8th Annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival

July 2 - Aug 2, 1992

Jury Award Winners

from 8th Annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival
No items found.

Jury Honorable Mention

from 8th Annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival
No items found.

Audience Awards

from 8th Annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival
No items found.

Best in Show Shorts

from 8th Annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival
No items found.

All Feature Films

from 8th Annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1990

Affengeil

in person
Rosa von Praunheim
min
German
Germany
1990
Rosa von Praunheim's sly tribute to German actress Lotti Huber presents her as a particularly mad cross between Bette Davis, Tallulah Bankhead and Sylvia Sidney and once again demonstrates a gay man's adoration of divas of "a certain age." "The screen sparkles with Huber's wit, warmth, charm and irreverence..." - 16th Toronto Festival of Festivals
Although too long by half, this documentary is subtitled “A Trip Through Lotti’s Life” and that is essentially what it is. Although done in a style that keeps you guessing what is true and what isn’t about her life – everything from her Aryan lover and her stay in a concentration camp while he is killed for their forbidden love – it is a fascinating look at this remarkable woman through the eyes and viewfinder of Rosa Von Prauheim.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1991

Changer: A Record of the Times

with Stand On Your Man

in person
Francis Reid & Judy Diugacz
min
English
USA
1991
The Changer emotionally recalls the birth of women's music with still and clips from the 70s and 80s and recent footage of a 1990 Williamson concert in Berkeley. Featuring performances by k.d.lang, Patsy Cline, The Well Oiled Sister and The Stetson Sisters, Stand On Your Man looks at the new queer preoccupation with country western music and style.
Documentary about the making of The Changer and The Changed, an album recorded by Cris Williamson in 1975 that became one of the icons of women’s music.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1967

Deathwatch

with Un Chant d'Amour

in person
Vic Morrow
min
English
USA
1967
"The murder, the thief and the homo: Director Vic Morrow (yes, the actor) keeps the cipher like characterizations but brings a cinematic quality to Genet's one set stage play. Leonard Nimoy (yes, Mr. Spock) (who co-produced the film with Morrow) is the small time thief who battles with queer Paul Mazursky (yes, the director) over the illiterate, muscular king convict Michael Forest. Deathwatch is a bold gay themed mainstream movie that vanished rapidly on its release and has not been screened since." - San Francisco Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
Based on a play by Jean Genet, a small-time thief battles with his gay cellmate over a third illiterate, muscular convict.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1983

Dressed In Blue

in person
Antonio Giménez Rico
97 min
Spanish
Spain
1983
For all of those who think they've heard all they want to about drag and its Zen, along comes Dressed In Blue to shed new light on a topic familiar to gay audiences. Set in Madrid, this eye-opening documentary concerns six transvestites who have moved to the city in order to change their gender and live a "modern life." Includes a striking scene of silicone implant surgery . Not for the squeamish!
Antonio Giménez Rico’s stunning portrait documents the lives of six transgender women living in 1980s Madrid during Spain’s post-Franco makeover into a constitutional monarchy. Through wide-ranging conversations and interviews, the women discuss their experiences of nightlife, family, sex work, the legal system, and their personal narratives of transition. In a historical moment that witnessed a dramatic expansion of legal rights and political representation, their stories are an indictment of the repressive, transphobic institutions that remain entrenched in Spanish society. Featured in the hit series Veneno and the subject of a book-length history by Valeria Vegas, this provocative but nuanced portrayal joins a wave of rediscovered and reconsidered documents of trans lives in cinema.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1987

Empire State

in person
Ron Peck
min
English
UK
1987
Ron Peck's next feature after his ground breaking Nighthawks is sort of a gay Long Good Friday featuring a motley crew of American gangsters as S&M and London hustlers. Jimmy Somerville and the Communards set the pace on the soundtrack for this big splashy take-off on Martin Scorsese territory that is governed by an unmistakably ga point of view.
In the docklands of East London stands the Empire State, a nightclub full of magic and mystery. Designed like an ocean liner, it’s become a battle ground where anything can happen. In the midst of the action, a young boy stows aboard to search for his friend who has disappeared in the entrails of the club.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1987

Frida

in person
Paul Leduc
min
Spanish
Mexico
1987
A lush and reflective portrait of the turbulent life of Frida Kahlo, Mexico's flamboyant artist and wife of muralist Diego Rivera. Told in engaging flashbacks, Frida recalls Kahlo in all her roles: a stirring public figure, political activist, bold individualist and one of this century's most expressive painters.
This film is a chronicle of painter Frida Kahlo, and her encounter with the personalities of her time. Despite being confied to a wheelchair as a result of polio, operations and amputations, she faces and traces some of the most colorful and controversial aspects of Mexican history, during the dominant time of Mexican muralism.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1986

