Saturday, July 24
TODAY’S SCREENINGS
• Sex/Life in LA, 1:00 pm (Alliance, $8)
• Girls Just Want To..., 3:00 pm (Alliance, $8)
• Un©ut, 5:00 pm (Alliance, $8)
• Everything Will Be Fine (Alles Wird Gut), 7:00 pm (Colony, $8)
• Amor de Hombre (Manly Love), 9:00 pm (Colony, $8)
• got2b there, 11:00 pm (Colony, $8)
Sex/Life in LA
Directed by Jochen Hick
Germany, South Florida Premiere
Related Panel Discussion: Sex, Drugs, Death and Divas: Gay Reality Hits the Big Screen, 11:00 am (Alliance, free; box lunch available, $8)
Nine young men in Los Angeles. Models, porn stars, hustlers, erotic photographers and performance artists. They all have one thing in common: they earn their living with their own or others’ bodies.
Sex has been central to all definitions of gay life, from those used against us by right-wing politicians and churches, to those we call on when we construct our own communities (South Beach for instance). For good or for bad, by examining the lives of the men who live and survive on the most extreme end of this erotic continuum, we can learn something about what it means to be gay at the end of the millennium.
Set against the palm trees and sun drenched landscapes of Southern California, this documentary draws intimate portraits of these nine men, including model Tony Ward (once linked romantically with Madonna); porn star Matt Bradshaw; controversial performance artist Ron Athey; and photographer and filmmaker Rick Castro (Hustler White).
This film contains sexually graphic content and is recommended for mature audiences only.Girls Just Want To..., 3:00 pm (Alliance, $8)
Girls just want to have fun, babies, sex, love, freedom and commitment in this program of four lesbian feature-ettes.
• Below the Belt
Directed by Dominique Cardona and Laurie Colbert
Canada, South Florida Premiere
Two seventeen-year old girls find love and affection amidst their adolescent lives in this sexy and beautifully filmed short.
• Twisted Sheets
Directed by Chris Deacon
Canada, South Florida Premiere
One straight woman’s life takes a remarkable turn for the better when, tagging along with a friend to a lesbian bar, she runs into the the current female squeeze of her ex boyfriend.
• Two Girls and a Baby
Directed by Kelli Simpson
Australia, South Florida Premiere
In this comedy from down under, Catherine, an aspiring actress, spends all her time on the phone trying to locate a sperm bank in the United States and a sperm storage facility in Melbourne, Australia, where she lives. Once the “sperm has entered the country,” her reluctant lover Liz gives in to the seductions of motherhood, but not without delivering the snappy observation: “Families are awful. Why do we want to form one of our own?“
• Maid of Honor
Directed by Jennifer Arnold
USA, South Florida Premiere
Serena, a young woman in a happy, committed, but sexually open lesbian relationship, agrees to go to her high school girlfriend’s wedding - she’s marrying a man - and serve as her maid of honor. Beautifully photographed and acted, Maid of Honor plumbs the contradictions and ambiguities between commitment and infidelity, between the vows we keep and the promises we break, between who kisses the girl and who gets to keep her. Director Jennifer Arnold will attend the screening and discuss her work with the audience.Un©ut, 5:00 pm (Alliance, $8)
Directed by John Greyson
Canada, South Florida Premiere
The newest tour-de-force from the prolific gay filmmaker John Greyson (Lilies, Zero Patience), this funny, brilliant, fractured narrative tells the entangled stories of three men all named Peter that begins with one’s consuming obsession with circumcision.
In a visually heady mix of fact and fiction the film follows the sexual liaisons and desires of each character, a dance of flirtation with one another that is both physical and cerebral. When two of the Peters draw the attention of the police with a bizarre new music video that borrows liberally from both a Michael Jackson song and images of former Canadian playboy Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, all three end up on trial.The resulting courtroom scene, a send-up of the opera Carmen (don’t ask), lands them all a stay on a surreal prison farm. Giddy, strange and overflowing with ingenuity, the film audaciously creates a powerful and campy meditation on the nature of celebrity and the erotic forces of everyday life.
Preceded by In Your Eyes, Directed by Freddy Rodriguez, U.S.A., 1997, video. A transvestite protstitute meets a tragic end in this experimental made-in-Miaimi short written by John Cano.Everything Will Be Fine (Alles Wird Gut)
7:00 pm (Colony, $8)
Directed by Angelina Maccarone
Germany, South Florida Premiere
Followed immediately by Babes in Filmland party at Laundry Bar, free admission.
This savvy and sexy film opens with its heroine, Nouba, a black lesbian living in Germany, being unceremoniously dumped by her lover Katja, a self-centered, blue-haired, white punker.
Nouba takes a job cleaning Kim’s apartment, the straight black woman who lives in the same building just below Katja, ostensibly to stay as close as possible to her ex. Meanwhile Kim, with her own melodrama to deal with, feels overworked and underappreciated by her boyfriend, who is also her boss at the ad agency for which she works.
While at first cool to and seemingly uninterested in each other, Nouba and Kim’s relationship blossoms over time, even as Katja decides she wants Nouba back and Kim’s boyfriend pops the big marriage question. With its hip soundtrack, overlapping story lines, and satirical take on racism, Everything Will Be Fine is a modern lesbian comedy sure to surprise and please.
In German with English subtitles. Director Angelina Maccarone will attend the screening and discuss her work with the audience.Amor de Hombre (Manly Love)
9:00 pm (Colony, $8)
Directed by Yolanda García Serrano and Juan Luis Iborra
Spain, South Florida Premiere
Ramón is a handsome lawyer living the good life with no boyfriend in sight. His world revolves around a delirious mix of constant bed-hopping and sexual misadventures, and a large social circle of colorful gay male characters.
And one woman, Ramón’s best friend, the just turning forty Esperanza. As played by Loles León (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and last night’s El Grito en el Cielo) in classic Spanish comic style, Esperanza hilariously navigates the ups and down of her friends’ gay lives and her own bad dates with lackluster straight men.
When Ramón finally gets smitten with what he thinks is the man of his dreams, friendships are strained and the plot thickens. Amor de Hombre has been called the Spanish Object of My Affection but, in its high-gloss brightly colored sexy portrait of gay life in Madrid and its swirling cast of wild supporting characters, it is really reminiscent of Almodovar at his best.
The directors’ credits include the screenplay for the critically acclaimed film Boca a Boca. In Spanish with English subtitles. Director Juan Luis Iborra will attend the screening and discuss his work with the audience.got2b there, 11:00 pm (Colony, $8)
Directed by José Torrealba
Canada, South Florida Premiere
Post-screening party at Salvation, $20.
Hot men, altered states, a ritual coming together of the tribe. Circuit parties have been the gay community’s means to celebrate, escape and raise money in the age of AIDS, harking back to the glory days of disco.This ground breaking piece takes on the circuit phenomenon, pulling it apart and putting it back together.
Punctuated by footage of stunning pumped-up bodies dancing to the hottest tracks are interviews with an impressive array of people: party promoters like Jeffrey Sanker and Jason Dibasio; DJs Susan Morabito and David Knapp; gay writers Richard Goldstein, Michelangelo Signorile and Esther Newton; pioneering AIDS researcher and FIU professor Bill Darrow; and Miami psychologist Larry Harmon.
The circuit, with all its sexy vibrancy and thorny issues, is celebrated and examined as never before. Questions are raised about drug use, muscles, steroids, and the politics of AIDS fundraising, while never losing sight of the sheer power and joy that circuit parties have brought to so many of us.
Director José Torrealba will attend the screening and discuss his work with the audience.
