim de Novo, translates literally as Look at Me Anew. It is the personal story of a Brazilian transman (female-to-male transexual) named Syllvio Luccio, on a road trip around northeastern Brazil, talking to LGBTs, doctors, family, and others, telling his history. His parents and his daughter are evangelical Christians who are having a difficult time with his transition. More broadly, the region of Brazil where Syllvio lives boasts an arid, almost desert, climate, with a strong sense of machismo and rigid religious views but much less in the way of social graces. Syllvio himself describes the culture as “tacky and rude,” as an excuse for some of his own crass comments.

I found it difficult to remain engaged with Syllvio and his story, although in all fairness that was partly because the screening was in the stifling heat of the un-air-conditioned Roxie in the late afternoon on the hottest day of this year’s festival. Good but not great. Recommended.

The Wise Kids

The Wise Kids, dir. Stephen Cone, 2011, USA, 91 min.  [trailer: YouTube, Vimeo]
Saturday 6/16, 4:00pm @ Castro, WISE16C

Tyler Ross, Alison Torem, and
Molly Kunz in The Wise Kids

Three kids in Charleston, South Carolina, are nearing the end of high school and heading off to college. As they make the transition, they come to terms with questioning their religious faith (raised Southern Baptist) and their sexuality. Tim (Tyler Ross, on the left in the photo) is beginning to come out as gay and decides to leave the Deep South for the Big Apple. Brea (Molly Kunz, on the right) is the preacher’s daughter, but she has doubts about her faith: in particular, would she believe the same things if her parents didn’t? Laura (Alison Torem, center) clings to her Christianity as the center of her life, even as it begins to alienate her from her friends.

I’ve seen a number of films at Frameline that try (and mostly fail) to reconcile being both Christian and gay. David Lewis’ film Redwoods (Frameline 33) was so bad I walked out, unfortunately having failed to notice it was by the same director who made Rock Haven (Frameline 31; a film bogged down in part by music from Jack Curtis Dubowsky, who made and scored the worst film I saw this year). I thus came into The Wise Kids with a bit of a jaundiced eye, but the treatment of the kids’ efforts at balancing Christian faith with the rest of their lives is remarkably balanced and authentic. The kids are sweet and sympathetic, but not saccharine, allowing those of us lucky enough not to have grown up Southern Baptist to relate to them more than you might expect. Highly recommended.

The Right to Love: An American Family

The Right to Love: An American Family, dir. Cassie Jaye, 2012, USA, 88 min. 
screened with Hold On Tight, dir. Anna Rodgers, 2011, Ireland, 12 min. [not reviewed]
Saturday 6/16, 11:00am @ Roxie, RIGH16R

The Right to Love: An American Family

Jay and Bryan Leffew and their children Daniel and Selena are in most respects a normal American family, except for the little detail that Jay and Bryan are two men. They’re legally married in California, having caught the window between the state supreme court’s decision in May 2008 and the passage of Proposition 8 less than 6 months later, and they’ve legally adopted two kids. In the aftermath of the Prop 8 defeat, the Leffews started a blog called “Gay Family Values,” with YouTube videos to boot, to show the world that a family headed by a same-sex couple is nothing to fear.

The documentary The Right to Love introduces us to the Leffews, with bits of their activism intermingled with their everyday lives. Of course, if you’re reading a blog about an LGBT film festival, you probably don’t need much convincing that same-sex couples aren’t monsters out to destroy the moral fabric of America, but you might use the Leffews to work on that homophobic relative, friend, or coworker. It’s a nicely done film, worth seeing. Recommended.

[The short film Hold On Tight that screened with Right to Love was not available for review.]

Submerged Queer Spaces

Submerged Queer Spaces, dir. Jack Curtis Dubowsky, 2012, USA, 100 min. 
Saturday 6/16, 1:45pm @ Roxie, SUBM16R

Submerged Queer Spaces

I’ll start with the good: Submerged Queer Spaces is an impeccably researched documentary about gay bars, clubs, and other venues that are gone and almost forgotten. It has some good interviews with long-time residents. Unfortunately, those good points were submerged beneath the film’s crippling flaws. The music track was an unrelentingly intrusive, annoying, eclectic mishmash of tuneless awfulness. I was truly shocked to see “(BMI)” in the music credits; I can’t imagine anyone choosing those sounds over the blissful silence overlaid on some of the interviews. The on-site interviews were very poorly mic’ed, picking up abundant street noise and other distractions, and the camera work was shaky. This was clearly a very low-budget production, but sound-cancelling mics and image-stabilizing cameras are cheap enough that there’s no excuse for making a serious film without them. The narration segments with the filmmaker himself were unengaging and emotionally flat. Lastly, although the research was exhaustive — repeatedly noting such minutiae as the original electrical conduits that remain on some of these buildings! — I found one surprising glaring error, a typo in the name of one of the subsequent incarnations of a venue on Market Street, misidentified as Laetia’s when it should be Letitia’s. Certainly not the worst film I’ve ever seen at Frameline, but easily the worst I saw this year. If you get the chance to see this movie, by all means, find something else to do. Must-miss.