Mala Noche

with Thanksgiving Prayer and Gus Van Sant's Diary

in person
Gus Van Sant
75 min
English
United States
1986
After the phenomenal successes of Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho, director Gus Van Sant's stunning first feature is strangely still not available on cassette. In response to numerous requests we are happy to present a mini Van Sant retro by adding two shorts - Gus Van Sant's Diary and Thanksgiving Prayer to this encore showing of Mala Noche.
Mala Noche is the film debut from director Gus Van Sant. The film portrays the unanswered love of an American man toward a young Mexican man.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1991

My Father Is Coming

with Harlequin Exterminator

in person
Monika Treut
82 min
English
Germany
1991
Monica Treut's (Virgin Machine) quirky take on American sex and culture is the riotous tale of two lesbian lovers who attempt to keep their relationship secret when one of the woman is faced with an unexpected visit by her father from Germany. New Age sex goddess Annie Sprinkle adds another angle when she seduces the already confused "Papa" in this engaging polysexual comedy of manners.
Vicky, an out-of-work actress, struggling waitress and lesbian has her whole life thrown into turmoil when her father comes from Germany to visit. The main problem is that Vicky has told him she is a successful actress and happily married. She enlists the help of a gay friend to play her husband. Using a large range of characters—gay, lesbian, straight, transsexuals—the film creates a funny and touching view of family dynamics and sexuality.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1990

Nocturne

with Eye to Eye

in person
Mark T. Harris
min
USA
1990
Featuring a beautifully written and staged explicit sex scene Nocturne centers on gay men's relationships and what happens to Martin (T. Ryder Smith) as he looks for love in New York City. He meets Gino (Gabriel Amor), who is looking for sex but not love, and problems occur when their desires collide. NOTE: Not to be confused with the same title but Lesbian themed film that played in last year's New Festival
Martin a young musician, moves to the city and meets Gino, an acting student at NYU. What starts as a one night stand for Gino quickly turns to an obsession for Martin.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1951

Olivia: The Well of Loneliness

in person
Jacqueline Audry
min
French
France
1951
Simone Simon and Edwige Feuiller star as a pair of head mistresses in a girls school, each with her own competing coterie of girls. Director Jacqueline Audry's lushly sensuous vision confounded the censors of 1951 and even today this discreetly erotic tale remains wonderfully effective due to the integrity of the women who wrote and directed what was to become an important, but little seen film in the history of Lesbian cinema.
“Olivia” captures the awakening passions of an English adolescent sent away for a year to a small finishing school outside Paris. The innocent but watchful Olivia develops an infatuation for her headmistress Julie and through this screen of love observes the tense romance between Julie and the other head of the school Cara in its final months.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1990

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit

in person
Beeban Kidron
165 min
English
UK
1990
Set in working-class England, this made-for-television film from the director of Antonia and Jane has been acclaimed internationally as one of the finest depictions of the lesbian experience.
Seven-year-old Jess is removed from her peculiar Pentecostal home and sent to school.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1986

Paul Cadmus: Infant Terrible at 80

Visual Artist Paul Cadmus and Director David Sutherland in person
David Sutherland
min
English
USA
1986
Acclaimed visual artist Paul Cadmus makes a rare public appearance to introduce local filmmaker David Sutherland's literate and affecting Cadmus portrait and to comment upon the recent unveiling after 58 years of his banned in 1934 painting "The Fleet's In!." In the award-winning documentary, the quixotic American figurist is astonishing and his reminiscences are oddly discreet, especially where sexuality is concerned, but there's no doubting his friendships with Forster and Auden.
In this intimate film portrait, artist Paul Cadmus, makes a nude drawing of his long time companion, demonstrates his mastery of egg tempera painting and recounts his past as a prominent American scene painter and controversial social satirist.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1980

Pepi, Luci, Bom

with Time Expired and Loverville

in person
Pedro Almodóvar
82 min
Spanish
Spain
1980
Almodovar's debut film made in 1980 with a very young Carmen Maura has never been distributed in the United States till now. Pepi, Luci, Bom is the story of an independent modern woman who forms an S&M relationship with her best friend, Bom, and Luci, the wife of the local policeman! A riotous comedy with plot devices that can be seen in virtually all of Almodovar's subsequent films.
After a young heiress is assaulted by a policeman, she seeks revenge by befriending the policeman’s mousy wife and introducing her to her circle of outrageous punk friends.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1990

Perfectly Normal

in person
Yves Simoneau
min
English
Canada
1990
Canadian director Yves Simoneau was represented in the Second Annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film Festival with Pouvoir Intime; now his latest comic gem, although never homosexually explicit is suffused with a gay sensibility. After all, a film that finishes with the hero singing Bellini's Norma in drag for a group of macho hockey players can't be all straight. Perfectly Normal is a heartening tale full of dreams and joyous inspiration." - 15th Festival of Festivals, Toronto
A shy young man with a passion for opera has his world turned upside down by a con artist who really does have a heart of gold.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1982

