London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: TO FARO, BABY LOVE, Lesbian Shorts
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Wednesday, April 8, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
"Mortal Desires"
Vampires, hoodlums, a hot detective and a few high class call girls make up this programme of sexy lesbian shorts.
In Twilight’s Shadow (above)
USA 2008. Dir T.M. Scorzafava. 12min.
Carlisle’s girlfriend is being held hostage and she’ll do all it takes to get her girl back before sunrise.
Crazy Baby
USA 2008. Dir Jules Nurrish. 3min.
An unhinged patient, a sexy nurse and a very large needle…
Liminal
USA 2008. Dir Stephen Keep Mills. 14min.
A powerplay between lovers escalates with devastating results.
At Home (or Love as well)
Spain 2008. Dir Mariel Macia. 25min.
Rosa’s first time has to be perfect.
What I found in [...]
by Andre Soares | April 7, 2009
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Tags: Baby Love, Comme les autres, Crazy Baby, Film Festivals, Gay Film Festivals, Gay Interest, Gay Movies, Half-Life, In Twilight's Shadow, Jennifer Phang, Lambert Wilson, Lesbian Interest, London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London Screenings, Nana Neul, Pascal Elbe, Shorts, Stephen Keep Mills, To Faro, Vincent Garenq
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: DREAM BOY, SOCIETY
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Monday, April 6, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
"Home"
An international selection of films exploring the idea of home.
Lot’s Wife
Turkey 2008. Dir Harjant Gill, Koray Durak. 9min.
A reworking of the biblical story of Lot’s wife, set in the outskirts of Istanbul, where three uncles intend to break up a happy home.
Boxed In
USA 2007. Dir Joy E. Reed. 10min.
A comedy demonstrating the importance of clearing out your closet when you move home.
The Turkey
France 2008. Dir Anna Margarita Albelo. 10min.
A wife and mother runs off with her battery operated birthday present.
Two Spirits
USA 2007. Dir Ruth Fertig. 22min.
Queer Native Americans fight to reclaim the place of honour [...]
by Andre Soares | April 2, 2009
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Tags: Anna Margarita Albelo, Carolina Valencia, Diana Scarwid, Dream Boy, Film Festivals, Gay Film Festivals, Gay Interest, Harjant Gill, James Bolton, Jim Grimsley, Koray Durak, London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London Screenings, Lot's Wife, Maximillian Roeg, Shorts, Society, Stephan Bender, Transgender, Vincent Moloi, Voodoo Woman
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: WRANGLER: ANATOMY OF AN ICON, CHEF’S SPECIAL
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Sunday, April 5, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
Out Late
Directed by:
Beatrice Alda, Jennifer Brooke
Country:
USA
Year:
2008
Running time:
62min
A truly inspiring and important film about the experiences of LGBT elders, specifically those who have come out in their sixties and seventies. There are stories about coming out in church, discovering The L Word for the first time at eighty and transitioning from male to female after a lifetime in the navy and raising a family. The film movingly explores the difficulties and liberation of discovering sexuality later in life and in particular highlights the often unsuccessful search for life partners in a world that places so much value [...]
by Andre Soares | April 2, 2009
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Tags: Ander, Benjamin Vicuna, Chef's Special, Cristian Esquivel, Devotee, Film Festivals, Gay Erotica, Gay Film Festivals, Gay Interest, Jack Wrangler, Javier Cámara, Jeffrey Schwarz, Lola Dueñas, London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London Screenings, Nacho G. Velilla, Out Late, Remi Lange, Roberto Caston, Wrangler: Anatomy Of An Icon
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: APRES LUI, FUCKING DIFFERENT TEL AVIV
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Saturday, April 4, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
Après lui
Directed by:
Gaël Morel
Cast:
Catherine Deneuve, Thomas Dumerchez, Adrien Jolivet
Country:
France
Year:
2007
Running time:
90min
Following the sudden death of her son Mathieu in a car accident, Camille (Catherine Deneuve) reaches out to his best friend Franck in an attempt to cope with her loss and gain a focus for her pain. However, this initially cathartic relationship soon begins to border on the obsessive, and Camille’s family begin to question her state of mind as she devotes more and more time to Franck. While the film hints at a possible sexual relationship between Franck and Mathieu in the opening scenes, sexuality is not [...]