Noordzee, Texas (North Sea, Texas)

Noordzee Texas (North Sea Texas), dir. Bavo Defurne, 2011, Belgium, 96 min., in Dutch with English subtitles, 
Friday 6/15, 9:30pm @ Castro, NORT15C

Pim (Jelle Florizoone) and
Gino (Mathias Vergels) in
North Sea Texas

North Sea Texas is a bit of an odd film, in large part because it’s about a bit of an odd boy. Pim likes putting on a fancy dress and a tiara, has a mad crush on his slightly older neighbor Gino (whose younger sister has an equally mad crush on Pim), and keeps a box of unusual mementoes of people in his life. What makes Pim most unusual, though, is that he feels no shame whatever about his sexuality or any of the rest of it, even in a small Belgian seaside town in the 1960’s and 70’s. Pim has a variety of problems and challenges in life, but being queer is conspicuously absent from that list.

We follow Pim through his teens, but on a somewhat impressionistic episodic basis rather than through a more traditional narrative structure. The ending gets a bit bogged down and probably could’ve been trimmed a bit, but overall we get a sweet look into the smoldering intensity of the coming of age of a remarkable boy. Highly recommended, a must-see.

One thing you might miss in the closing credits: “Dedicated to all the kids whose parents would not allow them the chance to take part in this film. It gets better.” Amen.

365 without 377

365 without 377, dir. Adele Tulli, 2011, Italy, 53 min. 
Friday 6/15, 7:15 @ Roxie, 365W15R, in Hindi and English with English subtitles
screened with Queen of my Dreams (short; see “Fun in Girls’ Shorts 2012” for review)

(Mostly) Celebrating the
end of India’s Section 377

Traditional Hindu society had no particular taboo against homosexuality, but the British colonial rulers introduced it into the penal code in 1862. (Indeed, British colonies across Asia including Hong Kong, Malaya, Brunei, Burma, and Singapore adopted similar bans against “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,” often under the same section number.) However, on 2009-07-02, the High Court of Delhi struck down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, saying that it violated the constitutional guarantees of life, liberty, and equality. Although it is theoretically possible that the Supreme Court of India could take up the issue and even reinstate Section 377, that possibility becomes ever more remote as we approach the third anniversary of the ruling. (The situation is roughly analogous to a decision in the U.S. by the D.C. Court of Appeals, with the Supreme Court declining to review it.)

In 2010, on the one-year anniversary of the landmark court ruling, a massive celebration was launched in Mumbai, and that celebration is the subject of this documentary. It’s the story of a monumental achievement, told with abundant grace, humor, and fire in the belly, primarily focused on the personal stories of a lesbian, a gay man, and a hijra (transgender person), with footage from the festivities. Strongly recommended, a must-see.

My Brother the Devil

My Brother the Devil, dir. Sally El Hosaini, 2012, UK, 111 min. 
Friday 6/15, 4:00 @ Castro, MYBR15C

Mo (Fady Elsayed, left) and Rash
(James Floyd) in My Brother the Devil

Being a teenager is never easy, but all the more so for a teen straddling two worlds that do not so much mesh as coexist in uneasy juxtaposition. Mohammed (age 14, played by Fady Elsayed) and Rashid (age 19, James Floyd) are the sons of Egyptian immigrants living in council houses (tenements) in the Northeast London borough of Hackney. Rashid is in a gang, working as a low-level delivery boy, dropping off “food” (marijuana), but he hopes for Mo to find a better path. Mo gets drawn into the gang just as Rash finds a connection with a photographer named Sayyid (Saïd Taghmaoui), but Mo freaks out when he discovers that Rash and Sayyid are more than just coworkers. The gang finds out and immediately tries to kill Rash to protect their sense of honour, leaving Mo caught in the middle.