Scrubbers

in person
Mai Zetterling
90 min
English
United Kingdom
1982
Mai Zetterling's irreverent adventures of the lesbian prisoners known as the "Hellhole Bitches" contains such deathless lines as "I love you Eva, I fuckin' love you" (which booms out over the prison quadrangle) and "Give us a lick not a prick" - one of the best women behind bars movies ever made and unavailable for many years, Scrubbers is pulpy, poetic and political.
Inmates fight, pair off, try suicide and attempt escape at a British reform school for girls.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1970

Something For Everyone

in person
Harold Prince
min
English
USA
1970
Broadway producer/director Hal Prince's first foray into the world of cinema was this stylish adaptation of the novel The Cook. In the novel, a young man becomes an Austrian countess' cook and seduces the entire royal family with irresistible menus. In the Hollywood version sex is substituted for food, and the result is one of the screen's wittiest and sophisticated comedies. Starring Angela Lansbury and Michael York (he claims it's his favorite role) as the young man who beds everyone regardless of sex or station.
In post-war Austria, an opportunistic young man begins working as a footman to a widowed countess and uses his sexual talents to better his station in life.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1991

Sphinxes Without Secrets

in person
Maria Beatty
min
English
USA
1991
No Mona Lisa smiles here: performance artists Diamanda Galas, Holly Hughes, Robbie McCauley, Rachel Rosenthal, Lenora Champagne, Ellie Covan, Laurie Anderson, Pat Oleszko, Jeannie Hutchins, Carolee Schneemann, Diane Torr, Martha Wilson, Annie Sprinkle and many, many more spill their guts about what outrages and delights them including sexuality, racism, censorship, homophobia, AIDS, power politics and the future of the planet.
Since its inception, performance art provided a forum for those artists whose work challenges the dominant aesthetic and cultural status quo. In “Sphinxes Without Secrets”, performers, curators and critics unravel the mysteries of performance art and ponder the world women confront today.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1991

Strip Jack Naked

in person
Ron Peck
min
English
UK
1991
A moving personal account of a gay filmmaker who used his art to come out. Peck examines just how far we have come since the 70s utilizing many of the more explicit scenes he had cut from his first feature Nighthawks. NOTE: Strip Jack Naked was scheduled for last year's festival but was never shown due to print shipping problems - it's here this year, don't miss it!
Ron Peck talks about his experiences of growing up as a gay man, the attitudes to homosexuality in Britain, and his journey towards making his film “Nighthawks”.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1992

Swoon

with Resonance

Director Tom Kalin in person
Tom Kalin
82 min
English
United States
1992
The infamous Leopold-Loeb murder case has been the inspiration for two previous screen versions - Alfred Hitchcock's Rope and Richard Fliescher's Compulsion - but these movies, unlike Swoon, avoided the (homo)sexual elements in the drama. "Tom Kalin's stunning monochrome melodrama - part archival footage, part period drama, part experimental narrative - puts the homosexuality back into the homicide." Sixth London Lesbian & Gay Festival.
Teenagers Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb share a dangerous sexual bond and an amoral outlook on life. They spend afternoons breaking into storefronts and engaging in petty crimes, until the calculating Nathan ups the ante by kidnapping, and murdering, a young boy.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1991

The Hours and Times

with Relax and Resonance

Director Christopher Münch in person
Christopher Munch
57 min
English
United States
1991
"In the mid-Sixties, on the up curve of the Beatles' rise-and-fall, Brian Epstein escorted John Lennon to Barcelona for a weekend vacation. Epstein's infatuation leads to a sexual episode usually missing from the John Lennon story. It's a brilliant achievement, half-way through The Hours and Times you suddenly suspend all disbelief." - Sixth London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
A fictionalized account of what may have happened when John Lennon and Brian Epstein went on holiday together to Spain in 1963.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1992

The Living End

with Backyard Movie

in person
Gregg Araki
85 min
English
United States
1992
"The Living End has more action than the A-Team. Two fatalistic L.A. boys discover they are both HIV Positive and set about on an unhinged serio-comic spree of violence and abandon. 'It's like a Hope/Crosby movie," explains director Araki, "in which Crosby fucks Hope." - Sixth London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
Two HIV-positive young men—a semi-employed film critic and a hot hustler—tear off on a cross-country crime spree.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1992

The Sluts and Goddess Video Workshop or How To Be a Sex Goddess in 101 Easy Steps

in person
Maria Beatty & Annie Sprinkle
min
English
USA
1992
This "How To Video" is a humorous, heartfelt, worshipful look at Sex especially designed to teach women to "be happier and healthier, improve your sex life, and even create miracles." The tape features composer Pauline Oliveros' performance of Nancy's Nightmare which transforms "These Boots Are Made for Walking" into a tribute to the ultimate lesbian S&M fantasy.
A humorous, absurd, heartfelt and worshipful look at sex. Features many exotic ways to stimulate sexual and sensual pleasure, like flagellation with oak leaves, body contortions, tattooing, piercing, shaving and gender play.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1991