by Andre Soares | April 1, 2009
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Tags: Apres lui, Catherine Deneuve, Dreams Deferred The Sakia Gunn Film Project, Fucking Different Tel Aviv, Gay Film Festivals, Gay Interest, Japan Japan, Lior Shamriz, London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London Screenings
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: BANDAGED, 57000 KM BETWEEN US
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Friday, April 3, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
Johanna D’Arc of Mongolia
Directed by:
Ulrike Ottinger
Cast:
Delphine Seyrig Xu Re Huar, Inès Sastre
Country:
West Germany
Year:
1989
Running time:
165min
All aboard the Trans-Siberian railway where you’ll find titled ladies, Broadway stars, camp cabaret acts and a Mongolian princess who has come to kidnap them all. This sumptuous epic from Ottinger ranges from the obvious artifice of a studio film to an almost documentary realism when the film moves from train to the glorious vista of the Mongolian landscape. As the culture clash between the Western women and their Mongolian ‘hosts’ intensifies a sweet love affair blossoms between the princess and the young Giovanna, [...]
by Andre Soares | April 1, 2009
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Tags: 57000 Km Between Us, Awakening, Bandaged, Christian Tafdrup, Delphine Kreuter, Delphine Seyrig, Dominic Leclerc, Gay Film Festivals, Gay Interest, Johanna D'Arc of Mongolia, London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London Screenings, Maria Beatty, Mathieu Amalric, Protect Me from What I Want, Ulrike Ottinger
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: BURN THE BRIDGES, CAMPILLO, YES I DO
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Thursday, April 2, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
One Summer in New Paltz, a Cautionary Tale
Cast:
Nancy Nicol
Country:
Canada
Year:
2008
Running time:
54min
Campillo, Yes I Do
Directed by:
Andrés Rubio
Country:
Spain
Year:
2008
Running time:
52min
One Summer in New Paltz, a Cautionary Tale
In 2005, George W. Bush called for an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to enshrine a heterosexual definition of marriage. The mayor of New Paltz however didn’t agree and performed 26 gay weddings one sunny afternoon, beginning a wave of civil disobedience. Whether you are the marrying type or not, only the hardest of hearts could fail to be moved by this clever and touching film about love, commitment and pissing off George [...]
by Andre Soares | March 30, 2009
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Tags: Andrés Rubio, Bodies of Society, Burn the Bridges, Campillo Yes I Do, Can't Spit it Out, Can't Swallow it, Film Festivals, Francisco Franco, Gay Film Festivals, Gay Interest, Gay Marriage, Klara Liden, Lars Laumann, London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London Screenings, One Summer in New Paltz, Ottica Zero, Quemar las Naves
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: GHOSTED, THE AMERICAN SOLDIER
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Wednesday, April 1, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
Before Stonewall
Directed by:
Greta Schiller, Robert Rosenberg
Distributor:
Peccadillo Pictures
Country:
USA
Year:
1984
Running time:
87min
25 years ago this film felt like a revelation of a hidden gay history. Conventional wisdom had defined the modern movement for gay liberation from the riots at the Stonewall Inn in New York, however, this film shows just how much activism and creativity haad been going on before 1969. A dazzling line-up of interviewees includes poets, writers, political organizers, dancers, actors who bear witness to a life before Stonewall, including Allen Ginsberg, Audre Lorde, Barbara Gittings, Harry Hay, Ann Bannon and many more.
The courage and bravery of those [...]
by Andre Soares | March 29, 2009
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Tags: Before Stonewall, Delphine Seyrig, Film Festivals, Gay Film Festivals, Gay Interest, Ghosted, London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London Screenings, Monika Treut, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, The American Soldier, The Image of Dorian Gray in the Yellow Press, Ulrike Ottinger, Veruschka
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: PEDRO, MADAME X: AN ABSOLUTE RULER
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Tuesday, March 31, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
Madame X – An Absolute Ruler
Directed by:
Ulrike Ottinger
Cast:
Tabea Blumenschein
Country:
West Germany
Year:
1977
Running time:
141min
Adventure and fun on the high seas comes at a price for this band of stereotyped women, who answer a call to join Madame X on her ship Chinese Orlando and experience a life without rules and patriarchal tyranny. However old roles reassert themselves and the women find themselves swapping one kind of servitude for another as Madame X demands complete devotion from her shipmates, even the ones she is enamoured with.
An early low-budget film from renowned avant-garde filmmaker [Ulrike] Ottinger, who actually took all crew positions [...]
by Andre Soares | March 28, 2009
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Tags: Alex Loynaz, Dustin Lance Black, Film Festivals, Gay Film Festivals, Gay Interest, Heather Tobin, London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London Screenings, Madame X - An Absolute Ruler, Nick Oceano, Nigel Finch, Pedro, Pedro Zamora, Stonewall, To Each Her Own, Ulrike Ottinger
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: EROS O BASILEUS, STEAM
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Monday, March 30, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
Lion’s Den
Directed by:
Pablo Trapero
Cast:
Martina Gusman, Elli Medeiros, Laura García
Distributor:
Unanimous Pictures
Country:
Argentina
Year:
2008
Running time:
113min
Julia, a two weeks pregnant 25-year-old student is sent to prison for a crime she may or may not have committed – the murder of her boyfriend’s male lover. No one can remember what happened that night, and as Julia adjusts to life inside prison walls, gradually commanding respect from other inmates on the ‘maternity’ wing and developing a tender and loving relationship with fellow internee Marta, she not only has to fight her wrongful incarceration, but also for her son Tomas, born inside prison and due [...]
