Not to oversimplify, but like most things, it comes down to
love. The basic human right to love and be loved is at the heart of ImageOut: The Rochester Gay and Lesbian Film & Video
Festival, now in its 14th year. And since love often inspires art, ImageOut’s 2006’s incarnation features 37 programs of film
and video about the lesbian-bisexual-gay-transgender experience, all set to unspool over 10 autumn days, October 6 to 15, at the Little
Theatre, the George Eastman House’s Dryden Theatre, and the Cinema Theater.
Visiting filmmakers? Of course.Parties?Duh. And ImageOut continues its tradition of giving back with ImageOutreach, an initiative to ensure the festival’s
accessibility to all interested parties, now entering its second year of
accepting donations to subsidize tickets to festival screenings for
lower-income people. Sign language interpretation and community co-sponsorships
of certain films are also part of ImageOutreach, as
is the Youth Project Film Series, free to those under 21.
All the details anyone could want about ImageOut
— including film selections, showtimes, and ticket
information — can be found at the website, www.imageout.org. What follows are
thoughts on some selections from this year’s festival: nine films I saw, plus
one I couldn’t get my paws on…
A Love to Hide (Un Amour ร Taire)
Saturday, October 7, Little Theatre, 7:30
p.m.
In French with English subtitles
Between 1933 and 1945, 100,000 homosexuals were arrested in Europe as a result of Hitler’s policies, with more than
10,000 of them exterminated for their sexual preference by the end of World War
II. A Love to Hide tells the story of
two brothers, golden boy Jean and black sheep Jacques, who both have their
dealings with the Nazis. Jean enjoys life as heir to the family business until
Jacques, jealous over Jean’s attention from Jewish childhood friend Sara,
inadvertently brings attention to his brother’s secret life as a gay man.
Director Christian Faure shines a light on some of the lesser-known victims of
the Holocaust with exquisite attention to period details, even the more
horrific ones. Lovely performances all around, especially by French
up-and-comer JรฉrรฉmieRenier
as Jean, who tries to please all around him while staying true to himself, but
pays a devastating price.
Sรฉvignรฉ
Saturday, October 7, Dryden Theatre, 7:30
p.m.
In Catalan and Spanish with English subtitles
Filmmaker Marta Balletbรฒ-Coll
stars as Marina, a quirky writer who has fashioned a play about the strange
relationship between Madame deSรฉvignรฉ and Madame de Grignan, a
mother and daughter whose love letters scandalized 17th century France. Jรบlia, a respected Barcelona
stage director, is unhappily married to a cold theater critic and is mourning
the loss of her daughter when Marina’s
pet project falls into her hands. As the intense Marina also falls into Jรบlia’s
heart, the play comes to symbolize their own unusual
and passionate relationship. Sรฉvignรฉ is serviceably directed by Balletbรฒ-Coll,
but she has a natural and surprisingly charismatic screen presence that will
hopefully find her in front of the camera again.
Loving Annabelle
Saturday, October 7, Dryden Theatre, 9:30
p.m.
Annabelle has recently arrived at a Catholic boarding
school, and her unflinching gaze, omnipresent cigarette, and refusal to ditch
her Tibetan prayer beads let you know she’s not going to be following the
flock. She also (gasp!) prefers women. Annabelle meets a kindred spirit in
Simone, her English teacher who has a boyfriend and a backstory
similar to that of the newest teacher’s pet. Will Simone succumb to her growing
attraction to the aggressive Annabelle? Director Katherine Brooks explores what
happens when love shows up in an inconvenient package, but it’s slightly naรฏve
and more than a little irresponsible to throw down the softcore
without also visiting the repercussions attendant to an educator bedding her
student in this day and age. Throw a male into the equation and it probably
wouldn’t be viewed as a love story.
KeillersPark
Monday, October 9, Little Theatre, 9:30
p.m.
In Swedish with English subtitles
Susanna Edwards’ psychological thriller chronicles the
unraveling of a man’s storybook existence when he falls for another man. Peter
is engaged and on track to take over the family business when he meets Nassim, an impossibly hot Algerian whose free-spirited
nature and lovely tresses cause Peter to ditch the straight way straightaway.
It isn’t long before Peter is ostracized by his family and shacked up with Nassim, and it isn’t long after that before Nassim turns up dead and Peter is in police custody. Since KeillersPark is told
in flashback, it would have been helpful to have some background to aid in
understanding why Peter was so quick to embrace the gay lifestyle, but that Nassim, while immature and flighty, is sexy as hell.
CampOut
Wednesday, October 11, Little Theatre,
5:30 p.m.
One of the Youth Project films free to the under-21 set is CampOut,
an uplifting documentary about 10 teenagers attending gay bible camp.
