This year’s festival has a series called “Family
Snapshot,” a group of features and documentaries that highlight issues of
marriage and parenting in the LGBTQ community. These are two of the series’ standout
documentaries.

Paternal Instinct is an emotional and skilled examination of two
Manhattan men and their quest to become parents. Two incredibly earnest and
loving men, Mark and Eric, choose not to adopt but to find a surrogate mother
have not one, but two children (one by each man). Their amazing journey with
Wen, the spiritualist surrogate from Maine, tests their resolve and their
strength but never their love for each other.

We follow them for almost three years through the
ups and downs, and their lives are fully documented. The camera is always
there, recording the many conception attempts and the phone calls from Wen with
the latest updates.

It unfolds like a mystery. Will this work? What will
be the emotional impact on all the participants? Mark, Eric, Wen, her husband,
and her very understanding son all are interviewed thoroughly. You get to know
these people as if they stepped off the screen.

This documentary does not shy away from the hard
questions about reproductive rights and the nature of parenting. The interviews
with Mark and Eric’s friend, who chose to adopt a child, explore the very
personal decisions that couples make. Also very touching are the comments made
by Wen’s son. He wonders how his mother will love a surrogate child. Will it be
different then the way she loves him?

Hopefully Paternal
Instinct will find a large audience. I did see a Cinemax title card at the
beginning of the film, which should ensure a national broadcast. Just a quick
warning to those who plan to go: the write-up in the ImageOut program guide
gives away the ending of this amazing documentary.

Paternal Instinct screens Sunday, October 10,
at the Little Theatre, 12 p.m. Meet the fathers, Mark Eisenhardt and Erik
Kulleseid, at the screening. Info: 271-2640, www.imageout.org

Tying the Knot is the real deal. Not content on just preaching to the choir, it arms
its viewers with factual arguments in favor of same-sex marriage. Particularly
strong is the interview with author and historian E.J. Graff, who traces the
evolution of marriage from the time of Christ to the postindustrial age. Her
book, What Is Marriage For?, is a
late addition to my summer reading list.

In one brilliant sequence the film shows clips of
conservative Republican congressmen saying that marriage has been a sacred
unwavering institution for thousands of years. This is contrasted with Graff
pointing out that marriage was a business-like union in feudal times and wasn’t
even acknowledged as sacred union by the Catholic Church until the fifth
century. Popular consensus didn’t consider marriage a union to express romantic
love until the industrial age. A historical argument to counter a repetitive
talking point: this is good filmmaking.

But the bigger dilemma of same-sex marriage is the
civil rights issue. The subject is covered at length with a variety of
interviews and touching real-life stories. It tells the stories of people who
lost pensions and even homes after the deaths of their partners because they
weren’t entitled to surviving-spouse benefits. The film shifts effortlessly
from theory and argument to putting a face on the suffering caused by the
denial of marriage and the legal rights and benefits it provides.

Particularly poignant is the story of an Oklahoma
farmer who loses the homestead he built with his partner. The interviews with
him and with his sons will stay with you beyond all the rhetoric. This is
must-see viewing for anyone taking up the cause. Bring your neo-conservative
friend (if you have any).

Tying the Knot screens Saturday, October
16, at the Dryden Theatre, 5 p.m. Info: 271-2640, www.imageout.org.

— Matt Ehlers

This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2004.