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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]