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Where Hollywood rarely goes
These films, featured at the 11th annual Tampa Bay International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, take pride in community and culture.
By STEVE PERSALL
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 5, 2000
[Photo: Sony Pictures Classics]
Former Superman Dean Cain leads the cast in The Broken Hearts Club, about a restaurant frequented by gay actors in West Hollywood, who share drinks, softball games and gossip about men.
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The 11th annual Tampa Bay International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival opens today, shedding projector light on lives Hollywood often overlooks.
New decade, same pride of community and culture.
Things have changed a bit behind the scenes here. Arts advocate Dorothy Abbott resigned the director's role due to family issues after mothering the festival into gay cinema prominence. Abbott remains on a new steering committee sharing the load.
Once again, the festival, held in and around the Tampa Theatre, includes daring independent and imported films rarely shown at multiplexes. A closing-day street fair Oct. 15 and an avant-garde video venue spills art across the cobblestone street.
[Photo: Zeitgeist Films Ltd]
Juliane Kohler, left, and Maria Schrader are in the film Aimee and Jaguar, about two brave lesbians during World War II.
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Making the festival pleasurable business as usual is the goal of the festival committee and its new director, Kelly Fry.
"With the accomplished team of professionals we've put together, it's going to go smoothly," Fry said. "The public won't notice any difference. On the surface, everything will be the same or better."
The following events are planned for the first week of the festival. Next Thursday's issue of Weekend will list events for the final four days, including the Oct. 15 closing-day lineup of a street fair, free film and choral concert, plus a town meeting on community activism sponsored by Equality Florida.
Today
6 p.m. -- Opening night party at TECO Plaza, outside Tampa Theatre. Admission is free. A donation of $5 allows sampling of foods from several restaurants, while retro-dance music is played by WMNF-FM deejay Jim Beeler. A cash bar will be available.
Former soap opera star Kirk Geiger will attend in honor of his role in the opening-night film selection, Sordid Lives.
8 p.m. -- Don't let the title fool you. Sordid Lives is a farce set among a dysfunctional family in rural Texas. Geiger plays a Hollywood actor called back home when his grandmother dies.
Seems the woman tripped over the wooden legs of her married lover (Beau Bridges) in a seedy motel room. Planning the funeral revives old family feuds and ignites new ones that could make Jerry Springer blush. The film co-stars Delta Burke, Bonnie Bedelia and Olivia Newton-John as a lesbian ex-con.
Friday
6:30 p.m. -- Julie and Me (Revoir Julie) is a French drama about two women who haven't spoken since an awkward adolescent kiss. Now in her 30s and single, Juliet seeks out Julie to sort through emotions simmering for 15 years. The film is patiently sensual, beautifully photographed in springtime Quebec. Shown with English subtitles and the short subject, Boxspring.
8:45 p.m. -- A heterosexual couple experiments with threesomes in Just One Time, an American comedy from director Lane Janger. The gambit raises questions about who exactly enjoyed which new partner.
10:45 p.m. -- The Broken Hearts Club is a restaurant frequented by gay actors in West Hollywood. The fellas share drinks, softball games and gossip about men. Former TV Superman Dean Cain and Timothy Olyphant (Go, Scream 2) lead the cast, with support from John Mahoney (TV's Frasier) as the joint's lovable grump. This was the closing-night selection at the New York Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.
Saturday
11 a.m. -- Gay and lesbian parents are invited to bring their children to a double feature. The Ugly Duckling is an updated, animated version of the fairy tale about acceptance, with the voices of Sharon Stone, Ed Asner, Melissa Etheridge and Kathy Najimy. Our House is a documentary focusing on same-sex parents and their everyday lives.
1 p.m. -- Night Waltz: The Music of Paul Bowles is a biography of the Beat author, with emphasis on his lesser-known career as a composer in the 1930s. More than talking-head interviews, the film employs four cinematographers to create visual impressions of Bowles' music. The short film, Something Close to Heaven, opens the program.
3 p.m. -- We Are What We Are is a collection of nine short subjects ranging from gay ghosts to Latinos in leather. The centerpiece is Tampon Thieves, a 22-minute film turning small crime into feminist satire.