First, a couple of cautions. The dialogue is in English with a little bit of Arabic, with no subtitles. American audiences may find the heavy accent challenging in a few scenes, although fans of British television should be able to muddle through, or hopefully have the option to turn on subtitles on the DVD. Second, there is some graphic violence, although less than you might expect from a story involving gangs. With that said, though, My Brother the Devil is an engaging coming-of-age tale, well told, with fine performances by all the principal cast. It’s also a very different side of London from the usual West End fare. Highly recommended.

Best Frameline Ever

Frameline36 has wrapped, the curtain has closed, and it has now been almost 24 hours since I set foot in a movie theatre! I am badly backlogged on reviews, but they will be trickling out over the next several days. I saw fewer films this year than in recent years, with only 31 in-theatre screenings, but either I picked extraordinarily well or this was a new high-water mark for quality LGBT films. I saw at least two films that I would consider “life-changing” (Call Me Kuchu and Facing Mirrors), and only one that I thought was really bad (Submerged Queer Spaces). I saw the films that received audience awards for best feature, best documentary, and best short, and I saw the film that got the jury prize for outstanding first feature, plus the runner up. Unfortunately, I missed the winner and runner up in the jury prize for outstanding documentaries, but still, it’s quite an improvement from some years where I saw almost none of the award winners.

I’ll try to get my handwritten notes from the festival transcribed here on the blog soon, but for this evening, I’m going to go revel in this curious thing called “sunshine” that is sometimes observed in the “outdoors.”

Passionate Politics / A Force of Nature

Passionate Politics: the Life and Work of Charlotte Bunch, dir. Tami Gold, 2011, USA, 58 min. 
A Force of Nature, dir. Barbara Kopple, 2011, USA, 47 min. 
Friday, 6/15, 11:00am @ Castro, PASS15C

Vito

Vito, dir. Jeffrey Schwarz, 2011, USA, 93 min. 
Thursday 6/14, 7:00pm @ Castro

Vito Russo at the Castro Theatre, 1981
photo from the collection of Sean Strub/HBO

Vito Russo was, first and foremost, the quintessential film queen. Working at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Vito scoured mountains of old films going back to the invention of the medium, looking for subtle and not-so-subtle portrayals of gay characters. He assembled them into a clip show that he presented to audiences around the world, and later compiled his work into the must-read The Celluloid Closet, a best-seller that almost didn’t get published, but that was made into a film by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman in 1995.

Although he lived and breathed queer film, there was also far more to Vito Russo’s passionate life. He was one of the founders of the Gay Activist Alliance, right after Stonewall. He campaigned against homophobic city officials, newspapers, and magazines. When the AIDS epidemic began devastating our community as our government and most of society stood disinterestedly silent, Vito Russo and 11 others started ACT-UP to force the media to pay attention and to force drug companies and government agencies to take our lives seriously.

Vito tells the story of this remarkable life, from childhood in New York City, to teenage exile in New Jersey, to bicoastal romance with somebody he met at the Castro Theatre, with the threads of queer film and queer activism woven throughout. For those of us who have been steeped in queer culture for most of our adult lives, Vito is already a familiar figure who led a very public life, and this documentary doesn’t have any “stop the presses!” moments, but it is an engaging story worth telling and re-telling, in a deeply moving way. For younger audiences, though, including some who may not have been born yet when Vito passed away in 1990, this documentary is essential viewing, to learn about a figure who deserves to be right up there alongside Harvey Milk in our pantheon of community leaders. Absolutely a must-see.

Vito will be presented on HBO, beginning July 23, 2012.

Fun in Boys Shorts (2012)

Fun in Boys Shorts
Saturday 6/16, 11:00am @ Castro, FUNB16C
Sunday 6/24, 2:00pm @ Castro, FUNB24C

Couples Therapy, dir. Mike Rose, 2012, USA, 10 min., S324 [not reviewed]
Two Guys in a Backyard, dir. Tez Frost, 2011, Australia, 5 min., S416 
4 Pounds, dirs. Josh Levy & Robi Levy, 2010, Canada, 8 min., S343 
CRUSH, dir. Gloria LaMorte, 2011, USA, 9 min., S325 

33 Teeth, dir. Evan Roberts, 2011, Canada, 8 min., S301  [trailer]
7 Deadly Kisses, dir. Sammaria Simanjuntak, 2011, Indonesia, 4 min., S303 
Shabbat Dinner, dir. Michael Morgenstern, 2012, USA, 15 min., S401 
Unanimated (Desanimado), dir. Emilio Martí López, 2011, Spain, 8 min., in Spanish with English subtitles, S418 
Alone with Mr. Carter, dir. Jean-Pierre Bergeron, 2011, Canada, 18 min., S306 

