Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bay Windows - August 12, 2004
R.J. Grubb
As a sidebar to New England's largest film festival - the Rhode Island International Film Festival - the Providence Gay and Lesbian Film Fest runs from August 10 to 15 at the historic Columbus Theater as well as other venues throughout the state's capital city. This year, James Nadeau, coordinator of the MFA Gay and Lesbian Film/Video Festival in Boston, programmed the series.
Top-billing narrative features include Q. Allan Brocka's sharply written comedy debut "Eating Out" about a hunky straight guy who falls for a girl who likes gay guys. And there's nothing he won't do to win her heart. While Brocka's plot is familiar comic farce, filmmaker Sharon Ferranti travels into uncharted water with "Make a Wish." Owing a debt to grisly "Friday the 13th "-style horror flicks, Ferranti's slasher movie gathers a randy group of lesbians, all coincidentally ex-lovers, who decide to go camping for a friend's birthday. But the excursion takes a horrific turn when the party-goers start bumping into dead friends. It might never be safe to go camping again.
Other features include "Queer as Folk" writer/producer Brad Fraser who directs his first film, "Leaving Metropolis," based on his successful play, "Poor Super Man." Bay area filmmaker Jennifer Kroot's sci-fi tale "Sirens of the 23rd Century" creates a futuristic world where cosmetics and modeling have been outlawed. Not to worry: the Beauty Renegades are ready to wage war to reclaim their birthright to good looks.
At the other end of the spectrum, the fest screens award-winning Robin Scovill's controversial documentary "The Other Side of AIDS." The movie argues that HIV is not the cause of AIDS. Instead, Scovill contends the hedonistic gay lifestyle of the 1980s - constant drug abuse, malnutrition, and rampant, casual sex - became a breeding ground for illnesses and infections which have incorrectly been categorized as the syndrome, AIDS. The filmmaker also makes a case that no one dies of AIDS. Rather, the documentary says the most frequent cause of death among HIV-positive people is the toxic drugs used to treat AIDS.
Like Arthur Dong's "Coming Out Under Fire," Jose Torrealba's documentary "Open Secrets" collects testimony from Canadian military veterans who break their decades-old silence as to how Canadian armed forces dealt with homosexual behavior during and after World War II.
Tom Murray takes a home-on-the-range look at gays in "Farm Family: In Search of Gay Life in Rural America." Raised on a Midwest dairy farm, Murray travels across the US to hear the seldom-heard stories of gay men raised in the Heartland. The men talk about their lives and how they find a sense of community despite living in towns populated with more steers than queers.
In a tribute to New York-based Paper Tiger Television, the fest screens "Market This! Queer Radicals Respond to Gay Assimilation." The video examines the ongoing divide over queer identity and mainstream marketing. Paper Tiger, a volunteer-run video collective whose goals are increasing the public's awareness of mass media, also hooked up with electro-rock band Le Tigre for a short. The three-minute video is the product of LGBT youth in New York who produced a video for the Le Tigre song, "Keep on Livin." Screenings are followed by a special panel discussion called, "Cultural Crossroads: Media & LGBT Acceptance" on Thursday, August 12 at 6:30 p.m.
If you missed the recent engagement of Linda Goode Bryant's and Laura Poitras' excellent documentary "Flag Wars" at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, then you have a second chance. Shot cinema verite style, "Flag Wars" presents a powerful fly-on-the-wall account of how lifelong residents in a Columbus, Ohio community coexist with a new gay population coming to roost and acquire the American Dream. When the dust settles, residents point their fingers at gentrification, prejudice and the misfires of good intentions.
For a schedule of screenings, visit www.rifilmfest.org
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