Together Alone

in person
P.J. Castalleneta
min
English
USA
1991
Remember going home with a perfect stranger and telling them things you wouldn't tell your closest friend? P.J. Castalleneta's revelatory two hander was rated best feature at the 1991 San Francisco Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. Like the ideal one night stand its "compelling, compassionate, unrelieved and exhausting." - San Francisco Chronicle
Bryan meets a man called Bill in a bar. They go back to Bryan’s home and have unprotected sex. Later, they wake up and talk. Bryan discovers that Bill’s real name is Brian, and that he is bisexual. They spend hours talking, covering topics including AIDS, sexuality, feminism, role-play and Emily Dickinson.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1991

Vegas in Space

in person
Phillip R. Ford
85 min
English
United States
1991
A camp extravaganza that plays like a cross between a Carmen Miranda musical and an early episode of Star Trek. Vegas in Space is a low budget sci-fi-adventure-musical-comedy starring the legendary drag queen Doris Fish.
Three male soldiers have a sex change so they can go on an undercover mission to an all-woman planet, where they must uncover and foil a plot to disrupt the most important pleasure planet in the universe.
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1989

Via Appia

in person
Jöchen Hick
min
German
Germany
1989
Frank, a handsome German airline steward wakes up one morning after a night of casual sex in Rio to find "Welcome to the AIDS Club" written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. This begins an intensely unsettling and controversial thriller that charts Frank's journey to the bathhouses and beaches of Brazil in his attempt to find his fatal lover.
Frank, a HIV infected former Lufthansa steward, goes back to Rio from Germany with a film crew to look for Mario, a young man with whom he had a one night stand. Before Mario departed the morning after, he left a message scrawled in soap on the bathroom mirror: ‘Welcome to the AIDS club’. Frank and his director hire a fast talking hustler named José (Guilherme di Padua) to help them to find Mario who seems alway to have just left whenever they arrive. Via Appia is the nickname of a Rio district where male prostitutes hang out…
 min total program
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1992

Where Are We?: Our Trip Through America

with Dead Boys Club

in person
Jeffrey Friedman & Rob Epstein
min
English
USA
1992
When two gay filmmakers, Academy Award winners Rob Epstein (Common Threads, The Times of Harvey Milk) and Jeffrey Friedman set out by van on a journey into the heart of the heartland of America, they create a sort of gay Charles Kurwalt TV segment that is a telling and affecting testament to how 'outside' homosexuals still are viewed in America today. For those of us who live in the Back Bay or Beacon Hill, vacation in P-town and brunch in the South End, this is a reminder that to most of the United States we are aliens from "another country." - 1992 Sundance Film Festival Selection
Accomplished documentarians Rob Epstein and Jeff Friedman take a trip across the American South and Southwest, asking people about their hopes and fears.
 min total program
No items found.

All Short Film Programs

from 8th Annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM

Confronting Homophobia

FREE

Director John Greyson in person
 min total program
A program of shorts focusing on the topic of homophobia.
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM

Lesbian Identities

FREE

in person
 min total program
A program of lesbian short films and videos.
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM

Local Ties Program #1

FREE

Directors Richard Nobile and Paula Gauthier in person
 min total program
A program highlighting the work of local and formerly local film and video makers.
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM

Local Ties Program #2

FREE

Directors Myra Paci and Nina Dabek in person
 min total program
Transeltown by Myra Paci (1991), Jamaica Plain is a Woman (1992), Seth's Aunt by Nina Dabek (1991) and Because This is About Love by Shulee Ong (1992)
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM

Women Loving Women

FREE

in person
 min total program
A 90-minute program of short films and video exploring the problems, effects and triumphs of depicting lesbian sexuality.
No items found.

Screenings & Events

July 2 - Aug 2, 1992

SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1992
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Swoon

FREE

with Resonance

Thu, Jul 02, 1992 @ 6:00 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The infamous Leopold-Loeb murder case has been the inspiration for two previous screen versions - Alfred Hitchcock's Rope and Richard Fliescher's Compulsion - but these movies, unlike Swoon, avoided the (homo)sexual elements in the drama. "Tom Kalin's stunning monochrome melodrama - part archival footage, part period drama, part experimental narrative - puts the homosexuality back into the homicide." Sixth London Lesbian & Gay Festival.
Teenagers Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb share a dangerous sexual bond and an amoral outlook on life. They spend afternoons breaking into storefronts and engaging in petty crimes, until the calculating Nathan ups the ante by kidnapping, and murdering, a young boy.
Tom Kalin
82
 min
English
United States
 min total program
Director Tom Kalin in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1990
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit

FREE

Thu, Jul 02, 1992 @ 8:15 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Set in working-class England, this made-for-television film from the director of Antonia and Jane has been acclaimed internationally as one of the finest depictions of the lesbian experience.
Seven-year-old Jess is removed from her peculiar Pentecostal home and sent to school.
Beeban Kidron
165
 min
English
UK
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Women Loving Women

