GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

MARCH 12, 1999

Evenings Out

Six features and five short this year's Ten Percent Cin

by Doreen Cudnik

Cleveland Okay, so we've survived the most recent visit from the "freeze miser," spring is about to, well, spring forth, and now we're ready to venture out of our hibernation. So where does one go to be sure to be surrounded by the warm, welcoming embrace of hundreds of others from the northeast Ohio GLBT community? Why, the Ten Percent Cinema portion of the 23rd Cleveland International Film Festival, of

course.

The entire festival runs March 18-28 at Tower City Cinemas, and is sure to attract queer film lovers as well, but it's during the screening of the six feature-length films and a collection of several shorts by gay and lesbian writers and directors where you're sure to run into old friends, dodge a few exlovers, and enjoy the best of queer cinema with the rest of the community.

Not to be missed is a film we've already covered in the Chronicle (in the Feb. 19 issue), Edge of Seventeen, directed by David Moreton. The film is a sweet, honest coming of age story starring Chris Holmes as Eric, a gay high school student from Sandusky, Ohio. The film's opening shot, as a matter of fact, is of Sandusky High. Set in 1984, film's soundtrack includes music by Eurythmics, Bronski Beat, Toni Basil (remember "Hey, Mickey!") and others who were considered "alternative" at the time.

Anyone who has done food service at an amusement park will identify with Eric as he works his summer job at “Crystal Shores,” easily recognizable to many Ohioans as Cedar Point. His boss is Angie, a brazen, butch dyke (played by Lea DeLaria) and she sums up their less than glamorous summer employment: "We are food service. We are one step above toilets-but we're gonna have the motherfuckin' summer of our lives."

The film follows Eric's coming out, his brief affair with Ohio State student and coworker Rod (Andersen Gabrych), and his strained relationship with his mother and his best friend Maggie (Tina Holmes) as a result of his budding sexuality.

As Angie, DeLaria steals every scene she's in, and makes you wish we all had an "Angie" around when we were coming out.

Also of interest to Ohio's glbt community will be the crowd scenes shot inside "The Universal Fruit & Nut Co.," the local gay bar where Eric goes to begin feeling comfortable in his newly-found gay identity. Look for yourself if you were one of the people who signed up to be an extra, your friends, and some familiar faces from northern Ohio's drag performers; among them Cleveland legend Twiggy.

Edge of Seventeen will be screened on Friday, March 19 at 7:30 pm; Saturday, March 20 at 5 pm; and Monday, March 22

at noon.

Get Real (U.K.), directed by Simon Shore, is another tale of a teenaged schoolboy coming to grips with his emerging sexuality. Sixteen-year-old Stephen is by all appearances a typical British teen, but he has a secret-he's in love with the school's top jock, the devastatingly handsome John Dixon.

Stephen confides in his best friend Linda, who wants a romance of her own. Does Dixon ever return Stephen's love? See this

film that the Toronto Film Festival called "fresh, youthful and invigorating" and find

out.

Get Real will be screened on Thursday, March 25 at 7:15 p.m.; Friday, March 26 at 2:00 p.m. and Saturday, March 27 at 9:45 p.m.

For lesbian and bi gals in the community and the people who love them, Girls Night Out is a delightfully diverse series of five lesbian shorts. Canada's Breakfast With Gus (directed by Siobhan Devine) provides a cat's eye view of some queer arts types first thing in the morning. Will Gus ever get breakfast? Sleep Come Free Me (USA, directed by Laurie Schmidt) has one asking, 'What is real and what is a dream?' This film follows cute and quirky Natalie on her job as she fantasizes about a mysteriously sexy female co-worker. Lots of great dyke footwear and fashion, witty dialogue, and a hot scene where Natalie gets locked in a restroom stall and the mystery butch comes and “rescues" her.

Sabor a Mi (Canada, directed by Claudia Morgado Enscanilla) is a beautifully surreal short about two neighbor women secretly watching and wanting each other. It is full of Catholic imagery—a shrine to the Virgin Mary overlooks everything they do. When the two women finally do come together, it is treated with the reverence of communion.

"Writer seeks traveling companion for a month-long working vacation in Italy” is a portion of the classified ad that begins the film Traveling Companion (USA, directed by Paula Goldberg). This 20-minute gem is set mainly in Little Frida's, a queer coffeehouse in Los Angeles, where our heroine meets and interviews the women who have responded to her ad. Will she notice the cutie-pie who's pouring the coffee in time to whisk her overseas? Only time will tell. Some familiar faces, like Latina lesbian comedienne Marga Gomez, make brief appearances in this film-see if you can spot any.

