Pride Guide 2002 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE C-13

Sundance shows its pride with Out Loud film fest

by Anthony Glassman

Every June since 1999, the Sundance Channel, the pay-cable station brought to life by a collaboration between Robert Redford, Showtime Networks and Universal Studios, has devoted the entire month to programming for the LGBT community.

This year will be no exception. Expanding on the work of the Sundance Film Festival, which brought such pictures as Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Trembling Before G-d to national attention, the Sundance Channel will show independent and foreign gay-themed films all month. Some are returning favorites, some are newer films that hit the art-house circuit, while others have just begun their theatrical runs but will still be available, thanks to the pull of those involved with the network.

On June 21, for instance, Sundance will première The Cockettes, which debuted theatrically on May 10 in San Francisco. The film is a loving documentary about an ensemble of gay men, women and children who turned the musical revues of a bygone age upside down, starting in 1969.

Sundance will also feature an entire month of breakout French director Francois Ozon, the gay ingénue who is quickly becoming the next Francois Truffaut. Water Drops on Burning Rocks, for instance, is based on an early play by German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, coincidentally also gay, dealing with the changing relationship between Leopold, an older, affluent man and Franz, a young college student.

Sundance will also play Ozon's Criminal Lovers, a dark, bizarre and eminently fun film turning the story of Hansel and Gretel on its ear.

Another film worth setting the VCR timer for is Alive and Kicking, also known as Indian Summer. This British film by Nancy Mickler is from a screenplay by Martin Sherman, the playwright who gave us Bent. It looks at the effect of AIDS on a dance troupe in the '90s.

Tonio is a featured dancer who has lost his lover and, more recently, his mentor to the disease. At his mentor's funeral, he sees a

mysterious man who turns out to be the dead dancer's therapist, The two begin a relationship, never really sure how long the other will be there, physically or emotionally.

Harry Dodge and Silas Howard's By Hook or By Crook, a transgender road movie par excellence, will also be shown. The film, which made its Ohio debut at the 2002 Cleveland International Film Festival, takes Howard's character Shy, a drag king escaping from Kansas, to the side of Dodge's Valentine, who is looking for the

mother that ran off and

a bit of stability in an otherwise crazy world. Another incredible picture, lush, sensuous and exemplifying the best of world cinema, is Taboo, a Japanese film delving into homosexuality among samurai in the 18th century. Sozaburo Kano, a beautiful young man training to be a warrior, attracts the attention and sparks the desires of the other young samurai, as well as his superior offic-

ers.

One of those officers, played by accomplished veteran actor-director Takeshi "Beat" Kitano, realizes that something is amiss with the lovely boy, but, as their rigidly structured world begins to crumble around them, he must quickly decide who it is that needs to be saved.

Fans of Athens, Georgia alterna-legends the B-52s will really want to watch Esther Bell's pseudo-autobiographical GODASS, the tale of a South Carolina punk-rock fanzine editor in the 1980s who goes to New York to push her 'zine on the scene and winds up reconciling with the gay father she feels abandoned her as a child, leaving her to be

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raised by her well-meaning mother and her Bible-bashing father.

Why would B-52s fans give a rat's heinie? Because front man Fred Schneider plays Teri, the main character's father's boyfriend. The singer who seldom talks about being gay apparently feels quite comfortable playing gay in a cute indie film. That's fine. He's surprisingly good in the role, and is perhaps the most sympathetic character in the movie.

For those who engage in high levels of drug use, Noam Gonick's Hey, Happy! might actually make perfect sense. It's pretty strange to anyone watching it sober, but thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless.

Sexy DJ and outdoor porn store cashier Sabu is trying to hit his goal of sleeping with 2,000 men, and he has his eye set on paranoid schizophrenic Happy. There are only two little problems. First, they're in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the Red River is about to flood horribly. Second, wicked witch/evil hairstylist Spanky wants Happy for himself.

Landing somewhere between pre-sell out Gregg Araki and Toronto legend Bruce LaBruce, Gonick's film defies description and absolutely begs for illicit chemical sub-

stances.

By Hook or By Crook

The Cockettes

Monkey's Mask, on the other hand, is a classic lesbian detective thriller. Susie Porter plays gumshoe Jill, hired to track down a college poetry student who has gone missing. She meets up with Kelly McGillis of Top Gun fame, playing the girl's poetry professor. When the girl turns up dead, Jill's quest becomes more serious, and danger might be scrubbing her back in the bathtub.

There are a lot of gratuitous McGillis bosoms. It's not a bad thing, but she practically spends more time naked than clothed.

L.I.E. will make its cable debut in June, bringing its dark tale of ephebophilia and examination of the damaged psyches of abusers and victims to the public.

In addition to these films, Sundance will be playing dozens of others, including Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, the true World War II-era lesbian romance Aimée and Jaguar, Bar Girls, Chuck and Buck, Kiss Me Guido and a slew of others, not to mention the collections of short films, Shorts Out Loud.

All told, 31 feature films and documentaries, coupled with 17 short films, will once again illustrate the Sundance Channel's commitment to LGBT cinematic pride.

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