Bay Area Buffet

Bay Area Buffet (shorts program),
Sunday, June 17, 11:00am, Victoria, BAYA17V

Disaster (a personal geography), dir. Laura Green, USA, 2011, 9 min., S330, 
America’s Most Unwanted, dir. Shani Heckman, USA, 2012, 21 min., S307, 
Love is Not Enough, dir. Bryan Darling, USA, 2011, 12 min., S367, 
The Bears of San Francisco, dirs. Mike Agnew, Samantha André, Eunice Lai, Sabrina Tan Fen Yi, USA, 2012, 8 min., S311, 
ub2, dir. Dan Goldes, USA, 2011, 5 min., S417, 
Off Castro, dirs. Kay O. Anderson, Rudy Lona, Ashmita Nair, USA, 2012, 10 min., S381, 
Queers on a Boat, dir. Dara Sklar, USA, 2011, 3 min., S392, 
Dyke Central Pilot, dir. Florencia Manovil, USA, 2011, 22 min., S335, 
Blood Flow, dir. Jimmy Defebaugh, USA, 2011, 6 min., S314, [not reviewed]

Generations: Youth & Elders (2011 shorts program)

Johnny and Lyman, together
for 65 years and counting

“Generations: Youth and Elders Making Movies,” (shorts program)
Sun. 6/19, 4:00 p.m. @ Roxie

Coming Out in the 1950s: Stories of Our Lives, dir. Gabriel Gaska & Phil Siegel, 2011 USA, 15 min. 
Eau Queer Festival, dir. Pamela Forman & Ellen Mahaffy, 2010 USA, 11 min. 
The Hook-Up, dir. Frameline Generations Filmmaker Workshop, 2011 USA, 7 min. 
Johnny & Lyman: A Life Together, dir. Michael Chen & Paul Detwiler, 2010 USA, 19 min.  [trailer]
Love Me/Hate Me, dir. Frameline Generations Filmmaker Workshop, 2011 USA, 7 min. 
Our Compass, dir. Tess Vo, 2009 Canada, 29 min. 
Tenderloin: Forgotten History, dir. Frameline Generations Filmmaker Workshop, 2011 USA, 8 min. 

The Queen Has No Crown

The Heymann brothers,
from an old home movie.

The Queen Has No Crown, dir. Tomer Heymann (תומר הימן), 2011 Israel, 85 min., mostly in Hebrew with English subtitles 
Sat. 6/18, 6:30 p.m. @ Roxie

The Queen Has No Crown is a deeply personal documentary of the filmmaker’s life, growing up in Israel, coming out, gaining political awareness of gay rights and also of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Tomer Heymann uses his own videos from the last decade, but also family home movies and photos going back to the formation of the State of Israel. He encompasses both the personal and family history, including the recent migration of much of the family to America, and the backdrop of world events against which the personal stories unfold. It’s an interesting story, and a rare opportunity to see so much of the story in contemporaneous images, but at almost an hour and a half, it ran a bit long; my interest flagged in several segments. Highly recommended.

Note: although most of the dialogue is in Hebrew (with English subtitles), the title of the film is only in English.

הערה: למרות שרוב הדיאלוג היא עברית (עם כתוביות באנגלית), את הכותרת של הסרט הוא באנגלית בלבד.

Please May I Have Another?

International Mr. Leather contestants
in the doc. Crowned and Bound.

“Please May I Have Another?” (shorts program)
Sat. 6/18, 9:00 p.m. @ Victoria

Black Rose Tango, dir. Richard Kimmel, 2010 USA, 12 min. 
Brotherly Love, dir. Kinky Lez, 2010 USA, 14 min. 
Crowned & Bound, dir. Jeffrey Thomas McHale, 2010 USA, 21 min. 
feti(sh)ame, dir. Kevin Simmonds, 2011 USA, 25 min. 
Spring, dir. Hong Khaou, 2011 UK, 13 min. 
Transsexual Dominatrix, dir. Shawna Virago, 2011 USA, 3 min. 

Bite Marks

Bite Marks, dir. Mark Bessenger, 2011 USA, 84 min. 
Fri. 6/17, 9:30 p.m. @ Victoria
[screened with GaySharkTank.com, dir. Guy Shalem, 2010 USA, 14 min.; (not reviewed)]

Hey, Brewster! What’s in the
back o’ that truck, anyhow??

