Ray Pride

The second-oldest film festival of its kind in the world, "Reeling 2006: The 25th Chicago Lesbian & Gay International Film Festival" has over 175 films and videos in seventy-two programs. From the swath I've managed to sample, Reeling boasts impressively diverse selections, both stylistically and culturally. In the years since its founding, many things have changed, and I asked executive director Brenda Webb how today's festival differs from its origins. Of production values, she notes, "The quality of the work has certainly improved over the years, probably as the marketplace for these films has widened and more filmmakers have access to production monies." And content? "The themes and genres have diversified considerably. Not all films are coming-out [stories] anymore, though that theme is still relevant today. We now have horror films, romantic comedies, slasher films and so on. The early years very few films came from outside the US and Europe. Over the years, we have shown the first gay/lesbian films to emerge from many countries, so twenty-five years ago gay/lesbian films didn't even exist in some places. This year, we're showing films from twenty-two countries. With that internationalization comes a richer tapestry of stories and a diverse perspective since homosexuality isn't seen the same the world over."

Dramatic films with gay/lesbian themes were hard to find at the start. "Most gay films that were made were European. In the first year of the festival, we mostly screened experimental films (Kenneth Anger, Barbara Hammer, Curt McDowell, Andy Warhol) and older classic films like 'Madchen in Uniform,' 'Olivia (the Pit of Loneliness)' and the 'The Leather Boys.'"

Does twenty-five years feel like a milestone? What, philosophically, I wonder, made Reeling persist? "I don't know, what does a milestone feel like?" says Webb. "Reeling continues to persist because it serves a community need and because the quality of the films grows stronger each year. While there are many more opportunities to see LGBT films and characters (in television, at the cinema, in home video) than ever before, Reeling provides an opportunity for people to see those films within the context of a community that embraces them and celebrates the work. And like with any festival, there is a sense of excitement that comes from the event nature of it. And it feeds the needs of film lovers. Many attendees say they attend fifteen or twenty films. So, like any other film festival, people like the fact that it is a cornucopia of work." And perhaps most importantly, "Homophobia has not disappeared and the oppression of that reality creates a 'safe' space for the community in our festival."

A few highlights: Opening night boasts a pair of impressive, music-drenched movies, Jean-Marc Vallee's exuberant, oft-exhilarating Quebecois "C.R.A.Z.Y.," Canada's 2006 Oscar entry, which traverses thirty years in a Montreal family's life, and which uses so many songs, it's reportedly too expensive to license music rights for US release. Richard Wong's charming, sweet, no-budget "Colma: The Musical" impresses for its almost entirely sung-through verve and its visual pizzazz.

Maria Maggenti, who last directed "The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love" returns with "Puccini for Beginners," a charming, talky, quirky, post-Woody Allen Manhattan romantic roundelay. "Loving Annabelle" is a variation of the aforementioned "Madchen in Uniform," with a breezy romance between a teacher and a student at a girls' Catholic boarding school. Larry Grimaldi and Kirk Marcolina's "Camp Out" follows ten Midwestern teenagers through the first overnight camp for gay Christian youth, which capably places very basic issues and conflicts into stark relief.

Thom Fitzgerald's "3 Needles" plays the portmanteau card, shuffling AIDS-related stories from China, Africa and Canada, with mixed results, but there's a strong cast of Olympia Dukakis, Chloe Sevigny, Lucy Liu, Stockard Channing and Shawn Ashmore. From the Philippines is the striking Oscar nominee, "The Blossoming of Maximo Olivero," Auraeus Solito's tale of a precocious 12-year-old gay boy in the Manila slums. Richly detailed and lovingly performed, it's sometimes astonishing.

"Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema" is a breezy overview of the subject since 1960s, interviewing B. Ruby Rich, John Waters and John Cameron Mitchell, among others. The real treasure of the entries I previewed is Andy Kimpton-Nye's "Derek Jarman: My Life As Art," which lovingly pillages the substantial amount of art left behind by the late artist, drawing on his experimental Super-8 work, his features like "Caravaggio," and rich interviews with collaborators like Tilda Swinton. It could as well be called "Derek Jarman: A Life Fully Lived."

Full listings are available at reelingfilmfestival.org.

(2006-10-31)

Also by Ray Pride

The Beauty of All History
Philip Noyce's "Catch a Fire," written by Shawn Slovo ("A World Apart"), inspired by men her father met as part of the African National Congress' battle against South Africa's apartheid government, is taut, painfully resonant, and ultimately deeply moving
(2006-10-24)

Tip of the Week
The two most beautiful sentences I've read in weeks, and they were likely penned by a lawyer: "This film is fictional. It is set in the future." Coming at the end of British director Gabriel Range's "Death of a President," about the October 2007 aftermath of authoritarian opportunism when President Bush is killed while visiting Chicago, it suits Range's neatly arrayed paranoid prognostications, which, of course, is trumped by reality each and every day
(2006-10-24)

Tip of the Week
Moving at a crushing clip appropriate to the music scene that it looks back on, Paul Rachman's superb "American Hardcore" (subtitled "The History of American Punk Rock 1980-1986"), written by Steven Blush ("American Hardcore: A Tribal History") and shot and edited over the course of five years, after more than a hundred interviews, "American Hardcore" is overloaded with sound and information, including a flurry of orchestrated chaos from self-chronicles by the bands presented, often in deliciously cruddy VHS
(2006-10-17)

I Want Candy
Seven months pregnant, wearing a black knee-length maternity dress, substituting ballet flats for her customary flip-flops, Sofia Coppola is unapologetic about the style of her third feature, "Marie Antoinette"
(2006-10-17)

Tip of the Week
(2006-10-10)

The Queen
(2006-10-10)

Tip of the Week
(2006-10-03)

Gimme Welter
(2006-10-03)

Best of the Fest
(2006-10-03)

Who Would Jesus Kill?
(2006-09-26)

Tip of the Week
(2006-09-26)

The Last Picture
(2006-09-19)

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