Fridae

The 11th Annual Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival closed last Sunday without too much fanfare and hoopla. It was quite a different time when the film festival provoked a lot of controversy in its subject and content matter, in which some had severely tested the censor's limit. Times have definitely changed. While almost all of the films screened five years ago were about gay men; about half of the films screened this year are about lesbians.

The venue this year reflected the growing number of Asian offerings in the selection of films that previously focus mostly on American and European productions. Since Taiwan is one of the few Asian countries where gay issues can be openly discussed. The Rainbow Weekend (on gay/lesbian and AIDS issues) was attended by Taipei's mayor and endorsed by its President. Taiwan is indeed a place where the gay movement had reaped benefits compared to their more conservative neighbours.

This can clearly be shown in the amount of gay or gay-theme movies that came out of Taiwan in the last 10 years. That is why a selection of Taiwanese gay films was shown under a venue named "G-Spot Territory Taiwan". This venue included three movies by well known director Tsai Ming-Liang, The River, Rebels Of The Neon God and Vive L'amour, Oscar hopeful director Lee Ang's The Wedding Banquet, director Hsu Li-Kong's operetta romance Fleeing By Night and other three films (Lonely Heart's Club, The Peony Pavilion and finally the girl meets girl romance Murmur Of Youth) round up this special tribute to Taiwanese gay theme movies.

Most of the movies shown were shown in the territory before (in fact about three you can already purchase the CDV in record or video stores instead of buying tickets). However one particular film hadn't been shown before, and because of its subject matter, made it well worth the time to properly review this movie.

Fleeing By Night came from the same producers that did The Wedding Banquet, Vive l'amour and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Read review

After viewing the Taiwanese venue, it will be interesting to see the general selection this year. The festival opened with a lesbian-theme movie from Korea named Memento Mori. This movie was titled as a lesbian psycho thriller, where a dead schoolgirl possessed another girl and haunted incidents occur throughout this movie. Sounded quite creepy. However in Hong Kong, with the recent success of Korean Films at the local box office; it is not inconceivable that this spooky movie may yet make it to general release.

The closing movie was entirely different. It was a teen growing up movie with a twist! The Spanish film Krampack tells the tale of two 16 year olds spending the summer by the beach. The Movie left one unprepared for several scenes of kissing and fondling between minors with powerful shock value. It earned a Special Award for the young Spanish director Cesc Gay.

From the land of the rising sun, came two stories about girl bonding. They are Love/Juice and The Story of Pu Pu. In Love/Juice was a story about two girls, Kyoto and Chinatsu. Both of them worked together (as playboy bunny hostesses) and lived together, but only Chinatsu was a lesbian. Kyoto must choose whether or not she wanted the friendship to go one step further into love.

While The Story of Pu Pu is a modern day road movie where the girls travelled with a pig named "Pu Pu" (what else!). Along the way the girls (named Fu & Suzu) met all kinds of weird people including a hit man, a transvestite, a group of gay bandits and a mysterious hero named Trunkman! A very eccentric film if you asked me!

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Talking about strange films, the Portuguese offering O Fantasma explored the relationship between gay sex and rubbish.

The story was about a young rubbish collector who found pleasure in rough sex, searching through rubbish and stalking a young man whom he had an obsession. The images shown in this movie was quite disturbing and provokes thinking.

An audience more interested in more mysterious and intriguing plot lines will like Urbania. This American film started with a good-looking guy (played by gorgeous Dan Futterman from The Bird Cage) trying to tell a story. The film had a lot of flashbacks and overlapping sequences to create a tale of lost love, gay bashing, hatred, greed and torturous relationships.

The ending was however beautiful and upbeat and rare in such films. Another American film The Broken Hearts Club focused on life and relationships in West Hollywood, L.A. The film followed the lives of a group of friends on their quest for love, friendship and survival in gay circles today. The tone of this movie was light and humorous, but with important issues shown alongside. One of the more notable actors in this movie was Dean Cain (who played Superman in Lois & Clark) who was the Muscle Mary who gets all the cute guys!

Other offerings came from Taiwan's Incidental Journey + Fluffy Rhapsody. Two short films with different themes on the gay theme. Incidental Journey tell the story of love lost and courage to find another, while Fluffy Rhapsody is more MTV and spun different kinds of relationships into a spectrum, a feast for the eyes.

Both were poles apart in their presentation of Taiwanese society these days. Bizarre things happen to a family who moved into a new community is the central plot line in Together by Swedish director Lukas Moodysson. The main theme of this film was to show that gay and straight cultures could go hand in hand and of course�together! Finally every year there are quite a few very informative and thought provoking documentaries and short films and animations, this year was not exception.

First as fifty years had passed since WWII ended, German and Jewish gay victims still remember the shame and pain inflicted upon them by the infamous paragraph 175 of the German penal code. Paragraph 175 followed the narration by 5 surviving gays whom had endured tremendous sufferings at the hands of the Nazis.

A most interesting situation to compare as Berlin had been tipped by some to be the next gay capitol, so it would be informative to see how it was then (with guest shots from Marlene Dietrich!).

The Celluloid Closet which was produced in 1995 features an all-star cast with Tom Hanks, Shirley Maclaine, Whoopi Goldberg and Susan Sarandon as narrators of how gays in the cinema grew with the development of the film industry. A must see for all gays interested in Hollywood movie and gay history.

If The Celluloid Closet is about gay movie history, then The Times of Harvey Milk is about the gay moment and government history. It documented what happened in San Francisco during the time of Harvey Milk, an openly gay councillor who was elected into office and his struggle against an anti -gay bill from passing into legislation.

A selection of short films and animation can be found under the venue "Gay-animation" and "Out Loud and Beautiful-L&G in Shorts". This, plus two other films a Canadian/Chinese co-operation film (Men Men Women Women) and Looking for an angel + Sugar Hill (Korean and Japanese short films), round up this year's selections from The 11th Annual Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Festival.