GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

February 27, 2004

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Around the world in four days

by Kaizaad Kotwal

Columbus The Wexner Center is a real asset to cinephiles in Ohio. Among many of the things they do as part of their film and video programming is their annual festival of GLBT movies. This year is their seventh annual presentation of provocative, prescient, and pathbreaking works.

Queer cinema has developed a very strong voice for gay men. Yet, lesbians and transgendered folk have not found their stories told via celluloid as often or with as much popular success. This year's GLBT festival proves otherwise and heralds a new era in GLBT filmmaking where queer female voices are seeking their way to-

Rise Above

wards being heard, loud and clear.

lead role that he "combines the street swagger of a hard-core homo thug with the balletic grace of a self-created queen," offering “a subversive take on black cool and black queerness."

Suddenly

Diego Lerman, 2002 Friday, February 27,7 pm

Another film from South America, this one from Argentina, Diego Lerman's film Suddenly follows two punk lesbian bikers (nicknamed Mao and Lenin) who on the spur of the moment decide to kidnap a lonely lingerie salesgirl. This is a road film that takes interesting and unexpected twists as these three women are stuck together.

Rise Above

The Tribe 8 Documentary

Tracy Flannigan, 2003

Friday, February 27, 8:45 pm

Based on filmmaker Tracy Flannigan's four-year obsession with the band Tribe 8, Rise Above takes viewers behind the scenes to meet San Francisco's "dyke punk group." Famed for the intensity of its live shows, Tribe 8 claims legions of hardcore fans nationwide, even coming to the attention of USA Today, which noted in a front-page story, "Queer core = punk bands with gay members. . . Gay rights in the mosh pit."

This promises to be a most exciting film Dangerous Living

festival, varied in style, subject matter, genre and context.

The Gift

Louise Hogarth, 2003

Thursday, February 26, 7 pm

This has been one of the most controversial films at recent festivals worldwide. The Gift is a compelling glimpse of those in a gay subculture who deliberately seek HIV infection by having unprotected sex. The so-called "gift givers" HIV-positive and pass on the virus via barebacking.

The film raises new and old questions about the AIDS epidemic in a time when infections are on the rise and when complacence towards the plague is higher than it has ever been.

Madame Sata

Karim Ainouz, 2002

Thursday, February 26, 8:15 pm

Madame Sata is the first feature by Brazilian-born Karim Ainouz, who was educated at New York University. This is a hypnotic recreation of the life of Brazil's most infamous drag queen and gay icon, João Francisco dos Santos--a Josephine Baker wannabe who rises from the ghettoes of Rio to become a national figure of defiance and resistance. LA Weekly wrote of Lázaro Ramos in the

Coming Out in the Developing World John Scagliotti, 2003

Behold Goliath, or The Boy with the Filthy Laugh

Tom Kalin, 2002-03

Friday, February 27, 10:15 pm

From the director of Before Stonewall. Dangerous Living is an enlightening and often disturbing look at the struggles of gay activists in developing nations.

Despite increasing visibility in the U.S. and other Western nations, homosexuality is often persecuted elsewhere, as in the notorious 2001 case of over 50 Egyptian men being arrested for "debauchery" just one of the many incidents documented in the film. Dangerous Living is narrated by activist

and actress Janeane Garofalo.

The program begins with out filmmaker Tom Kalin's work in progress, Behold Goliath, or The Boy with the Filthy Laugh. The film comprises four short works inspired by the writings of Alfred Chester. Kalin is best known for his groundbreaking queer film Swoon.

Myra Breckenridge

Michael Sarne, 1969

Saturday, February 28, 10 pm

Myra Breckenridge is one of the worst box-office fiascos of all time. It is also one of the oddest (and most rarely screened) Hollywood films ever made.

Loosely based on Gore Vidal's comic novel, it's a movie about a man becoming a woman becoming a man. . . and so on. This bizarre oddity stars Raquel Welch as Myra and Rex Reed as Myron and featuring past and future sex goddesses Mae West and Farrah Fawcett, plus a pre-Magnum P.I. Tom Selleck.

