18
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE MARCH 6, 1998
EVENINGS OUT
From guppies to sailors, festival features six lesbian and gay films
Continued from page 17
that has everyone pondering their views on life, love and lost youth.
The most fun in this queer hybrid of Friends and thirtysomething is its depiction of lasting love and friendship that transcends the boundaries of race, class, and sexual orientation.
Friday, March 20 at 5:15 p.m. and Saturday, March 21 at 10:00p.m.
Out of the Past Directed by Jeff Dupre U.S., 1997, 65 minutes
Think back to when you studied history in school. How many of us, when studying about the Puritans, learned about a young minister named Michael Wigglesworth--a tutor at Harvard so tormented by his attractions to other men that he used a secret code language to record his feelings in a diary?
What about Henry Gerber, a gay soldier who returned to the United States from Germany in 1923 and began the first U.S. gay civil rights organization, the Society for Human Rights? After publishing a pro-gay newsletter in 1925 called Friendship and Freedom, Gerber was arrested, his typewriter and files seized, and he was locked up in a cell for three days without ever being formally charged.
And what of Bayard Rustin? How might the lives of young gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth be positively impacted if they knew that the chief political advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington-where King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech was himself a gay man?
This important film juxtaposes the stories of gays and lesbian heroes from the past with that of Kelli Peterson, a lesbian high school student who made history when she and her friends organized a Gay-Straight Alliance at
their school in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Keep an eye out for that name, because we'll certainly see Peterson at the forefront of our movement, if not walking the halls of Congress someday).
The formation of the club ignited a controversy that had the whole nation watching. In a stunning example of ignorance and bigotry, the school board voted to ban all non-academic clubs among them the chess and ski clubs rather than let the gay-straight alliance meet. Kelli and company persevered, and eventually won.
"If I had known that history was full of people just like me-that I wasn't alonethings might have been different," Kelli says, after describing bouts with depression over
FIRST RUN
LESBIAN
ALEANOR ROOSEVEL 1554
FORMAL DINNER
SHOW YOUR PRIDE
CUMMERBUND & TIE
$26.50
OTHER RAINBO BOW TIES $10.00 (ORDER EARLY FOR SPRING EVENTS)
BODY LANGUAGE
11424 LORAIN AVE
(NE COR. W.115TH & LORAIN) 216-251-3330; 888-429-7733 (toll free)
COMING UP!
11am to 10pm daily 11am to 6pm sunday bodylanguage@juno.com http://members.aol.com/bodyla3649
MARIT NIEUWLAND
Neptune's Rocking Horse
Stolen Moments
her sexual orientation that led herlike many other gay kids her age-to contemplate suicide.
Friday, March 20at 1:00p.m.; Tuesday, March 24 at 7:15 p.m.; and Wednesday, March 25 at 5:00 p.m.
The March 24 screening of Out of the Past will be followed by a Film Forum titled "How Far We Haven't Come," a panel discussion about the issues raised by the film.
Veteran Cleveland GLBT activist Aubrey Wertheim will moderate the discussion. Wertheim was the services director of the Cleveland Lesbian-Gay Center from 1987 to 1993, where he developed and ran several programs including PRYSM, Presence and Respect for Youth in Sexual Minority.
Also on the panel will be Leslie Sadasivan, the mother of Robbie Kirkland, a gay Cleveland boy who took his own life last year at the age of fourteen; Pam McKenzie, a member of the Berea Allies of Gay and Lesbian Youth and a senior at Berea High School; Joan Englund, legal director of the ACLU of Ohio and expert on the legal rights of sexual minorities; and the film's director, Jeff Dupre.
Neptune's Rocking Horse Directed by Robert Roznowski and Robert Tate
U.S., 1997, 100 minutes
In a New York minute, everything changes for a diverse set of Manhattanites who witness a black transvestite's frantic, futile attempt to flee two cops. Memories of her frightened screams haunt the onlookers in the days fol-
lowing the event, and each one interprets the scene a different way.
For straight-arrow doorman Malcolm it's one more degrading image he has to surmount in his long, painful climb out of the 'hood. For would-be militant John it's a call to arms against another racist, classist, AIDS-phobic and homophobic atrocity. For interior decorator Tom it calls to question his own commitment to being in a gay relationship. For Sadie, caregiver to an invalid best friend, it signals the end to their genteel Old Neighborhood. Only sidewalk palm-reader Justine knows the truth, or at least she'll take your ten dollars to tell you so.
Filmmaking partners Roznowski and Tate cross the lines of color and gender, slapping stereotypes and punching political correctness like no feature since Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.
Thursday, March 26 at 7:00 p.m.; Friday, March 27 at 12:15 p.m. and Saturday, March 28 at 2:30 p.m.
Stolen Moments
Directed by Margaret Westcott Canada, 1997, 92 minutes
Coverage of lesbian issues in the mainstream media seem focused on the entertainment world's Gang of Four-Ellen, Anne, Melissa and k.d.none of whom are mentioned in this sweeping chronicle of the western world's "silent sin." From Sapphic poetry in ancient Greece to an alldyke biker gang today, this film focuses on the stories that haven't been told.
Much of the history of same-sex relations between women was systematically destroyed— by the Church in the Dark Ages, and by the Nazis in the not-so-distant past.
Westcott rediscovers stories like that of Netherlander Maria van Antwerpen, a soldier, tailor and physician, who was married for three years before the bride found out Maria wasn't male, and that of Natalie Barney, a.k.a. "the wild girl from Cincinnati," whose gender-bending literary salon thrived in Paris for six decades.
The film also takes a look at America in the '50s, where routine police harassment and moral condemnation set the stage for Stonewall. Stolen Moments is a definitive documentary on a longcloseted subject.
Friday, March 20 at 2:45 p.m.; Saturday, March 21 at 5:00 p.m.; and Monday, March 23 at 9:15 p.m.
The festival program guide, containing information about subscription packages, individual ticket sales, and tickets to the opening night gala is currently available free of charge at area bookstores, coffee houses, restaurants and other public gathering places.
Prior to the festival, tickets for individual films, plus film, event and party packages can be purchased by calling 216-623-3456, or in person at the Film Festival Store on the Avenue in Tower City Center. During the festival tickets can also be purchased at the Tower City Cinemas box office. For more information, call 216-623-0400 or see the festival's web site: clevelandfilm.org.
FOOD
& Dry In
Live Jazz on Fridays
& Saturdays
Full Menu, Beer, Wine, Liquors
2207 W. 11th Street
Tremont⚫ 216/621-6166
EMBRACING EACH OTHER
*VOICE DIALOGUE CLASS FOR LESBIAN COUPLES FOUR FRIDAYS 7:30-9:30pm $275.00 per couple
•
March 27, April 3, 17, 24
In a small, safe group setting learn to become more conscious of the diverse inner voices available to you, and how these interplay within your relationship.
• Recognize your disowned energies in each others' attitudes.
• Learn how to see your partner as your teacher.
•
Explore internalized homophobia and how it affects your relationship.
Use these Friday evenings as a support to your coupleness, bringing more clarity and intimacy into your relationship.
"Voice Dialogue as developed by Dra. Sidra & Hal Stone in their book Embracing Each Other.
LOCATION: BRADEN, HARLAN & ASSOC.
3628 Walnut Hills Rd., Suite 101 Orange Village, OH 44122 FOR INFO AND SIGN UP CALL: JUDY HARLAN 216-595-1015