EVENINGS OUT

A short look at lesbians at home and down under

Two lesbian teens flirt with each other while perusing a fashion magazine in Just Desserts.

Girlfriends

Lesbian Short Films

from Around the World Cleveland Cinematheque

Reviewed by Bob Boone Cleveland-A collection of eight lighthearted short films is strung together to form Girlfriends: Lesbian Short Films from Around the World. While they may not be from around the world, they do include filmmakers from the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.

In Little Women in Transit, three girls ride in the second seat of a station wagon as their mother sleeps in the passenger seat and the father wants only to be left alone to drive. Bickering erupts among the three sisters, and things get ugly when the oldest sister starts taunting that the middle sister's hero Louisa May Alcott was a lesbian. The seven-minute film has some amusing lines and is an infocus backseat snapshot of sibling rivalry.

A young Australian woman of Italian descent comes of age in Just Desserts. As important moments of her life unfold, such as her first kiss with another woman, the split screen is shared with her mother cooking an appropriately related dish. The gimmick is a little overdone, but the short is beautifully filmed and filled with enjoyable perfor-

mances.

Food is also a theme in Peach, a New Zealand short gorgeously shot by cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh, of The Piano. The metaphor of the peach as a young woman's ripening lesbianism is certainly overplayed, but the beauty of the short film

and the performances compensate. Tania Simon, of Rapa Nui, swoons throughout the film for the lusty tow-truck driver played by Lucy Lawless, of the thinly veiled lesbian camp TV series Xena, Warrior Princess.

Excursion to the Bridge of Friendship takes the form of an old silent film to tell the story of a Bulgarian folk singer seeking to be sponsored by an expatriate countrywoman in Australia. The dialogue is spelled out on black screens between scenes, and the only sound is that of Bulgarian folk music. The short playfully depicts the anxieties and fantasies of the musician and would-be sponsor, and their eventual meeting proves a mildly amusing gag.

Watching Her Sleep and Jumping the Gun share a similar theme of a woman fantasizing an entire relationship from a single encounter with another woman. The more far-fetched of the two, Watching Her Sleep provides a better laugh.

Carmelita Tropicana is a bizarre freeflowing 28-minute escapade of an Hispanic performance artist, her sister, an activist friend, and a woman who tried to mug her. The banter is interrupted by a jailhouse musical number and then a hasty fast-orward to the future.

The remaining short, Greetings from Africa, was unavailable for preview. A film on being an African-American woman in the midst of the lesbian dating scene, it has been receiving favorable reviews.

The Girlfriends shorts will be shown at the Cleveland Cinematheque, 11141 East Blvd., on Thursday, April 10 at 7 pm and Friday, April 1 at 7:30 pm. Call 216421-7450 for more details.

APRIL 4, 1997

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 23

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