My personal favorite was Sleeping Beauties, directed by native Clevelander Jamie Babbit. This irreverent look at the recordmaking business takes us inside "Rolling Headstones," a mortuary that makes "dead rock stars look good for their next album.” If you liked Radha Mitchell in High Art, get a load of her here, as the bitchy, bisexual exlover of Heather, the lesbian mortician with a Sleeping Beauty fetish. Lots of great queer bands contribute to this films' soundtrack, among them Los Angeles' Longstocking.

Girls Night Out will be screened on Sunday, March 21 at 7:45 p.m. and Monday, March 22 at 2:30 p.m.

"Dear Santa, I'd like you to find me my dream man and send him to me. Maybe you don't do that kind of thing, but I'm not doing so hot by myself... Your pal, Jonathan Parker."

This December 1 letter from Jonathan (played by Kevin Isola) to Santa begins 24 Nights (USA), which follows the story of Jonathan and his Christmas wish for the 24 nights from the time he writes that letter until Christmas day. Jonathan believes what his deceased mother told him 20 years earlier: "You can have anything you want but you have to be good and you have to believe [in Santa)."

Jonathan's friend Geneva tells him he reminds her of the cartoon character Pepe le Pew, She says the amorous skunk has unshakable faith, and, like Jonathan “is so in love with the idea of love that he'll take a cat and pretend it's a skunk,” even though she can't stand him. Geneva's message to Jonathan: "You're not a cartoon."

In the end, Jonathan finds happiness— with a little help from Santa, of course. 24 Nights is campy and funny, and at times gives pearls of wisdom. It is a gay film, but it is also a very touching Christmas romance. It has no gay message and the fact that the characters are gay is somewhat incidental.

24 Nights will be screened Friday, March 26 at 7 pm and Sunday, March 28 at 5 pm.

Until I Hear From You (Canada) is the story of Rob (played by director Daniel MacIvor) a gay man who has just been dumped by his boyfriend, Allen.

Rob is a hopelessly promiscuous drunk with a compulsive tendency to dishonesty. The film starts out as Rob's videotaped apology after he was caught in bed with his boyfriend's emotionally disturbed sisterby his boyfriend's mother. He explains that he is making the videotape as a permanent testament to the sincerity of his vow that he is really, really going to change this time. He's said it before, he says, but he really means it this time.

Unfortunately, temptation intervenes again and again. Rob's wheedling plea to Allen to give him another chance is repeatedly interrupted as Rob wanders off to hit on every man who comes along.

As it becomes clear that Allen isn't coming back, the film gradually becomes a sort of diary, and an unintentional self-portrait as he progresses through cycles of heavy drinking and remorseful hangovers. In various stages of drunkenness, Rob alternates between pleading, rage, self-pity, and multiple indiscretions while he parties incessantly.

Finally, Rob has a truly life-changing experience: He makes a pass at the wrong man, and is beaten unconscious by three complete strangers he had invited to party with him in his home.

The terrifying episode scares Rob straight, and before you know it he is filming his one-year sobriety anniversary. Later, he makes a video entry to comment on the occasion of his union ceremony with his new boyfriend. The clean-cut guy in the tuxedo seems completely different from the slimeball we met in the beginning of the film. Or is he?

At a short 42 minutes, Until I Hear From You is fascinating and cleverly put together. It retains the rough-cut style of a real home video (bad camera angles and all) while mercifully avoiding long periods of meaningless or unintelligible footage.

Some will probably find this film hilariously funny, while others may find it a little too close to home to laugh. Either way, this film is certainly food for thought.

Until I Hear From You will be screened on Wednesday, March 24 at 7:15 pm and Friday, March 26 at 12:30 pm.

Also appearing in the Ten Percent Cinema portion of the festival is Steam: The Turkish Bath, and Out of Season (USA, directed by Jeanette L. Buck). Steam is as visually steamy as the title suggests. Francesco travels from Rome to Istanbul to see a property that has been left to him by his recently-deceased aunt. It turns out that the crumbling tenement block contains a haman—a traditional Turkish bath devoted to men's pleasure. There, secrets are shared and mysteries uncovered.

Steam: The Turkish Bath will be screened on Friday, March 19 at 3:30 p.m., Saturday, March 20 at 9:45 p.m. and Sunday, March 21 at 5:00 p.m.

Out of Season, about a lesbian photographer who leaves her cosmopolitan life in Washington, D.C. to care for an ailing uncle in Cape May, New Jersey, will be screened on Monday, March 22 at 8:45 p.m., Tuesday, March 23 at 4:15 p.m. and Wednesday, March 24 at 12:00 noon.

To order tickets for the festival-and many of the films sell out completely and early-or for a complete festival program guide, call Advantix at 216-241-6000. See you at the movies!

Dawn Leach and Eric Resnick obsted in this nutinle