I should say at the outset that I’m not really an aficionado of vampire movies, or horror movies in general. That said, Bite Marks is a passable entry in the vampire genre. We start with a truck driver named Brewster (Benjamin Lutz) who subs at the last minute for his missing brother, delivering some coffins. Along the way, he picks up a couple of hitchhikers, college boys Cary (Windham Beacham, Long-Term Relationship [2006]) and Vogel (David Alanson). Of course, there be vampires in them thar coffins, and so our trio must work out what really works against vampires, as opposed to the silly stuff they put in movies.

Bashment

J.J. (Joel Dommett) rapping with
Venom (Ludvig Bonin) in Bashment.

Bashment, dir. Rikki Beadle-Blair, 2010 UK, 110 min., 
Sat. 6/18, 1:30 p.m. @ Victoria; [view trailer]
ADVISORY: this film contains graphic violence

Rikki Beadle-Blair is well familiar to Frameline audiences for the 1999 TV series Metrosexuality and the 2008 short film Souljah; he also wrote the screenplay for the 1995 film Stonewall. In Bashment, he again takes on issues of race, sex, and sexuality. MC J.J. (Joel Dommett) is a white, gay rapper, originally from the “cow country” of southwestern England, rising quickly on the London rap scene. At the finals of the Urban Slam competition, J.J. comes out, inviting his boyfriend Orlando (Marcus Kai) to join him onstage. Problem is, the Ilford Ilmanics crew, pissed off at having been disqualified for showing up an hour late, take out their frustrations on Orly backstage, beating him so badly that he has permanent brain damage.

The Night Watch

The Night Watch, dir. Richard Laxton, 2011 UK, 90 min. 

Kay (Anna Maxwell Martin) and
Helen (Claire Foy) in the London
blitz in The Night Watch.

Fri. 6/17, 9:30 p.m. @ Castro

The Night Watch follows a group of interwoven characters in London during and shortly after World War II. The narrative takes an unusual structure, though, because we spend roughly the first third of the film in 1947, then abruptly fast-rewind to 1944 for the middle third, and finally fast-rewind to 1941 for most of the last third, only jumping back to 1947 at the very end. The director, Richard Laxton, also made the fabulous “Must See” An Englishman in New York, the opening film of Frameline33.

Fun in Boys Shorts (2011)

“Fun in Boys Shorts” (2011 shorts program)
Sat. 6/18, 11:00a @ Castro, FUNB18C
Sun. 6/26, 2:15p @ Castro, FUNB26C
UPDATE: all 8 shorts reviewed

Cassie (Ivy Latimer) and Greg (Callan
McAuliffe) in Franswa Sharl.

52, dir. Josh Levy, 2010 Canada, 4 min. 
BaldGuy (Skallamann), dir. Maria Block, 2011 Norway, 12 min., in Norwegian with English subtitles 
Cold Star, dir. Kai Stänicke, 2011 Germany, 7 min., music video 
Drives (Pulsiones), dir. José Manuel Carrasco, 2009 Spain, 12 min., in Spanish with English subtitles 
Franswa Sharl, dir. Hannah Hilliard, 2010 Australia, 14 min. 
I’d Rather be Looking at Porn, dir. Jared Michell & R.M. Vaughan, 2010 Canada, 3 min. 
The Itch, dir. Nora Tennessen, 2011 USA, 13 min. 
Revolution (انقلاب), dir. Abdi Nazemian, 2010 USA, 15 min. 

The Green

The Green, dir. Steven Williford, 2010 USA, 90 min. 
Fri. 6/17, 7:00 p.m. @ Castro

Michael (Jason Butler Harner) and
Daniel (Cheyenne Jackson)

Michael (Jason Butler Harner) and Daniel (Cheyenne Jackson, most recently the Glee team’s nemesis Dustin Goolsby) were living in the New York City, but Michael’s yearning for something a bit more small-town — some place where he could see green — led them to the Connecticut countryside. Michael is working as a teacher at a private school, and Daniel has a catering business. Things are going well until Michael is accused of molesting one of the students, a boy named Jason (Chris Bert) who is clearly having problems in his home life. Jason’s recovering-alcoholic mom is dating the groundskeeper of the school, a man who seems indifferent at best to Jason and openly suspicious of Michael.

Weekend

Weekend, dir. Andrew Haigh, 2011 UK, 96 min. 

Russell (Tom Cullen) and Glen
(Chris New) in Weekend.

Fri. 6/17, 4:15 p.m. @ Castro

Russell and Glen hook up for a one-night stand, but their divergent views on relationships quickly become apparent. Also, Glen wants to record an audio interview with Russell about their hookup for some sort of art project he’s doing. Over the course of a weekend of sex, beer, and drugs, they talk quite uninhibitedly, the sort of chat you only have with someone you know is about to leave. I only know about cocaine third-hand, but it doesn’t seem like the optimal drug for soul-searching conversation. Still, the interaction between Russell and Glen comes across as genuine, and the insights they share authentic. Highly recommended, with a theatrical release in the US and UK expected later this year.

