Like a Brother

A couple of weeks ago, I visited some friends in Beijing and found myself on a Friday night at the gay boy’s bar near Worker’s Stadium. I unexpectedly ran into two old friends but realized that my six years away had brought a big change to queer life in China. This is a good thing. Gay life has at least partially emerged from the deep underground. Yet I missed something, almost intangible that the old bars used to have… not sure I can describe the difference, but even though the crowd was mostly Chinese, this gay bar could have been anywhere in the world.

So I get home and the 30th Anniversary of Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, is soon to open. After 30 years, you would think, oh, “same old thang” once again. But you know what? That ain’t true.

“Same old thang” just is not the case with Frameline, which has more than 250 films this year from 32 countries. There are always going to be some ho-hum films, but the diversity of styles and stories this year do not disappoint, and even if you choose one of those ho-hum films, the lines in front of the theaters still provide some of the best eye-candy in town.

The festival opens Thursday, June 15 with Maria Maggenti’s new film Puccini for Beginners and runs to Sunday, June 25, when the Castro audience will be treated to a Spanish comedy about a queer mass public wedding celebrating the legalization of queer marriage in Spain. Aptly titled Queens, the husbands-to-be in this flick are outqueened by their “moms,” who are played by many of Pedro Almodovar’s stars.

Festival venues this year include not only the Castro, Roxie and Victoria but the CineArts@Empire in West Portal and the Parkway in Oakland.

The 2006 Frameline Award, which is being presented to the prolific French director Francois Ozon at the Castro on June 20, is among the programs that will make the smart, discerning and perverse film lover “qvell.” Ozon is the director who some may remember as the man who brought the great actress Charlotte Rampling, back out of the shadows with Under the Sand and Swimming Pool. After receiving the Frameline award, Ozon’s newest feature film Time to Leave (6/20, Castro), featuring the great French actress Jeanne Moreau, will have its Bay Area premiere.

But you have to check out at least one of Ozon’s films that will be playing this year. His filmography and trajectory is a real mind-blower. He must be a maniac… Besides Time to Leave, Frameline will be showing four other films of the director. Among them you can discover Sitcom (6/21, Roxie), which features a family that comes out of the closet when the pet rat gets close and personal. There is also the finely crafted Criminal Lovers (6/22, Roxie) which is a twisted take on an almost familiar story. 8 Women (6/19, Castro). If you haven’t seen 8 Women, try to imagine actresses Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert and Emmanuelle Be’art in a musical mystery. Defies imagination, eh? Don’t forget Water Drops on Burning Rocks (6/23, Roxie). Ozon adapted what was Fassbinder’s first play, written when the German director was just 19 years old.

Tickets for many of the films go quick, so get them early. There are only rush tickets available at the door now for the Icelandic film Eleven Men Out (6/22, West Portal), which features some bare-assed soccer players and a Heklina cameo. And it looks like tickets for the film version of Strangers With Candy (6/22, West Portal), starring Amy Sedaris, are also tight.

You can bet that For the Love of Dolly/Camp Michael Jackson (6/17, Victoria) is going to sell out quickly and that the locally infamous, gorgeous (but taken) and oh so fabulous Fawn Yacker is going to attract a big house with her new film Ugly Ducklings (6/18, Roxie). The Sunday afternoon Yacker show is free to youth 18 and under and follows an acting troupe of 13 teenagers as they rehearse a gothic mystery which comes all too close to home. Set in rural Maine, this film about youth trying to live authentic lives despite intolerance and fear is a testament to hope.

Maine is also the setting for a very different kind of film, Vacationland (6/17, Roxie), by the no budget not-so bad boy of digital video, Todd Verow. He and his partner Jim Dwyer have carved out a niche and have stamped auteur in bold onto their narratives that have had long legs on the festival circuit. Vacationland had my attention until the press preview DVD started skipping, but if you are following talent, this is a film you will want to catch.

Yet this is just the tip of the festival—-where you will find features from Bosnia like  Go West (6/19, Castro; 6/21, Parkway) and the Indonesian Last Second (6/20,West Portal; 6/22, Parkway), a documentary about Tony Kushner, Wrestling with Angels (6/23, Castro), a new Margaret Cho feature film which also features Alan Cummings and Kathy Najimy, Bam, Bam and Celeste (6/24, Castro), and film titles like Bad Girls Behind Bars (6/22, Victoria), Fag Hags (6/19, Victoria) and Sun Kissed (6/19, West Portal); 6/21, Castro). Something for everyone right?

