[This is provided courtesy of Steve Dyer, but unless otherwise noted, the comments are directly from the promotional flyer. While most people can't get to the Festival, the descriptions and comments are worth providing, as many of these films have not been reviewed elsewhere. -Moderator]
4th Annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
Schedule Provided by Steve Dyer
Date Title
Fri 4/29 VERA (Brazil)
Sat 4/30 Gender bending is taken to extremes unimagined as director
Sergio Toledos guides the stunning Beatriz Nogueria (1987
Berlin Film Festival WInner for Best Actress) in this story of
a young woman who wants to reinvent herself, literally, as a
man. Lesbianism is the norm in the orphanage where this
18-year-old Brazilian Butch Baby with an eat-your-heart-out-
Anne-Murray haircut claims to be a man, but her lover, Clara
(Aida Leiver), another orphan, insists they be equal as women--
"If I wanted a man I could have one!" Boston premiere.
THE MAGIC GARDEN OF STANLEY SWEETHEART (USA 1970)
Visualize this: it's 1970, and a very fey bleached blond Don
Johnson is seduced by a 250-pound Holly Near while photographing
her nude in an underground movie called MASTURBATION! Gay
comic Michael Greer costars in this bizarre coming-of-age-as-a-
hippy comedy that has more nudity and dirty language than any
average Russ Meyer X-rated. It all reaches a "climax" when our
swishy Don leaves our hefty Holly and takes up with 2 cheerful
Lesbians in an East Village menage-a-trois! If you don't
believe this (and I don't blame you) this resurrected oddity
will play midnight Friday April 29th and Saturday April 30th.
Be the first one on your block to see Holly Near bottoms-up in
a bathtub. Special Gay Rediscovery.
Sun 5/1 RIGHTS AND REACTIONS (USA)
Mon 5/2 Our rights are on trial in this vivid and funny documentary
Tue 5/3 that shows both sides of an inflammatory issue. Against the
backdrop of the AIDS crisis, a debate rages in the New York
City Council hearing of the Gay Rights Bill. This brilliantly
edited footage of the actual arguments should be seen by every
one of our Massachusetts politicians. RIGHTS AND REACTIONS
is an historical microcosm revealing the full-scale
controversies and convictions of both sides of the lesbian and
gay rights issue in America. Hilarious, saddening and
incredibly touching. Written by Jane Lipman and Phil Zinicker.
Boston premiere.
HALLOWEENIE (USA)
This very funny short film is about a "sexually confused" Holy
Cross senior who decides to dress up as a six-foot penis ford
the infamous Greenwich Village Hallowe'en parade.
"Halloweenie" gives new meaning to "trick or treat." Boston
premiere.
NOT ALL PARENTS ARE STRAIGHT (USA)
Of the estimated 22 million homosexuals in this country, there
are 4-5 million Gay and Lesbian parents with anywhere from 8-10
million children. The stigma against homosexuality in our
society forces many Gay parents and their children into
secrecy. By turns moving and humorous, the interviews in
NOT ALL PARENTS ARE STRAIGHT invite the viewer into the homes
and lives of those families as we encounter the emotional
conflicts, legal custody problems and social discrimination
these families must endure. The amount of love and support in
these homes is an inspiration to any family unit. Boston
premiere. [Dyer--this had been shown on WGBH, Boston's PBS
Station last year.]
POUVOIR INTIME (Canada)
An armored car robbery goes awry and a macho man and his
waiter-turned-desperado boyfriend are trapped in a deadly
battle. As these two desperate characters struggle for love,
power and survival, the distinctions between good and bad,
gay and straight, masculine and feminine disappear in this
exciting suspense film that accepts its character of
homosexuality with nonchalance that is truly liberating.
Directed by Yves Simoneau. French with English subtitles.
Boston premiere.
JE TU IL ELLE (Belgium, 1973)
Controversial woman director Chantal Ackerman's JE TU IL ELLE
has been the scandal of many an alternative film festival:
Women's, French, Psychoanalytic, autobiographical, but it most
appropriately belongs in a *gay* film festival, and we are proud
to be showing it in that context for the first time in the
Boston area. The film features two incredibly erotic set
pieces: A brief one in which the heroine hitches a ride in a
truck and masturbates the male driver, and the other, a longer
piece in which she visits her woman lover, gobbles lots of bread
and jam and has an explicit, lovingly extended lesbian love
scene that really burns up the screen. Boston premiere.
Wed 5/4 MY LIFE FOR ZARAH LEANDER (FRG)
Thu 5/5 Zarah, the great musical star of Nazi Germany, has not been
discovered by American audiences, but her legend echoes those
we know very well--Garland, Piaf, Dietrich, Gay icons all.
We see Zarah through the eyes of Paul Seiter, her most devoted,
some say obsessed, devotee, and in him we may see ourselves
as the ardent fans who create our own legends from our own
dreams. Boston premiere. [Moderator's note--this was
reviewed by Manavendra Thakur last year.]