Blokes (shorts program)

We Once were Tide

“Blokes” (shorts program), Fri 6/17 1:45p @ Castro, BLOK17C
UPDATE: all shorts now reviewed

Blokes (Block), dir. Marialy Rivas, 2011 Chile, 15 min., in Spanish with English subtitles; 
Spring, dir. Hong Khaou, 2011 UK, 13 min.; 
The In-between, dir. Alain Hain, 2011 USA, 10 min.; 
We Once were Tide, dir. Jason Bradbury, 2011 UK, 19 min. 
Triple Standard, dir. Branden Blinn, 2010, USA 20 min.; 
Family Affair (Assunto de Família), dir. Caru Alves de Souza, 2011, Brazil, 13 min., in Portuguese with English subtitles 

Celebrating the Life of Del Martin

Celebrating the Life of Del Martin, dir. Debra Chasnoff, 2011 USA, 57 min. 

A portrait of Del Martin hanging in
SF City Hall during her memorial.

Fri. 6/17, 11:30 a.m. @ Castro

Del Martin was an incredibly important figure for San Francisco and the world, a pioneer in lesbian rights (co-founded the Daughters of Bilitis), women’s health (the Lyon-Martin clinic is named for Del and her partner Phyllis Lyon), elder rights, marriage equality, and many other issues. This film documents the memorial service that was held for her at San Francisco City Hall when she passed away just ten weeks after her lifelong relationship with Phyllis Lyon was finally legally recognized.

Kawa

Kawa (Calvin Tuteao)

Kawa, dir. Katie Wolfe, 2011 New Zealand, 76 min. 
Tue. 6/21, 4:00p @ Castro, KAWA21C
Thu. 6/23, 9:30p @ Elmwood, KAWA23E

Kawa is a family man from a traditional Māori (New Zealand native) family, the son of a clan leader. He has a wife and two kids, but he also has a secret that is gnawing at him and threatening to dissolve his marriage. His white boyfriend is losing patience with his closetedness, but his Māori family views homosexuality as dishonorable, disgusting, contemptible, and completely incompatible with the family leadership role Kawa is expected to take up from his ailing father. He has nowhere to turn.

The Advocate for Fagdom

Filmmaker Bruce LaBruce

The Advocate for Fagdom, dir. Angélique Bosio, 2011 France, 92 min. 
Wed. 6/22, 7:00p @ Roxie, ADVO22R

Canadian-born filmmaker Bruce LaBruce is certainly controversial, mixing a hardcore porno sensibility (often including actual porn using scenes from the same film shoot) with slasher horror film imagery and erotic images of skinheads, including Nazi skinheads. Even just the titles of some of LaBruce’s films are deliberately provocative: The Raspberry Reich, Bruce and Pepper Wayne Gacy’s Home Movies (a reference to serial killer John Wayne Gacy), and A Case for the Closet, for example.

Time Index of Reviewed Films

Check back for updates during the festival.
Last update: 2011-06-16 @ 17:50 (i.e., 5:50 pm on opening night)


Index of reviewed films, sorted by screening time(s)

Alphabetical Index of Reviewed Films

Check back for updates during the festival.
Last update: 2011-06-16 @ 17:45 (i.e., 5:45 pm on opening night)

Three (Drei)

Three (Drei), dir. Tom Tykwer, 2010 Germany, 119 min., in German with English subtitles 

Adam (Daniel Striesow) and Simon
(Sebastian Schipper) in 3.

Tue. 6/21, 6:30p @ Castro, THRE21C ($15 general, $12 members)

From the Frameline website: From the director of iconic indie flick Run, Lola, Run comes Three, Tom Tykwer’s latest exploration of human motivation. If you let it, love can be as easy as one-two-three, as Tykwer proves in this atmospheric piece about bisexuality, love and longing in cosmopolitan Berlin.

August

Ex-lover Troy (Murray Bartlett)
returns in the heat of August.

August, dir. Eldar Rapaport, 2011 USA, 105 min. 
Sat. 6/18, 9:00p @ Castro, AUGU18C; [watch the trailer]

Jonathan (Daniel Dugan) is happy with his new boyfriend, Raul (Adrian Gonzalez), almost but not quite living together in Los Angeles. (Raul has married Jonathan’s friend Nina to try to get a green card.) One steamy day in the middle of an August heat wave, they get a message from Troy (Murray Bartlett) that he’s moving back from Barcelona to L.A. Of course, Jonathan isn’t quite as “over” Troy as he would like to believe, and Troy clearly wants to start right back up. 

