Like everywhere else in the world, gays and lesbians in Cameroon seek refuge in the city. The two young gay men in this film are crazy about Rihanna and Lady Gaga, who has been a gay icon since her hit song ‘Born this way’. But the tolerance Lady Gaga sings about is just a dream for them. In their country, homosexual relations are subject to punishment of up to five years in prison, and it is almost impossible to come out to your own family. This film describes both the impossible and the possible. The filmmakers’ unobtrusive proximity to their protagonists has yielded conversations in which their interlocutors discuss their longing for a love life they are forbidden to have. Alice Nkom is a lawyer and human rights activist fighting to protect the rights of gays and lesbians. Thanks to her, there is quiet hope and small niches can be discerned where there is something akin to a life not based upon self‐ denial. After Call me Kuchu, which documented the situation for homosexuals in Uganda and won a Teddy Award in 2012, Born This Way makes it clear that the worldwide struggle for tolerance and equality still has a long way to go. NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE

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The 2012 Homo Climbtastic convention, the largest group of gay rock climbers in the world, allowed a film crew to document their event. This is the intersection of climbing and queer culture. An interesting accepting, and fun group of amazing climbers and people. We discover why the convention has grown from six people, six years ago, to over a hundred this year. What is the draw of a gay rock climbing convention and why was it started? Interviewees include; Alex Rowland, the founder of the group, Chris Powell, the second member of the group, pro rock climbers, Mike Abell and Madeleine Sorkin, and many other crazy good climbers. The film also includes an interview from Coy Flowers, the president of fairness West Virgina, and locals to the West Virginia town of Fayetteville that hosts the convention every year.

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WILDNESS is a portrait of the Silver Platter, a historic bar in the MacArthur Park area that has been a thriving part of the Latin/LGBT immigrant communities since 1963. Chronicling what happens to the bar when art student, Chicago transplant and director Wu Tsang falls in love with the bar and sets up a weekly dance/performance art party, it raises the questions of how popular is too popular? What happens when the safe spaces in our community start to go mainstream? Throughout the film we see the bar struggle with success as the clientele start to move away from its Latino working class, immigrant and transgender base towards a more hipster flavored audience that doesn’t always respect the original community and family aspect of the bar. As media outlets start covering the immensely popular party, the new attention on the bar brings increased police surveillance and some of the regular girls of the bar are deported. Inspired by narrative documentaries such as Marlon Riggs’s Tongues Untied and Charles Atlas’s Hail the New Puritan director Wu Tsang decided at that moment to utilize his previous organizing experience and film it. The film shows what can happen when such a precious safe space is threatened by gentrification and its own growing popularity. Full of love, energy, pathos and community, Wildness in essence is the love story between a young, idealistic queer person in search of something and the magical bar that takes him in and helps him grow up.

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