So check out frameline.org and figure out how to get your tickets online or at the outlet in the Castro. If the number of intriguing programs overwhelms you, here are some tips for all tastes:

Lulu Gets A Facelift (June 16, Victoria) This rollicking world premiere is a hot ticket. Who would have thought that a film about an aging drag queen’s crow’s feet could inspire? But Marc Huestis, Frameline co-founder, has made a film about his friend Lulu’s adventure in the world of nip and tuck that is way more than a hoot. Of course, it helps when your star loves the camera almost more than herself. Lulu’s wit, humor and sly honesty make the film sing. The drag icon who has blessed San Francisco’s stages since the seventies, muses on getting older and why she wants to go under the knife. Like Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, it’s high time for Lulu’s “return.” However, not all her friends are willing to get on board including Esmeralda who honestly and forthrightly, expresses her doubts in a well-crafted letter. But Lulu goes through with the lift. As a testament to true friendship, when Lulu is first out of surgery, Esmeralda is right there holding her hand and taking care of the wounded warrior of beauty. But recovery is just around the corner and filmmaker Huestis chases Lulu in her bandages and veils throughout the Castro and the girl is a sight to behold. The mayhem climaxes two years later at a truly transformational performance at Trannyshack.

Oh, a little footnote. On July 21, Huestis himself returns to the Castro and will present the noir classic Mildred Pierce. And guess what..the Academy Award nominated star Ann Blyth, Veda Pierce herself, makes a rare public appearance at this once-in-a-lifetime event!

A Love to Hide (6/19; Parkway; 6/25, Castro) This one took me by surprise. It is a finely acted, moving drama about two male lovers who hide a chldhood Jewish friend in Paris during the Vichy regime. On paper, I was expecting a very black and white story of archetypal good and evil. But this is where A Love to Hide really got me. Each character is flawed and true, because they are oh-so-human, it’s haunting. Sarah is Jewish; she watched as her entire family was killed by the Gestapo and tries to kill the man who betrayed her family. She fails and somehow in shock escapes and finds Jean, a young man who she had fallen in love with during her childhood summer vacations. Jean cares deeply for Sarah but loves men. He brings Sarah to his lover Phillipe’s apartment, and the three become a family and struggle with jealousy and the desire to resist the Nazis. Yet the horror of the era overtakes them.

Far From Sunset Boulevard (6/19, West Portal) This is solid narrative about a Russian gay director who returns home to Russia from the United States during the height of Stalinism and signs his soul to make his art…some very campy. It is one of those flicks that propelled me to Google to figure out where it all came from. Although the film carefully has a disclaimer that the characters are not based on any people, living or dead…. I have some questions. The film portrays the young former assistant and lover to a great Russian filmmaker who had been traveling in the states. A question—-anybody know if this is loosely based on Eisenstein and his assistant Alexsandrov? I found some Internet sites, where there is speculation that Eisenstein was gay…. would love to know more if there is anyone out there who knows……

Boy I Am (6/17, Victoria) Sam Feder, someday I have to meet you! Sam and Julie Hollar directed this documentary which is not just the usual tranny film. But more on the film itself in a second. Meantime, here is a good reason to see the film. Sam’s mom, Jane, is way cooool. Jane lives in Brooklyn and was a good friend of my mom, Ray, who was pretty cool herself. Jane still lives on the 2nd floor and my mom lived on the 9th. I think they used to talk about their queer children together. Now, is that a reason to see a film or not! OK, it’s my reason. But yeah, I liked this film, and I have seen a number of tranny films over the years! Cinematically, the film is a traditional and straightforward documentary, however it does juxtapose powerful portraits of FTM’s Nicco, Norie and Keegan with a number of articulate women who raise questions and voice doubts that many of us are thinking but don’t dare say aloud. The interviews in the film with Judith “Jack” Halberstam talking about gender are worth the ticket price alone.

Once again, I always swear to keep these articles to a reasonable length and just get carried away. However, before I sign off, I want to mention two international features that I had great pleasure in checking out. Both are well worth seeing. Two Drifters (6/22, Castro) hails from Portugal. And Unveiled (6/19, Parkway; 6/24, Roxie) is an important story of a lesbian who flees Iran and tries to start anew in Germany. Her illegal status forces her to take on a false identity.

Finally, two local documentaries that have a lot of buzz include The Believers (6/17; Castro) and Beyond Conception (6/24, Roxie), by Johnny Symons who made Daddy and Pappa.