Longhorns

Steve (Dylan Vox) and Kevin
(Jacob Newton) in Longhorns.

Longhorns, dir. David Lewis, 2011 USA, 74 min. 
Sat. 6/25, 11:00a @ Castro, LONG25C; [view trailer]

Kevin is a fratboy in Texas in 1982. He and his good-ole-boy buddies are interested in three things: football, beer, and pussy, and not in that order. Of course, when beer and yer buddies are all y’all got, you might come up with some creative substitutes for the pussy — ’scuse me, ma’am, ah mint to say female companionshee’up — with a little help from the VCR, “like havin’ a porno theater right in yer dorm room!”

Private Romeo

Private Romeo, dir. Alan Brown, 2011 USA, 98 min. 
Mon. 6/20, 6:30p @ Castro, PRIV20C
screens with HERNDON, dir. Steve Clark Hall, 2010 USA, 3 min. (not reviewed)

The boys of McKinley Military Academy have been studying William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, but on a weekend when all the adult faculty and staff are gone, leaving eight boys to fend for themselves, the story works its way off the dusty page and into their real lives. Most of the dialogue in the film — well over 90%, in fact — is the 400-year-old tale of Montagues and Capulets. If you’ve ever seen a high school try to perform Shakespeare, you might be filled with dread at the thought, but these boys clearly know that “Wherefore art thou Romeo?” is entirely different from “Where are you, Romeo?,” and they also know just where to hold an extra beat to underline a bawdy double-entendre.

Wish Me Away

Wish Me Away, dir. Bobbie Birleffi and Beverly Kopf, 2011 USA, 95 min. 

Country music star Chely Wright

Wed. 6/22, 7:00p @ Castro, WISH22C ($15 general, $12 members)

As recently as two years ago, there were zero openly gay or lesbian stars in country music. Chely Wright (“Shut Up and Drive,” “Single White Female”) was the very first, and she documented her journey with the help of filmmakers Bobbie Birleffi and Beverly Kopf. Chely finally came out of the closet with a book titled Like Me and an album called Lifted Off the Ground, and went on The Today Show and Oprah to talk about them.

Coming Out (shorts program 2011)

Joel (Charlie Gustafsson)
in Coming Out. photo:
Alexander Westergårdh

“Coming Out” (shorts program 2011)
Sun. 6/19, 1:15p @ Roxie, COUT19R

10,000 Hearts, dir. Lisa Lodico, 2010 USA, 15 min. 
CHANGE, dir. Melissa Osborne, 2010 USA, 24 min. 
Coming Out (Komma Ut), dir. Jerry Carlsson, 2010 Sweden, 5 min., in Swedish with English subtitles 
Henry & Anthony, dir. Spencer W. Richards, 2010 USA, 20 min. (not reviewed)
James Dean, dir. Lucy Asten Elliott, 2010 UK, 8 min. 
Loop Planes, dir. Robin Wilby, 2010 USA, 12 min. 
One on One, dir. Luís Fernando Midence, 2010 USA, 10 min. 

[Henry & Anthony was not available for review. James Dean and Loop Planes will also screen in the “Transtastic!” shorts program, Wed. 6/22, 7:00p @ Roxie, TRAN22V.]

Spork

Spork contemplating a spork.

Spork, dir. J. B. Ghuman, Jr., 2010 USA, 90 min. 
Sun. 6/19, 1:00 @ Castro, SPOR19C

“Spork” (Savannah Stehlin) is the nickname given to a girl-identified 13-year-old with an intersex condition. (She views herself as something of a hybrid, hence the name.) Her classmates mostly view her as a freak and an outcast, as much for her frizzy hair as for her unusual biology. With help from some of her friends, including the irrepressible neighbor girl Tootsie Roll (Sydney Park), Spork decides to enter the dance competition in hopes of winning the $236 prize in spite of her lack of rhythm and graceful moves.