Adolescence is tough enough, but these LBGT kids are working hard to find a way
to reconcile their newfound understanding of themselves with the faith they’ve
taken comfort in all their lives. Among the campers are Christine, a loving and
loudmouth camera hog who seems to be extremely at ease with herself,
and Tim, a shy young man keenly aware of his shortcomings yet committed to
attacking his deep-seated issues. Not everyone is on board with a faith that
oftentimes doesn’t seem to want their devotion, but it’s
camp! Crushes, games, bonfires, and the problem of who sleeps where since
dividing the boys and girls isn’t really an option.
Shortbus
Friday, October 13, Cinema Theater, 10
p.m.
“So how’s Shortbus?” I asked my friend who saw it at the Toronto Film
Festival earlier this month. “It’s porn, basically,” he replied. ImageOut’s Centerpiece selection is the latest film from
John Cameron Mitchell, the mind behind stage and screen hit Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Lars von
Trier incorporated unsimulated sex scenes in his Dogme 95 film The
Idiots, but Shortbus might be the first American feature to include homo, hetero, and solo sex.
(Needless to say, it’s bypassing the MPAA and being released without a rating.)
Oh, the story? It’s a comedy-drama about relationships
between various New Yorkers who convene at the titular club, or, as Mitchell
described it in Entertainment Weekly,
“like Woody Allen with money shots.”
Red Doors
Saturday, October 14, Dryden Theatre, 2
p.m.
Ed Wong has just retired from the working world, which will
leave him more time to watch old home movies and make inept suicide attempts.
His wife concerns himself with their daughters, of which there are three: Sam,
engaged to an uptight blond businessman but mooning over an old flame; Julie, a
med student embarking on an affair with a famous actress; and Katie, an
aspiring choreographer exchanging Wile E. Coyote-level pranks with the boy she
may or may not actually like. Georgia Lee’s look at a Chinese-American family
straddling the line between the comforts of the old world and the demands of
the new is quite funny at times — the Katie thread is adorable — but the
lesbian angle is slight, forced, and, quite frankly, the least interesting part
of Red Doors.
Time To Leave (Le Temps
Qui Reste)
Saturday, October 14, Dryden Theatre, 4
p.m.
In French with English subtitles
Gifted filmmaker Franรงois Ozon (See the Sea, 8 Women, Swimming Pool — I could go on) returns to the ImageOut screen
with the story of a photographer who learns he hasn’t long to live. The
stunning Romain — he looks like a cross between
Gavin Rossdale and Eric Bana
— is 31 years old when he gets the news of his terminal illness and proceeds
to drive away both his family and his lover, only choosing to confide in his
grandmother, played by the priceless Jeanne Moreau. Following a tentative
acceptance of his fate he receives an unusual request from a waitress (played
by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi from last year’s French
slapstick Cote d’Azur) to help her
conceive a child. Ozon masterfully changes genres yet
again, this time directing a quiet meditation on love and death and life. As Romain, MelvilPoupaud poignantly
embodies the seven stages of grief, his obvious physical decline in no way
indicative of his spiritual growth.
Queens (Reinas)
Saturday, October 14, Dryden Theatre, 7
p.m.
In Spanish with English subtitles
Only the Europeans attempt these broad sex farces anymore. Queens — which can stand for both the
men and women in this film — tells the story of a gaggle of mothers and sons
preparing for Spain’s
first mass gay wedding ceremony. Foremost is the great Marisa Paredes, recognizable from later Almodรณvar
like All About
My Mother, as Reyes, a successful actress coming to terms with the fact
that her son is marrying the son of her pigheaded gardener. Carmen Maura (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown)
plays Magda, a no-nonsense hotel owner juggling a
career, an affair, and her new in-law’s massive sheepdog. And then there’s
Veronica Forquรฉ (Kika) as Nuria,
a bubbly sex addict unable to keep her hands off her son’s fiancรฉ. There’s no
great message here, just a lot of candy-colored fun brought to life by some of Spain’s finest
actresses.
Getting Personal
Sunday, October 15, Little Theatre, 11:30
a.m.
Local filmmaker Beth Bailey premiered scenes from Getting Personal, her debut feature, at ImageOut 2005, and this time she’s returned with the
finished product. It’s about four couples — two gay, two straight, all toting
baggage of some kind — who meet up via the personal ads. The acting veers
from the accomplished (Marc Raco as Paul is the
standout of the cast) to the community-theater level, but the script is quite
clever at times — one woman likens dating to square dancing: “You can change
partners, but there are only so many people in the room” — and the film
lovingly showcases the charms of our fair city.
This article appears in Oct 4-10, 2006.
