GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
MARCH 7, 1997
Evenings Out
Five films for ten percent
by Bob Boone
Cleveland-Five remarkable films comprise the Ten Percent Cinema of this year's Cleveland Film Society's International Film Festival.
The eleven-day film fest kicks off March 13 and includes over sixty films and some 45 independent shorts.
The Ten Percent Cinema debuted in the Film Festival beginning in 1993. The new classification was set up to spotlight the films by gays and lesbians or with gay themes that were already appearing in the Festival but without a special focus.
In preparing for this year's festival, executive director David Wittkowsky previewed some 15 or 20 movies for possible inclusion in the Ten Percent Cinema. He was pleased to say that the festival features all five gay and lesbian films he most wanted to include.
Among these are a biography of author Paul Monette and a documentary on growing up lesbian. All five films are vastly diverse in theme, perspective, and mood.
Paul Monette: The Brink of Summer's End
Directed by Monte Bramer Produced by Lesli Klainberg
The Brink of Summer's End is a video scrapbook of an amazingly intimate nature. The film showcases the life of the late gay author and AIDS activist Paul Monette.
Starting in August 1992, director Monte Bramer and producer Lesli Klainberg spent countless hours with Monette. Their video camera constantly rolling, the filmmakers have compiled not hours of staged and unrelaxed interviews, but moments of Monette's life that are shared with the audience as if it is a friend sitting in a comfortable chair in the author's home.
Home movies from his childhood join with interviews of Monette and with his brother to show the devotion Monette had for his family, even as a young boy. The evidence of high school and college photos and awards back up Monette's confession of throwing himself into his studies to avoid dealing with his growing awareness that he was gay.
When Monette later fell in love with attorney Roger Horowitz, the film touchingly captures the memories through recollections of friends, additional home movies, and the reminiscences of Monette.
The documentary adroitly changes tone with the emergence of AIDS in the gay community and within Monette's relationship.
As Monette finds his voice as Horowitz grows ill and then dies, The Brink of Summer's End grabs from interviews, Monette's television appearances, and readings from his work to convey the whirlwind of grief, fear, anger, hope, and strength that gripped Monette.
It is an immensity of emotions that does
not let up throughout the remainder of the film. Monette's resolve and his propensity to create joy are chronicled as he meets and then loses his second lover, Stephen Kolzak, to AIDS.
Even as Monette's own health began to suffer, his work enjoyed greater acclaim. In photos shared by friends of a celebration of his 1992 National Book Award for Becoming a Man, Monette beams with joyful pride.
Hide and Seek
The camera watches as Monette grows more and more sick. His lover Winston Wilde walks the audience through the pharmacy that the two men's home has become. In an aside, Monette confides how difficult it is for him to see Wilde in the role that Monette himself had played in the lives of his two earlier lovers.
As the documentary draws closer to Monette's death in February 1995, he is still writing each day, though usually for just an
hour or so until he grows exhausted. His comments and stories remain clear and precise despite the amount of medication and his fatigue.
Up to and including Monette's last day, Bramer and Klainberg are there, drawing on every possible source to portray the character and spirit of Paul Monette. It is a personal film filled with respect and tenderness and hope.
Raul M
he Brink of Summer's End
The director Bramer recalled, "Discover ing Paul's work was a transforming experi ence for me. He gave voice to many of the same painful adolescent issues I experienced in my teens and twenties. It struck me almost immediately that here was the film I needed to make."
The Sunday, March 23 showing of this film includes a benefit for the Cleveland Lesbian and Gay Center. A special reception