BURROUGHS (USA 1984)
The details of Burroughs' scandalous life are all available
here; the shooting of his wife in a drunken William Tell stunt,
an affair with Allan Ginsberg, heroin addiction and the literary
acclaim that came late in life.
THE OUTSIDERS (Taiwan)
The first film with a homosexual theme from Taiwan, THE
OUTSIDERS was a sensation of the 1987 San Francisco Gay and
Lesbian Film Festival. An-Ching is being disowned by his
family for being gay and is given shelter along with other
"strong young men" by an older man. There he finds a dangerous
love with Wang Kei-Lung, a sexy but violent youngster who has
killed his previous lover. Based on a popular novel by Shaung
Yeoung, the brilliant film offers a rare and revealing look at
the gay life in an Asian culture. In Chinese with English
subtitles. East Coast premiere.
NIGHT ZOO (Canada)
The winner of 13 Genie awards (the Canadian Academy Award)
including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best
Screenplay. This darkly stylish tale of an ex-convict's
attempt to reestablish a relationship with his dying father
while inhabiting the Montreal underground of Gay leather bars
is a wild mix of LIES MY FATHER TOLD ME and an S&M DIVA.
The combination of sentiment and eroticism adds an emotional
jolt to our handsome young hero's compulsive search for sex
while still yearning to connect with his past. Directed by
Jean-Claude Lauzon. French with English subtitles. Boston
premiere.
Fri 5/6 MY LIFE FOR ZARAH LEANDER
BURROUGHS
THE OUTSIDERS
VERA
Sat 5/7 THE OUTSIDERS
VERA
Sun 5/8 NIGHT ZOO
ARIA (International)
Calling all Opera Queens! ARIA is *the* event of the season!
Haven't you desperately wanted to see your favorite operatic
arias presented by a mind-boggling array of the world's greatest
directors in a format that MTV would kill for?!?! Imagine
Theresa Russell (BLACK WIDOW, INSIGNIFICANCE) in male drag
(with a moustache yet) in Nicholas Roeg's mad interpretation of
Verdi's UN BALLO IN MASCHERA or Jean-Luc Godard setting
Lully's ARMIDE in a Parisian gym while lovingly caressing
(with his camera) the oily muscles of nude guys and nude gals.
The other eight segments include Ken Russell's TURANDOT
and Derek Jarman's LOUISE. The world's greatest music played
against a foreground of nudity and sex! What more could you
ask? An Adults Only opera film. Boston premiere.
SALOME'S LAST DANCE (UK)
Starring Glenda Jackson as Lady Alice, an actress who enacts
the usually male role of Herodias in Russell's bizarre imagining
of the first staging of Oscar Wilde's famous play. Wilde
appears as a character in the film as Russell parallels Wilde's
sexual obsession with his young lover (Lord Douglas) with
Salome's need for the head of John the Baptist, in what must
be this unconventional director's deliriously perverse film yet.
Boston premiere.
Mon 5/9 CHUCK SOLOMON: COMING OF AGE (USA)
Tue 5/10 A different kind of AIDS story focusing on Chuck Solomon,
Wed 5/11 actor, director, and grinding force behind San Francisco's
Theater Rhinoceros. The same life-affirming, proudly Gay
and courageous approach that Solomon brings to his work
carries him in his struggle with AIDS and leaves the viewer
sharing his enforcement and hope. This is the best documentary
since THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK. A winner at the recent USA
Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Boston premiere.
TOGETHER AND APART (USA)
An award-winning avant-garde Gay musical about 2 former college
roommates/lovers who meet again 10 years later. The entire
cast sings the Stephen Sondheim-like music in bed, across the
dinner table and on the road. Directed by Laurie Lyid.
Boston premiere.
40 DEUCE (USA 1984)
When Alan Bowne's play 40 DEUCE opened off-off-Broadway
in 1981, it provided one of the most controversial theater-
going experiences of the season. It also introduced a sexy
young actor, Kevin Bacon, who subsequently recreated his Obie
winning performance for director Paul Morrissey (TRASH,
FLESH). In this fascinating excursion into the world of male
prostitution, Bacon imbues his role of boy/hustler/pimp with
a realism that will shock his teenage admirers. The film
co-stars Orson Bean, as the "john" who definitely wants to
bring home the Bacon. Unrated, but definitely for adults.
Boston premiere.
IN A SHALLOW GRAVE (USA)
James Purdy, the author of such homoerotic "cult" novels
as EUSTACE CHISHOLM AND THE WORKS and IN THE HOLLOW OF HIS
HAND has for the first been filmed in this stunning adaptation
of his book, IN A SHALLOW GRAVE. It is as poetic and erotic
as any of Purdy's written work and equally drenched with
homosexual innuendo. Michael Biehn stars as the disfigured
but sexy master of a desolate Southern mansion who manipulates
the two young men who serve him as both servants and lovers.
Boston premiere.
THU 5/12 NIGHT ZOO
ARIA
SALOME'S LAST DANCE
Steve Dyer dyer@harvard.harvard.edu dyer@spdcc.COM aka {ihnp4,harvard,husc6,linus,ima,bbn,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
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