rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (06/04/85)
THE 1985 LESBIAN & GAY FILM FESTIVAL Gay Community News and the Orson Welles Cinema are cosponsoring a Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, starting Wednesday, June 5, at the Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge, MA. It may supersede or replace the annual Gay Film Festival at the Nickelodeon Theater in Boston, I'm not sure: the latter festival was postponed from May to June when Boston University President Long John Silber made a stink about the Festival's coinciding with graduation ceremonies, not over worries about students, who heavily patronize the Nick & have their share of openly gay undergrads, but over PARENTS of students. Such Victorian hypocrisy! Currently thru Tuesday 6/4/85 the Welles screens BEFORE STONEWALL, an interesting documentary about gay life before the 1970s, plus a campy Cuban-American short, PHOTO ALBUM. The festival proper runs programs of two (count 'em!) full-length films, each program lasting ONLY TWO DAYS! But the films chosen mark a big improvement over the offerings of previous area gay film festivals. Two gay Israeli films air on Wednesday & Thursday, June 5 & 6: Amos Guttman's DRIFTING, which has been called "one of the best gay films ever made", plus EACH OTHER, about gay women. Other offerings include the ever-outrageous TAXI ZUM KLO, paired with BURGER QUEENS OF BERLIN (Rosa von Praunheim strikes again!), a documen- tary about expatriate American drag queens living in Germany (I kid you not!); Mai Zetterling's SCRUBBERS, the best women-in-prison movie ever made, and the wonderful MAEDCHEN IN UNIFORM (Germany, 1931), an early "talkie"; underground Bay Area filmmaker Curt McDowell's magnum opus sex film, LOADS; Andy Warhol's seemingly indestructible TRASH; the racy & offbeat ABUSE, with John Lydon of the Sex Pistols enmeshed in an intense S&M relationship with cop Harvey Keitel; the British ANOTHER COUNTRY, a well-acted preppie melodrama about the Guy Burgess/Kim Philby spy case (eat humus, Dame Rebecca!), & PRIVATES ON PARADE, which, despite the title, offers no frontal nudity; as well as other well-known and obscure full-length films. It's too bad that Greece's first gay film, ANGEL, which screened here a few months ago, wasn't included (it's hard to get a print), or the documentary about Cuban gays & Castroite persecution, IMPROPER CONDUCT (it makes excessive demands for candor on the politically correct youth of GCN, the poor things are so beleagured by nasty facts in these hard times!). But, useless bitching aside, the choice of films is a very good one, the first festival here to show coherence & just plain life in the selections made. The festival has been quickly thrown together, so there's been little advance publicity. Tomorrow I'll post a detailed schedule. Regards, Ron Rizzo