When the Fourth Annual Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival starts to roll this Friday, its schedule of 80 films and shorts may prove to echo the depth and breadth of Russo's call to action. Co-directed by Kirsten Schaffer and Justine Barda, this year's festival presents a fine mix of queer perspectives -- an embracing of our shared history and consciousness and a refreshing leap forward.
"I ask the screening committees to think in terms of locating queer sensibility," Schaffer explains, "to consider what representations of queer culture they want to see onscreen."
"We hear from our audiences all the time that they want to see more than just coming-out stories," adds Barda. "Films that do justice to the complexity of gay people's lives are going to be about more than their sexuality."
Barda's point is colorfully illustrated by several engaging documentaries. Living with Pride: Ruth C. Ellis at 100, Yvonne Welbon's pedantic but appealing biography, provides a crucial memory of "triple oppression": the courage that it takes not only to live nonchalantly as an "out" lesbian but to simply be an African-American woman. Divine Trash, a must-see with rare footage about the methods behind John Waters' madness, gives credit where it is due for Waters' popularity (for it was certainly gays and other disenfranchised youth who made him a name), but is really more a celebration of the man's singular "aesthetics." Hysterical commentary from a former Maryland censor (who is still visibly shaken by Waters' cinematic blasphemy in Multiple Maniacs) is contrasted with the director himself calling Divine's dog shit consumption in Pink Flamingos, "a magic day in our happy young lives." And in Anthony Wall's The Brian Epstein Story, the brilliant man whose ambitious gay sensibility transformed the pop music world with the help of four scruffy lads from Liverpool gets the respect he deserves. The film is not just a reflection on the lonely Beatles manager but a complex tribute to his truly revolutionary work.
In this richly diverse schedule of international works, what are the highlights? Barda cites Queer as Folk, the eight-part British miniseries that screens over four days, and (come on, let's all just admit it) The Sound of Music sing-along, a big-screen viewing of the gay musical Zeitgeist, complete with subtitled lyrics.
With its fast-moving story of sex-obsessed club boys (and some well-drawn lesbians, the show's voices of sanity), the engrossing, funny Queer as Folk will probably be the festival's breadwinner. The film's largest victory, however, is its success in serving as an embarrassing reminder of the infantile state of American television (or, for that matter, American film) when it comes to the honest depiction of gay behavior. Reflect quietly on the recent flack about a vaguely hinted-at act of fellatio on Fox TV's Action while you watch Queer as Folk's Aiden Gillen seductively rimming his television partner (a 15-year-old boy, no less). While the American media culture is still seething about that Roseanne/Mariel Hemingway kiss a few years back, those "prissy" Brits are being treated to carefree evenings of underage oral exertions. (Wherefore art thou, Christian Coalition?)
As for The Sound of Music -- if you've never experienced a gay audience collectively dipping into their twisted psyche, prepare for a rollicking, cathartic "so long, farewell, auf wiedersehn, good night."
The festival's closing night film will also send you out into the world with a smile. Stephane Giusti's Why Not Me? is an endearing crowd pleaser from France about a small group of lesbian friends (and one gorgeous gay roommate) who decide to throw a dinner party and out themselves to their parents. It's a slight film and perhaps too full of that particularly French style of wide-eyed whimsy, yet it overflows with a humorous, good-natured optimism. Significantly, in a cinema badly lacking lesbian product (Seattle's festival is even offering a $1,000 prize for Best Lesbian Feature as encouragement, sponsored by Toys in Babeland), Why Not Me? is something of a rarity: a charmer about lovable queer women for all audiences.
Over the next seven days, the message reflected in Giusti's film will be echoed in glowing images at the Egyptian and Little Theatre. The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name has a voice that cannot be contained in Tom Hanks' Philadelphia sailor whites or in the limp wrists of Will & Grace's kooky sidekick.
Lesbian and Gay Film Fest is Out & Does Itself Proud Lesbian and Gay Film Fest is Out & Does Itself Proud