FREE

Fri, Jul 03, 1992 @ 6:00 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
A 90-minute program of short films and video exploring the problems, effects and triumphs of depicting lesbian sexuality.
 min
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1991
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Together Alone

FREE

Fri, Jul 03, 1992 @ 8:15 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Remember going home with a perfect stranger and telling them things you wouldn't tell your closest friend? P.J. Castalleneta's revelatory two hander was rated best feature at the 1991 San Francisco Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. Like the ideal one night stand its "compelling, compassionate, unrelieved and exhausting." - San Francisco Chronicle
Bryan meets a man called Bill in a bar. They go back to Bryan’s home and have unprotected sex. Later, they wake up and talk. Bryan discovers that Bill’s real name is Brian, and that he is bisexual. They spend hours talking, covering topics including AIDS, sexuality, feminism, role-play and Emily Dickinson.
P.J. Castalleneta
 min
English
USA
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1990
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Perfectly Normal

FREE

Sat, Jul 04, 1992 @ 7:00 pm
Harvard Film Archive
Canadian director Yves Simoneau was represented in the Second Annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film Festival with Pouvoir Intime; now his latest comic gem, although never homosexually explicit is suffused with a gay sensibility. After all, a film that finishes with the hero singing Bellini's Norma in drag for a group of macho hockey players can't be all straight. Perfectly Normal is a heartening tale full of dreams and joyous inspiration." - 15th Festival of Festivals, Toronto
A shy young man with a passion for opera has his world turned upside down by a con artist who really does have a heart of gold.
Yves Simoneau
 min
English
Canada
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1951
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Olivia: The Well of Loneliness

FREE

Sun, Jul 05, 1992 @ 5:15 pm
Institute of Contemporary Art
Simone Simon and Edwige Feuiller star as a pair of head mistresses in a girls school, each with her own competing coterie of girls. Director Jacqueline Audry's lushly sensuous vision confounded the censors of 1951 and even today this discreetly erotic tale remains wonderfully effective due to the integrity of the women who wrote and directed what was to become an important, but little seen film in the history of Lesbian cinema.
“Olivia” captures the awakening passions of an English adolescent sent away for a year to a small finishing school outside Paris. The innocent but watchful Olivia develops an infatuation for her headmistress Julie and through this screen of love observes the tense romance between Julie and the other head of the school Cara in its final months.
Jacqueline Audry
 min
French
France
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1990
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Affengeil

FREE

Sun, Jul 05, 1992 @ 9:00 pm
Institute of Contemporary Art
Rosa von Praunheim's sly tribute to German actress Lotti Huber presents her as a particularly mad cross between Bette Davis, Tallulah Bankhead and Sylvia Sidney and once again demonstrates a gay man's adoration of divas of "a certain age." "The screen sparkles with Huber's wit, warmth, charm and irreverence..." - 16th Toronto Festival of Festivals
Although too long by half, this documentary is subtitled “A Trip Through Lotti’s Life” and that is essentially what it is. Although done in a style that keeps you guessing what is true and what isn’t about her life – everything from her Aryan lover and her stay in a concentration camp while he is killed for their forbidden love – it is a fascinating look at this remarkable woman through the eyes and viewfinder of Rosa Von Prauheim.
Rosa von Praunheim
 min
German
Germany
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Confronting Homophobia

FREE

Fri, Jul 10, 1992 @ 6:00 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
A program of shorts focusing on the topic of homophobia.
 min
 min total program
Director John Greyson in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1991
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

My Father Is Coming

FREE

with Harlequin Exterminator

Fri, Jul 10, 1992 @ 8:15 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Monica Treut's (Virgin Machine) quirky take on American sex and culture is the riotous tale of two lesbian lovers who attempt to keep their relationship secret when one of the woman is faced with an unexpected visit by her father from Germany. New Age sex goddess Annie Sprinkle adds another angle when she seduces the already confused "Papa" in this engaging polysexual comedy of manners.
Vicky, an out-of-work actress, struggling waitress and lesbian has her whole life thrown into turmoil when her father comes from Germany to visit. The main problem is that Vicky has told him she is a successful actress and happily married. She enlists the help of a gay friend to play her husband. Using a large range of characters—gay, lesbian, straight, transsexuals—the film creates a funny and touching view of family dynamics and sexuality.
Monika Treut
82
 min
English
Germany
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1983
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Dressed In Blue

