Outfest: The Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival
by Andre Soares
The 24th edition of Outfest, the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, kicked off this past Thursday.
Among the highlights of the festival are Ahmed Imamovic’s Go West (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Tue 7/11, 9:30pm Laemmle Monica, Thu 7/13, 5:00pm Village), which caused quite a stir among Bosnia’s reactionary crowd because Go West screenwriters Imamovic and Enver Puska dared to equate anti-gay prejudice with ethnic hatred; François 
Ozon’s Le Temps qui reste / Time to Leave (France, Thu 7/13, 7:15pm Village), about a young man (Melvil Poupaud) who tries to come to terms with his imminent demise (brain cancer, not AIDS); and Jean-Marc Vallée’s C.R.A.Z.Y. (Canada, Thu 7/13, 8:30pm The Ford Amphitheatre), the story of an adolescent (Marc-André Grondin) coming to terms with his homosexuality in the Quebec of the 1960s and 1970s. C.R.A.Z.Y. won a total of 10 Genie Awards (that’s the Canadian Oscar) and no less than 13 Jutra Awards (Quebec’s Oscar).
Reinas / Queens (Spain, Fri, Jul 14, 8:30 pm Ford Amphitheatre) is worth a look mostly because of its stellar female cast that includes Carmen Maura and Marisa Paredes. I have a brief review here.
Note: Jeanne Moreau can be seen in both Go West and Le Temps qui reste, but she’s nowhere to be found in either C.R.A.Z.Y. or Reinas.
L.A.’s Gay & Lesbian Film Festival runs until July 17. The Outfest schedule can be found here.
As an aside, Outfest organizers have also begun a drive to support film preservation. According to the Outfest website, the Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation "is the only film preservation program in the world devoted to addressing the crisis in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) film preservation. In partnership with the UCLA Film & Television Archive, Outfest’s Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation has established the largest publicly accessible collection of LGBT films in the world. In addition, Outfest and UCLA are collecting film prints and other material for permanent preservation, and will strike new prints for widespread public exhibition, restore damaged films to their initial release forms and educate filmmakers and the general public about LGBT film and video preservation."
List of winners at the 2006 Outfest
Slovakia’s 14th ArtFilm Festival Award Winners
Brussels European Film Festival 2006 Winners
41st Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Award Winners
Academy Invites 120 to Membership
Monday Nights with Oscar: The Diary of Anne Frank
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