Fridae

A People's Liberation Army (PLA) colonel slips off his khaki combats to become Shanghai's principal dancer and China's first sex change case.

Four plaid-skirted schoolgirls kick ass, Charlie's Angels-style, while sizing each other's ass up, Sapphic-style.

With cowboy hats, jock straps and sideburns, six drag kings expose the entertaining and personal side of bending their gender.

And, a black South African livestock herder is tried for having sex with a Dutch sailor.

These are characters, some real, others fictional, in the 16th annual Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival, billed as the biggest ever for number of screenings.

The 11-day festival opens today with 25 titles including 12 festival award-winners - two are from Cannes - a box-office smash from Indonesia and Hong Kong premieres from around the globe.

They range from the heavy - the story of an AIDS victim who chose his own death in The Event, the erotic - romps at an elite French boys school in Grande Ecole to the trend-setting - the pilot show of hit lesbian TV series The L Word which same-sexes Sex and the City.

The festival opens with the locally-made Butterfly, a fluttering exploration of lesbian passions. Singer-actress Josie Ho plays Flavia, a wife and mother who starts an affair with a woman she bumps into in the supermarket. Ho is the daughter of Macau casino tycoon Stanley Ho.

Butterfly breaks ground because it is the first locally-made serious and sensitive film about lesbianism by a straight director and only the second released from Hong Kong, according to festival director Denise Tang.

Yau Ching, the territory's sole openly-lesbian director - and a member of the panel which chose this year's screenings - released her study of lesbian issues in Ho Yuk: Let's Love Hong Kong two years ago.

"This year's most outstanding movie is Butterfly because it's locally-made and tackles lesbian issues in a positive way, and these movies are so hard to come by," Tang said, adding that was the reason organisers used it as the opening film.

Its two showings have almost sold out, but the film will be on regular release from December 2.

This year's gimmick - a giant neon-pink passport plastered over publicity posters - represents the programme of films as a travel document on which the audience tours the "pink planet."

But it's a passport with a heavy bent towards Asian filmmakers - around half of the films are from the region or by Asian directors, including South Korea, Taiwan, India and Malaysia.

Four films hail from Hong Kong. Besides Butterfly, there are two collections of short films from budding directors, and multiple award-winner Moth and a Butterfly, a Wong Kar-wai inspired short focusing on the repressed desires of two gay brothers.

The festival dips its fingers into reality as well as fantasy with three documentaries.

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Closest to home is the critically-acclaimed Colonel Jin Xing, which follows the struggles of China's first sex change patient - a PLA colonel who has risen to become a celebrated dancer and choreographer in the mainland. The French documentary features an interview with her surgeon and shows the touching support of her mother who helps Jin adopt a baby.

Dangerous Living: Coming Out in the Developing World examines the fear and pain of lesbians, gays and transgenders in repressive societies.

And, if you've had enough of drag queens, director Sonia Slutsky's award-winning Drag Kings on Tour follows six women-as-men performers as they lip sync in stuffed pants from New York to Toronto. Parents of the women pop up in the audience. "We knew she wasn't a typical daughter," says one mother.

It's not all cinematic navel-contemplating though. There's also plenty of campy fun.

Touch of Pink is a Canadian-British romantic comedy following gay Alim, as he tries to thwart his mother's efforts to marry him off to a nice Muslim girl.

Party boy, Christian, takes on a bet to seduce an impossibly clean-cut Mormon missionary in Latter Days from the US, and musical comedy, The Adventure of Iron Pussy, has a drag queen secret agent armed with kinky boots, fluttering eyelashes and killer kung-fu moves.

Iron Pussy is the work of Thai indie director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who is the festival's featured director. Complementing Iron Pussy are his erotic drama Blissfully Yours and Tropical Malady, a love story between a young soldier and a country boy that takes a black magic turn. Both movies have won awards at Cannes.

Many commentators on queer cinema agree the industry has been maturing - it's advanced beyond the issues of coming out and AIDS. Filmmakers are beginning to embrace homosexuality as something positive and gay and lesbian characters are no longer defined solely by their sex choice.

Some of the festival's films are part of this new trend, and as such will appeal to audiences other than gays, lesbians and art students, Tang said.

"We've included more mainstream, latest releases to appeal to straight audiences too," she said. "We don't want to preach to the already converted. We want to get beyond the stigmas and taboos."

All screenings will be held at IFC Palace in Central or Broadway Cinemateque in Yau Ma Tei. As well as the films, audiences can take part in discussions with some of the directors and artists, vote on their favourite film to win tickets to Sydney's Mardi Gras next March, and party at festival events at clubs around town. Click web site link below for more details.