Winner of best queer feature film at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival, A Year Without Love is a densely layered, eloquent portrayal of Pablo, a hunky young writer and poet who is struggling to come to terms with his HIV-positive status. Desperate for affection, he cruises the gay bars of Buenos Aires, places personal ads, and haunts porn cinemas, each time documenting his search. He meets up with a tough S&M; crowd, and while tenderness may be lacking, he at least finds pleasure, proof that he’s still alive. A thoughtful, poignant, yet challenging look at one man’s approach to loneliness and HIV.

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With a hefty dose of Almodovar and the flamboyance of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, director Ramón Salazar’s 20 Centimeters tells the story of Marieta (Mónica Cervera) a narcoleptic transsexual hooker who longs to get rid of the 20 centimeters that separate her from becoming the glamorous woman she longs to be. Though her day-to-day life is rough and wanting, Marieta’s dreams are where she comes alive in full-scale musical numbers. Salazar’s combination of intense drama with musical interludes creates a “wonderfully twisted” film that will haunt you for quite some time.

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his is the first British Dogme 95 film and was made on a shoestring budget by first-time director Jan Dunn. It tells of the impact of Tasha, a Czech refugee who affects one unhappy British working-class family. The same story is told from three radically different perspectives: that of the good-hearted mother who welcomes Tasha, the teenage daughter who turns against Tasha, and the fed-up father who loathes Tasha. The bare-bones style (no music, no artificial lighting, and actual locations) gives the story a documentary realism that, combined with a determination to tackle a taboo subject head-on, makes this similar in many ways to the films of Ken Loach. Description adapted from the Borderlines Film Festival.

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