The Sleeping Beauty of East Finchley

The Sleeping Beauty of East Finchley, dir. Séamus Rea, 2010 UK, 50 min. 
Thu. 6/16, 10:00p @ Castro, SLEE16C
Mon. 6/20, 7:00p @ Elmwood, SLEE20E

Joan (Josie Walker)

Joan (Josie Walker) has a humdrum life, coming home from her boring job to care for her invalid mother, until the visiting nurse Pat (Ruth James) uncovers their shared passion for music, persuading Joan to join the “Friends of Dusty” women’s choir. The trouble is, Joan is a good Irish Catholic lass, so she has a heaping helping of guilt around using her beautiful voice for something other than the church choir, leading her to back out of singing the solo for the Friends of Dusty’s big performance at the big LGBT music festival in London.

Absent (Ausente)

Absent (Ausente), dir. Marco Berger, 2011 Argentina, 87 min., in Spanish with English subtitles 
Sun. 6/19, 9:15p @ Castro, ABSE19C

Martín (Javier de Pietro, foreground)
and Sebastián (Carlos Echevarría)

In Absent, 16-year-old Martín seems to be stalking his gym teacher, Sebastián, engineering an excuse for Sebastián to take him to the hospital, weaving a web of lies in order to spend the night on Sebastián’s sofa, and working his way into Sebastián’s life. But everything is not as simple as it seems. Despite having a girlfriend and a pretty ordinary life, Sebastián is clearly thrown off balance by Martín. Near the end of the film, we revisit several incidents from an alternate perspective: who is really stalking whom?

Absent is a well-crafted psychological thriller, building the tension between the main characters steadily as their mysterious relationship unfolds, re-folds, and unfolds again. The camera work, lighting, and musical score all help to set the mood as the characters build to a slow boil. Highly recommended.

Romeos

Romeos, dir. Sabine Bernardi, 2011 Germany, 94 min., in German with English subtitles 
Tue. 6/21, 9:30p @ Castro, ROME21C

Rick Okon as Lukas in Romeos.

From the Frameline website: “A sweltering German summer is the perfect backdrop for Romeos, a rich story of coming into one’s own. Lukas just turned twenty, just showed up for his year of civil service, just finished his twenty-fifth shot of testosterone, and is saving up for surgery. Life is looking good. But when he’s mistakenly assigned to a women’s dorm and as he falls for a hot guy, it gets harder to keep his secret under wraps.

Bumblefuck, USA

Bumblefuck, USA, dir. Aaron Douglas Johnston, 2011 USA & Netherlands, 90 min. 
Fri. 6/17, 7:00p @ Victoria, BUMB17V

Jennifer (Heidi M. Sallows) and

Alexa (Cat Smits) in Bumblefuck, USA

Following the suicide of her friend Matt, Alexa has traveled from her home in Amsterdam to his home town, an unnamed small town in Iowa, to make a documentary about gay suicide and the coming-out experiences of some of the locals. Alexa rents a room from Lucas, a guy who gradually slides from socially awkward to creepy to criminally violent. (Note: the film includes a scene of sexual assault.) She also meets (and hooks up with) a lesbian artist named Jennifer and a young man who tends the landscaping at the cemetery. Her adventures with them are intermixed with footage from the documentary.

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same

Hmmm... I wonder where that bald
woman in the spacesuit is from....

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, dir. Madeleine Olnek, 2011 USA, 70 min.  [view trailer]
Sat. 6/25, 3:30p @ Castro, CODE25C

Campy, over-the-top, unrelentingly cheesy — zoinks! I mean, the protagonist is even named Zoinx. This film is exactly what it sets out to be: a send-up of low-budget black-and-white sci-fi movies of the 1950’s, with a heaping helping of lesbian film clichés added on the skewer. It’s amusing, and will probably be much more fun with a full theatre than it was with just me in my living room, but on the other hand I had the benefit of the 1.5X fast playback mode on my DVD player. After all, the flat monotone “I am a space alien” voice thing wears thin after a while. If the description sounds at all appealing to you, you’ll probably have a great time, plus you’ll get to see the director and three of the actors (guests expected, but not guaranteed). Recommended.

Keywords: Frameline35, LGBT Film

Zombies, Aussies, Musicals, Oh My!

Murray and Barry in Slut – The Musical

“Zombies, Aussies, Musicals, Oh My!” shorts program
Mon. 6/20 9:30p @ Victoria, ZOMB20V

Cupcake: A Zombie Lesbian Musical, dir. Rebecca Thomson, 2010 Australia, 18 min. (not reviewed)
Slut – The Musical, dir. Tonnette Stanford, 2010 Australia, 16 min. 
Slashed, dir. Rebecca Thomson, 2010 Australia, 11 min. 
Why Me?, dir.Victoria Stanford, 2010 Australia, 22 min. 
I was a Teenage Werebear, dir. Tim Sullivan, 2011 USA, 28 min. (not reviewed)