by Andre Soares | March 28, 2009
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Tags: Ally Sheedy, Bob Rafelson, Debra Winger, Eros o Basileus, Film Festivals, Gay Film Festivals, Gay Interest, Gregory J. Markopoulos, Lion's Den, London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London Screenings, Pablo Trapero, Robert Beavers, Ruby Dee, Steam, Theresa Russell, Women's Prison
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: BORN IN 68, Latin American Shorts
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Sunday, March 29, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
Born in 68
Directed by:
Jacques Martineau, Olivier Ducastel
Cast:
Laetitia Casta, Yannick Renier, Yann Trégouët
Distributor:
Peccadillo Pictures
Country:
France
Year:
2008
Running time:
170min
Festival favourites Martineau and Ducastel return to the LLGFF with an epic drama covering life and sexual politics in France. Friends and lovers caught up in the excitement of May ‘68 at the Sorbonne eventually leave Paris for a communal life in the country. The collective seems at first like a fairytale of left wing hippydom. But principles are betrayed as members of the commune drift away to bourgeois careers. Laetitia Casta gives a great performance as the central figure, Catherine, loved by [...]
by Andre Soares | March 26, 2009
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Tags: Aristeu's Shoes, Born in 68, Etienne Dhaene, Fanny Ardant, Film Festivals, Gay Film Festivals, Gay Interest, Jacques Martineau, Laetitia Casta, London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London Screenings, Marco Berger, Olivier Ducastel, Rafael Saar, The Last Wish, The New World, The Secrets
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: DOLLS, THE DEVIL’S CLEAVAGE
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Saturday, March 28, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
Dolls
Directed by:
Karin Babinská
Cast:
Marie Dolezalová, Sandra Nováková, Petra Nesvacilova
Country:
Czech Republic
Year:
2007
Running time:
99min
This debut feature from Karin Babinská is a beautifully made and poignant coming of age tale, about three best friends from high school embarking on their last summer together before going their separate ways at summer’s end. Iska, struggling to understand her burgeoning sexuality and why she feels different from other girls, has been forced to join her little brother Vojta at a summer camp for athletes. Whilst he can back flip and somersault like a pro, the timid Iska can barely hold her own against a punch [...]
by Andre Soares | March 26, 2009
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Tags: Dolls, Film Festivals, Gay Film Festivals, Gay Interest, George Kuchar, Gregory J. Markopoulos, I Could Go on Singing, Judy Garland, Karin Babinska, London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London Screenings, Patrik 1.5, Three Summers, Twice a Man, Wrestling
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: Fred Halsted, THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Friday, March 27, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
The Naked Civil Servant
Directed by:
Jack Gold
Cast:
John Hurt, Liz Gebhardt, Patricia Hodge
Country:
UK
Year:
1975
Running time:
85min
This dramatization of Quentin [Crisp]’s first volume of autobiography won BAFTAs for its director Jack Gold and its star. John Hurt gives a dazzling performance as the young Quentin, a flame-haired flamboyant homosexual when such things were not permitted. It contains much of the wit and wisdom of Quentin and celebrates a life lived in a refusal to conform. The highlight is Quentin’s impassioned speech from the dock when charged with soliciting for an immoral purpose.
Plus an interview with Bernard Braden filmed in 1967. Previously [...]
by Andre Soares | March 26, 2009
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Tags: An Englishman in New York, Bramadero, Erotica, Film Festivals, Fred Halsted, Gabriel Fleming, Gay Film Festivals, Gay Interest, Gay Movies, John Hurt, Julian Hernandez, Ken Robertson, London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London Screenings, My Cock Is a Dildo, Nighthawks, Paul Hallam, Philippe Gosselin, Quentin Crisp, Ron Peck, Sex, Superm Highway, The Lost Coast, The Naked Civil Servant, The Window
London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2008 – Saturday, April 5
To celebrate Bette Davis‘ centenary, Dr. Martin Shingler will give "an illustrated lecture on Bette’s movies and why gay men and lesbians love her so." (Talk about a sweeping generalization…)
Many consider Irving Rapper’s Now, Voyager (1942) the best Bette Davis vehicle of her Warner Bros. years. I’m not one of those many. I find it overlong and overwrought, featuring one of Davis’ most unconvincing acting jobs of that period.
Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) is my favorite of the Grand Guignol movies of the 1960s. Though tighter editing and a screenplay less reliant on absurd coincidences would have helped, Baby Jane? is great entertainment chiefly because it features three top-notch performances — by Bette Davis, [...]