4:45 p.m. -- Another short-film assortment, Women on Women, features My Femme Divine, winner of the Director's Award at the San Diego gay and lesbian film showcase.
5 p.m. -- Video-Drome opens at TECO Hall, across from Tampa Theatre. The most experimental and explicit works of the festival will be shown there. The sequel to last year's popular foreign TV drama, Queer as Folk, is included. Admission is $5, with Crown Circle pass holders admitted free.
7 p.m. -- Aimee and Jaguar are pet names for two brave lesbians during World War II. One is a German Jew living a double life as a Nazi publisher and underground spy. The other is a beloved icon of Nazi motherhood. Their love affair is rife with danger, of discovery and rejection, or something darker.
9:30 p.m. -- Director Stanley Bennett Clay will present his film, Ritual, a drama of family tension in which a gay son drops out of college. The film is unique, since this is a rare African-American view of gay issues. Clarence Williams III (Linc from The Mod Squad, Reindeer Games) and Denise Nicholas (TV's Room 222) play the distressed parents.
11:15 p.m. -- Esther Bell's Godass is a punkish comedy about a riot grrrrl dealing with her gay father (B-52's front man Fred Schneider). The film is preceded by the short films Decadda and Roast Beef Americana.
Sunday
Noon -- HBO's award-winning drama, If These Walls Could Talk 2, will be shown free of charge. The trio of lesbian-themed stories include performances by Sharon Stone, Vanessa Redgrave, Chloe Sevigny (Boys Don't Cry) and Ellen DeGeneres, directed by her ex-partner Anne Heche.
2 p.m. -- Out in the Media is film collection highlighted by Off the Straight and Narrow, a one-hour documentary tracing gay images on television. Seven short subjects will be shown, including the Star Trek spoof, Fascinating.
4 p.m. -- Clay, Bell, Fry and filmmaker Kim Cummings (Weeki Wachee Girls) engage in a panel discussion. The topic: Queer Filmmaking in the Do-It-Yourself Age.
5 p.m. -- Video-Drome opens at TECO Hall.
5 p.m. -- Shorts program: A Boy's First Kiss examine sexual self-discovery through five films, capped by the anti-homophobia lesson, Early Frost.
7:15 p.m. -- Johnny Greyeyes takes an American Indian approach to lesbianism with a tale of a storyteller/convict planning an adjustment to the outside world. The short film, No Urge Lately, opens the program.
9:15 p.m. -- Get Your Stuff is a comedy about two boys, neglected by their alcoholic mother, who may be adopted by a gay couple.
Monday
7 p.m. -- Frankie Lauren Ambrose won best actress honors at the Los Angeles gay film festival for Swimming, a coming-of-age story set in a rowdy beach town. Preceded by the animated short, Rick and Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World.
9 p.m. -- Water Drops on Burning Rocks is a French psychological thriller adapted from a story by the late German filmmaker, Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Tuesday
7 p.m. -- Just for You Girls is a short-films sampler including six works. The one to watch is Cummings' Weeki Wachee Girls, in which two girls share a crush near the mermaid haven. Cummings, a Countryside High School graduate, couldn't arrange filming at the tourist attraction. Instead, New Jersey subs for Hernando County.
9 p.m. -- Seven brief films make up the collection, Fun in Boy's Shorts.
Wednesday
7 p.m. -- Muriel's Parents Have Had It! when their daughter moves out and falls in love with another woman. French with English subtitles. The short films, Love, Ltd. and Mother's Day open the program.
9:15 p.m. -- Gypsy Boys follows lonely gay men cruising San Francisco nightclubs. An ensemble cast captures the romantic highs and sometimes decadent lows of looking for Mr. Right.
PREVIEW
The 11th annual Tampa Bay International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, today through Oct. 15 at Tampa Theatre, 711 N Franklin St. in downtown Tampa. Single-event tickets are sold at the box office for $7. Two ticket packages are available: Six-event passes ($35) and all-access Crown Circle passes ($95). For more information, visit the festival Web site at http://www.pridefilmfest.com or call (813) 231-8270.
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