FREE

Sat, Jul 11, 1992 @ 7:00 pm
Harvard Film Archive
For all of those who think they've heard all they want to about drag and its Zen, along comes Dressed In Blue to shed new light on a topic familiar to gay audiences. Set in Madrid, this eye-opening documentary concerns six transvestites who have moved to the city in order to change their gender and live a "modern life." Includes a striking scene of silicone implant surgery . Not for the squeamish!
Antonio Giménez Rico’s stunning portrait documents the lives of six transgender women living in 1980s Madrid during Spain’s post-Franco makeover into a constitutional monarchy. Through wide-ranging conversations and interviews, the women discuss their experiences of nightlife, family, sex work, the legal system, and their personal narratives of transition. In a historical moment that witnessed a dramatic expansion of legal rights and political representation, their stories are an indictment of the repressive, transphobic institutions that remain entrenched in Spanish society. Featured in the hit series Veneno and the subject of a book-length history by Valeria Vegas, this provocative but nuanced portrayal joins a wave of rediscovered and reconsidered documents of trans lives in cinema.
Antonio Giménez Rico
97
 min
Spanish
Spain
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1989
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Via Appia

FREE

Sat, Jul 11, 1992 @ 9:00 pm
Harvard Film Archive
Frank, a handsome German airline steward wakes up one morning after a night of casual sex in Rio to find "Welcome to the AIDS Club" written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. This begins an intensely unsettling and controversial thriller that charts Frank's journey to the bathhouses and beaches of Brazil in his attempt to find his fatal lover.
Frank, a HIV infected former Lufthansa steward, goes back to Rio from Germany with a film crew to look for Mario, a young man with whom he had a one night stand. Before Mario departed the morning after, he left a message scrawled in soap on the bathroom mirror: ‘Welcome to the AIDS club’. Frank and his director hire a fast talking hustler named José (Guilherme di Padua) to help them to find Mario who seems alway to have just left whenever they arrive. Via Appia is the nickname of a Rio district where male prostitutes hang out…
Jöchen Hick
 min
German
Germany
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Local Ties Program #1

FREE

Sun, Jul 12, 1992 @ 1:00 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
A program highlighting the work of local and formerly local film and video makers.
 min
 min total program
Directors Richard Nobile and Paula Gauthier in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1991
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Vegas in Space

FREE

Sun, Jul 12, 1992 @ 5:15 pm
Institute of Contemporary Art
A camp extravaganza that plays like a cross between a Carmen Miranda musical and an early episode of Star Trek. Vegas in Space is a low budget sci-fi-adventure-musical-comedy starring the legendary drag queen Doris Fish.
Three male soldiers have a sex change so they can go on an undercover mission to an all-woman planet, where they must uncover and foil a plot to disrupt the most important pleasure planet in the universe.
Phillip R. Ford
85
 min
English
United States
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1986
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Mala Noche

FREE

with Thanksgiving Prayer and Gus Van Sant's Diary

Sun, Jul 12, 1992 @ 7:15 pm
Institute of Contemporary Art
After the phenomenal successes of Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho, director Gus Van Sant's stunning first feature is strangely still not available on cassette. In response to numerous requests we are happy to present a mini Van Sant retro by adding two shorts - Gus Van Sant's Diary and Thanksgiving Prayer to this encore showing of Mala Noche.
Mala Noche is the film debut from director Gus Van Sant. The film portrays the unanswered love of an American man toward a young Mexican man.
Gus Van Sant
75
 min
English
United States
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Lesbian Identities

FREE

Fri, Jul 17, 1992 @ 6:00 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
A program of lesbian short films and videos.
 min
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1991
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Changer: A Record of the Times

FREE

with Stand On Your Man

Fri, Jul 17, 1992 @ 8:00 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Changer emotionally recalls the birth of women's music with still and clips from the 70s and 80s and recent footage of a 1990 Williamson concert in Berkeley. Featuring performances by k.d.lang, Patsy Cline, The Well Oiled Sister and The Stetson Sisters, Stand On Your Man looks at the new queer preoccupation with country western music and style.
Documentary about the making of The Changer and The Changed, an album recorded by Cris Williamson in 1975 that became one of the icons of women’s music.
Francis Reid & Judy Diugacz
 min
English
USA
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1991
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Sphinxes Without Secrets

FREE

Sat, Jul 18, 1992 @ 6:00 pm
Harvard Film Archive
No Mona Lisa smiles here: performance artists Diamanda Galas, Holly Hughes, Robbie McCauley, Rachel Rosenthal, Lenora Champagne, Ellie Covan, Laurie Anderson, Pat Oleszko, Jeannie Hutchins, Carolee Schneemann, Diane Torr, Martha Wilson, Annie Sprinkle and many, many more spill their guts about what outrages and delights them including sexuality, racism, censorship, homophobia, AIDS, power politics and the future of the planet.
Since its inception, performance art provided a forum for those artists whose work challenges the dominant aesthetic and cultural status quo. In “Sphinxes Without Secrets”, performers, curators and critics unravel the mysteries of performance art and ponder the world women confront today.
Maria Beatty
 min
English
USA
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1992
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

The Sluts and Goddess Video Workshop or How To Be a Sex Goddess in 101 Easy Steps