Venuz Boyz

Gabriel Baur, 2001

Sunday, February 29, 4:30 pm

A prize winner at festivals throughout Europe and America, Venus Boyz is an engrossing look at New York`s drag kings, a world of women meeting in clubs where they change into male alter egos, parodying male archetypes while exploring male eroticism. The film takes place during a drag king night at the Slipper Room club, where kings, queens, and the entire "kingdom" come together. As Time Out New York noted about the film. "it challenges everything you always thought you knew about what it means to be a boy or a girl."

Tickets for each program are $6 for the general public and $4 for Wexner Center members, students, and senior citizens. Purchase any five tickets for $25 ($15 for members and students). All screenings take place in the Wexner Center Film/Video Theater, 1871 N. High St. Call 614-292-3535 for advance tickets.

Dangerous Living

Dykes Towatch Out For by Alison Bechdel

only

disconnect

HELLO, SHABOOKADOOK!

UH... HI! WHAT PUT YOU IN SUCH A GOOD MOOD?

CHECK IT OUT! I GOT THIS FANCY CD PLAYER AND HOOKED THE TV UP TO IT.

OH.

I CAN CONNECT IT TO

MY LAPTOP TOO. AND My iPUD, BUT I NEED TO GET A SPECIAL CABLE. GREAT SOUND, HUH?

OKAY! THAT'S IT? I'VE KEPT MY MOUTH SHUT ABOUT ALL THE CRAP YOU'VE BOUGHT SINCE YOU GOT SICK, BECAUSE IT SEEMED TO MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER, IF ONLY FOR A NANOSECOND.

BUT YOU HAVE TO STOP! I DON'T EVEN WANT TO THINK ABOUT HOW MUCH DEBT YOU'RE IN!

Kerry 04

MASS. COURT RULES

1GAYS CAN MARRY

THAT'S WHY I'M LAUNCHING A GROUND OFFENSIVE ON MASSACHUSETTS.

WE'LL GO TO BOSTON OR FRISCO OR TORONTO OR... OR BELGIUM, AND GET MARRIED.

IS THIS A PROPOSAL, OR SOME KIND OF POSTMODERN INTIMACY AVOIDANCE STRATEGY?

BOTH. RATHER CLEVER OF ME, YOU HAVE TO ADMIT.

434

I KNOW YOU'RE SCARED. BUT ALL THIS STUFF ISN'T GONNA KEEP YOU SAFE. NEITHER IS GOING BANKRUPT!

THE ONLY THING THAT'LL GIVE YOU ANY REAL SECURITY IS REACHING OUT TO PEOPLE. I WISH YOU'D GOT THAT LESBIAN CANCER SUPPORT GROUP.

PUHLEASE

HOSE

THEN TALK TO ME! Y KNOW, YOU SURROUND YOURSELF WITH ALL THESE COMMUNICATION DEVICES, YOU'RE OBSESSED WITH CONNECTIVITY." BUT YOU WON'T CONNECT WITH ME!

IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT WHEN WE SEE A THREAT, WE DEAL WITH THOSE THREATS BEFORE THEY BECOME IMMINENT. IT'S TOO LATE IF THEY BECOME IMMINENT. 2DUCT

LET'S GET MARRIED.

WHAT?

MR. PRESIDENT, WE'VE COME FROM A $281 BALION SURPLUS TO A $521 BILLION LEFICIT. WHY SHOULD THE AMERICAN PEOPLE REHIRE YOU AS CEO?

UH.. DID I MENTION THIS WAS A DANGEROUS WORLD? AND THAT THERE'S SHADOWY NETWORKS AND ROGUE NATIONS AND DANGEROUS MADMEN AND, UH, LOTSA DANGER?

YES, ACTUALLY, ABOUT 521 BILLION TIMES

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·DykesToWatchOutfor.com