We begin our run at the coolidge-corner-theater with two midnight screenings of John Cameron Mitchell’s acclaimed film Hedwig and the Angry Inch which tells the story of an ‘internationally ignored’ rock singer, Hedwig, and her search for stardom and love. Born a boy named Hansel who searches for love, Hedwig reluctantly submits to a sex change operation in order to marry an American G.I. The operation is botched, leaving her with an ‘angry inch’. Finding herself divorced in a Kansas trailer park, she forms a rock band and encounters a lover, Tommy, who leaves her, steals her songs, and becomes a rock star. Touring with her pan-Slavic band, The Angry Inch, Hedwig shadows Tommy’s stadium tour, performing in near-empty restaurants for bewildered diners and a few die-hard fans. Somewhere between the crab cakes and the cramped motel rooms, between the anguish and the acid-wash, she pursues her dreams and discovers the origin of love.

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Vito Russo was at the forefront of every gay rights movement from Stonewall to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, as a passionate advocate for justice in the newly formed ACT UP, and a co-founder of GLADD. In 1981, he published his landmark book The Celluloid Closet that examined the way Hollywood depicted homosexuality. It was the most extensive record to date of LGBT representation on screen, and forced an examination of film's often-homophobic messages. It still remains the definite text on the subjects and is studied worldwide. With heartwarming and humorous interviews of Vito's family and friends (Armistead Maupin, Jeffrey Freidman, Rob Epstein, and Lily Tomlin among them), and clips from an astonishing collection of film treasures, Vito presents a moving portrait of the person who paved the way for and proved the importance of LGBT film festivals like ours. Even after his death in 1990, his story continues to inspire and his mark on the gay community is unquestionable. (Description adapted from the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.)

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Director Thom Fitzgerald (The Wild Dogs; The Hanging Garden) evokes virtuoso performances from Oscar-winning actresses Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker in this uproarious dramedy about two women – lovers for 31 years – who must go on the run in order to stay together. Fitzgerald’s film is especially timely against the backdrop of the current marriage battle in Maine taking place this summer. Dukakis plays Stella, an antagonistic, foul-mouthed old bull dyke who lives with her long-time lover– the near-blind and slightly dotty Dot (Fricker)–in their bucolic home by the sea. When Dot’s neurotic granddaughter Molly shows up, announcing that she’s putting Dot in an old folks home, Stella throws her out, giving her an earful in the process. Not to be put off, Molly returns with a policeman and takes Dot away, leaving Stella bereft, but not beaten. Stella soon breaks her out of the home, and the two head for Canada to get married, picking up a young hitchhiker on the way. Thus begins an alternately poignant and riotous comedy that has much to say about the true nature of love and commitment.

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