FREE

Sat, Jul 18, 1992 @ 7:00 pm
Harvard Film Archive
This "How To Video" is a humorous, heartfelt, worshipful look at Sex especially designed to teach women to "be happier and healthier, improve your sex life, and even create miracles." The tape features composer Pauline Oliveros' performance of Nancy's Nightmare which transforms "These Boots Are Made for Walking" into a tribute to the ultimate lesbian S&M fantasy.
A humorous, absurd, heartfelt and worshipful look at sex. Features many exotic ways to stimulate sexual and sensual pleasure, like flagellation with oak leaves, body contortions, tattooing, piercing, shaving and gender play.
Maria Beatty & Annie Sprinkle
 min
English
USA
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1987
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Frida

FREE

Sun, Jul 19, 1992 @ 1:00 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
A lush and reflective portrait of the turbulent life of Frida Kahlo, Mexico's flamboyant artist and wife of muralist Diego Rivera. Told in engaging flashbacks, Frida recalls Kahlo in all her roles: a stirring public figure, political activist, bold individualist and one of this century's most expressive painters.
This film is a chronicle of painter Frida Kahlo, and her encounter with the personalities of her time. Despite being confied to a wheelchair as a result of polio, operations and amputations, she faces and traces some of the most colorful and controversial aspects of Mexican history, during the dominant time of Mexican muralism.
Paul Leduc
 min
Spanish
Mexico
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1991
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Strip Jack Naked

FREE

Sun, Jul 19, 1992 @ 5:15 pm
Institute of Contemporary Art
A moving personal account of a gay filmmaker who used his art to come out. Peck examines just how far we have come since the 70s utilizing many of the more explicit scenes he had cut from his first feature Nighthawks. NOTE: Strip Jack Naked was scheduled for last year's festival but was never shown due to print shipping problems - it's here this year, don't miss it!
Ron Peck talks about his experiences of growing up as a gay man, the attitudes to homosexuality in Britain, and his journey towards making his film “Nighthawks”.
Ron Peck
 min
English
UK
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1987
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Empire State

FREE

Sun, Jul 19, 1992 @ 7:15 pm
Institute of Contemporary Art
Ron Peck's next feature after his ground breaking Nighthawks is sort of a gay Long Good Friday featuring a motley crew of American gangsters as S&M and London hustlers. Jimmy Somerville and the Communards set the pace on the soundtrack for this big splashy take-off on Martin Scorsese territory that is governed by an unmistakably ga point of view.
In the docklands of East London stands the Empire State, a nightclub full of magic and mystery. Designed like an ocean liner, it’s become a battle ground where anything can happen. In the midst of the action, a young boy stows aboard to search for his friend who has disappeared in the entrails of the club.
Ron Peck
 min
English
UK
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1986
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Paul Cadmus: Infant Terrible at 80

FREE

Thu, Jul 23, 1992 @ 8:00 pm
Harvard Film Archive
Acclaimed visual artist Paul Cadmus makes a rare public appearance to introduce local filmmaker David Sutherland's literate and affecting Cadmus portrait and to comment upon the recent unveiling after 58 years of his banned in 1934 painting "The Fleet's In!." In the award-winning documentary, the quixotic American figurist is astonishing and his reminiscences are oddly discreet, especially where sexuality is concerned, but there's no doubting his friendships with Forster and Auden.
In this intimate film portrait, artist Paul Cadmus, makes a nude drawing of his long time companion, demonstrates his mastery of egg tempera painting and recounts his past as a prominent American scene painter and controversial social satirist.
David Sutherland
 min
English
USA
 min total program
Visual Artist Paul Cadmus and Director David Sutherland in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1991
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

The Hours and Times

FREE

with Relax and Resonance

Fri, Jul 24, 1992 @ 8:15 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
"In the mid-Sixties, on the up curve of the Beatles' rise-and-fall, Brian Epstein escorted John Lennon to Barcelona for a weekend vacation. Epstein's infatuation leads to a sexual episode usually missing from the John Lennon story. It's a brilliant achievement, half-way through The Hours and Times you suddenly suspend all disbelief." - Sixth London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
A fictionalized account of what may have happened when John Lennon and Brian Epstein went on holiday together to Spain in 1963.
Christopher Munch
57
 min
English
United States
 min total program
Director Christopher Münch in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1990
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Nocturne

FREE

with Eye to Eye

Sat, Jul 25, 1992 @ 9:00 pm
Harvard Film Archive
Featuring a beautifully written and staged explicit sex scene Nocturne centers on gay men's relationships and what happens to Martin (T. Ryder Smith) as he looks for love in New York City. He meets Gino (Gabriel Amor), who is looking for sex but not love, and problems occur when their desires collide. NOTE: Not to be confused with the same title but Lesbian themed film that played in last year's New Festival
Martin a young musician, moves to the city and meets Gino, an acting student at NYU. What starts as a one night stand for Gino quickly turns to an obsession for Martin.
Mark T. Harris
 min
USA
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Local Ties Program #2

