Torino GLBT Film Festival 2009: Javier Cámara, CHEF’S SPECIAL

Nacho G. Velilla’s Spanish comedy Fuera de Carta / Chef’s Special opened the 24th edition of the Torino GLBT FIlm Festival last night.
In Chef’s Special, a highly regarded chef (Javier Cámara, above, with festival programmer Cosimo Santoro and Velilla) working at a trendy restaurant in Chueca, Madrid’s gay neighborhood, believes that life is just perfect. It doesn’t take long, however, for imperfection to knock at his door in the form of his children from a former marriage and of a hunky ex-soccer player from Argentina.
The festival’s opening ceremony was hosted by actress Lucia Ocone, and featured a special appearance by veteran actress Franca Valeri. Valeri can be seen in Vittorio Caprioli’s Lions Lying in the [...]

by Andre Soares | April 24, 2009   
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Visualizing the Sacred: Islam on Film at UCLA

"What we wanted to say is, if these people [Iranians, Muslims] scare you, look closer: They have parents, they have lovers, they have hope, they have stories." That’s filmmaker and cartoonist Marjane Satrapi, referring to Persepolis, at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
(Top photo: Brick Lane by Sarah Gavron. Right photo: Of Love and Eggs by Garin Nugroho.)
Whether or not following on Satrapi’s lead, this weekend the UCLA Film & Television Archive is launching the film series "Visualizing the Sacred: Islam on Film," which runs Friday, May 9 — Monday, June 9. "Visualizing the Sacred" will show a side of Islam and Muslims apart from terrorist attacks, Mohammed cartoons, or hysterical short films created by far-right Dutch politicians.
"The films in this [...]

by Andre Soares | May 7, 2008   
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Brigitte Bardot Vs. Muslims

Next round of Brigitte Bardot vs. Muslims.
No, Bardot’s animosity has nothing to do with, say, a planned Algerian-made sex melodrama called And Allah Created Woman. Bardot, like millions of others in France and elsewhere, apparently just doesn’t like Muslims, period.
She’s now on trial for the fifth time since the mid-1990s for "inciting racial hatred" due to recent controversial remarks she made about Islam and its followers, five million of whom live in France. (Free speech laws in France are clearly less encompassing than in some other countries.) French anti-racist groups filed a complaint following comments Bardot made about the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha, in which a sheep is usually sacrificed, in a letter to right-wing French president Nicolas [...]

by Andre Soares | April 17, 2008   
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