FREE

Sun, Jul 26, 1992 @ 1:00 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Transeltown by Myra Paci (1991), Jamaica Plain is a Woman (1992), Seth's Aunt by Nina Dabek (1991) and Because This is About Love by Shulee Ong (1992)
 min
 min total program
Directors Myra Paci and Nina Dabek in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1967
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Deathwatch

FREE

with Un Chant d'Amour

Sun, Jul 26, 1992 @ 5:15 pm
Institute of Contemporary Art
"The murder, the thief and the homo: Director Vic Morrow (yes, the actor) keeps the cipher like characterizations but brings a cinematic quality to Genet's one set stage play. Leonard Nimoy (yes, Mr. Spock) (who co-produced the film with Morrow) is the small time thief who battles with queer Paul Mazursky (yes, the director) over the illiterate, muscular king convict Michael Forest. Deathwatch is a bold gay themed mainstream movie that vanished rapidly on its release and has not been screened since." - San Francisco Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
Based on a play by Jean Genet, a small-time thief battles with his gay cellmate over a third illiterate, muscular convict.
Vic Morrow
 min
English
USA
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1982
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Scrubbers

FREE

Sun, Jul 26, 1992 @ 7:15 pm
Institute of Contemporary Art
Mai Zetterling's irreverent adventures of the lesbian prisoners known as the "Hellhole Bitches" contains such deathless lines as "I love you Eva, I fuckin' love you" (which booms out over the prison quadrangle) and "Give us a lick not a prick" - one of the best women behind bars movies ever made and unavailable for many years, Scrubbers is pulpy, poetic and political.
Inmates fight, pair off, try suicide and attempt escape at a British reform school for girls.
Mai Zetterling
90
 min
English
United Kingdom
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1980
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Pepi, Luci, Bom

FREE

with Time Expired and Loverville

Fri, Jul 31, 1992 @ 6:00 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Almodovar's debut film made in 1980 with a very young Carmen Maura has never been distributed in the United States till now. Pepi, Luci, Bom is the story of an independent modern woman who forms an S&M relationship with her best friend, Bom, and Luci, the wife of the local policeman! A riotous comedy with plot devices that can be seen in virtually all of Almodovar's subsequent films.
After a young heiress is assaulted by a policeman, she seeks revenge by befriending the policeman’s mousy wife and introducing her to her circle of outrageous punk friends.
Pedro Almodóvar
82
 min
Spanish
Spain
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1992
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

The Living End

FREE

with Backyard Movie

Fri, Jul 31, 1992 @ 8:15 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
"The Living End has more action than the A-Team. Two fatalistic L.A. boys discover they are both HIV Positive and set about on an unhinged serio-comic spree of violence and abandon. 'It's like a Hope/Crosby movie," explains director Araki, "in which Crosby fucks Hope." - Sixth London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
Two HIV-positive young men—a semi-employed film critic and a hot hustler—tear off on a cross-country crime spree.
Gregg Araki
85
 min
English
United States
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1992
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Where Are We?: Our Trip Through America

FREE

with Dead Boys Club

Sun, Aug 02, 1992 @ 5:15 pm
Institute of Contemporary Art
When two gay filmmakers, Academy Award winners Rob Epstein (Common Threads, The Times of Harvey Milk) and Jeffrey Friedman set out by van on a journey into the heart of the heartland of America, they create a sort of gay Charles Kurwalt TV segment that is a telling and affecting testament to how 'outside' homosexuals still are viewed in America today. For those of us who live in the Back Bay or Beacon Hill, vacation in P-town and brunch in the South End, this is a reminder that to most of the United States we are aliens from "another country." - 1992 Sundance Film Festival Selection
Accomplished documentarians Rob Epstein and Jeff Friedman take a trip across the American South and Southwest, asking people about their hopes and fears.
Jeffrey Friedman & Rob Epstein
 min
English
USA
 min total program
in person
SPOTLIGHT
US PREMIERE
WORLD PREMIERE
FROM 1970
SHORT FILM PROGRAM

Something For Everyone

FREE

Sun, Aug 02, 1992 @ 7:15 pm
Institute of Contemporary Art
Broadway producer/director Hal Prince's first foray into the world of cinema was this stylish adaptation of the novel The Cook. In the novel, a young man becomes an Austrian countess' cook and seduces the entire royal family with irresistible menus. In the Hollywood version sex is substituted for food, and the result is one of the screen's wittiest and sophisticated comedies. Starring Angela Lansbury and Michael York (he claims it's his favorite role) as the young man who beds everyone regardless of sex or station.
In post-war Austria, an opportunistic young man begins working as a footman to a widowed countess and uses his sexual talents to better his station in life.
Harold Prince
 min
English
USA
 min total program
in person
8th Annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival

Screenings & Events

July 2 - Aug 2, 1992

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