J.J. is an aspiring M.C. who’s taken London’s outlaw urban music scene by storm. He’s got the skills, the rhymes, and the drive. But he may run into a few hurdles on his reach for greatness; he’s white, he’s from the sticks, and he’s gay. J.J.’s resolved to come out onstage at the Urban Slam Finals, bringing his boyfriend Orlando along as moral support. While J.J. is onstage, the frustrated competing band, Illmanics, take out their rage on Orlando, beating him so badly that he suffers permanent brain damage. A victim reconciliation program brings J.J. face to face with Orlando’s attackers. (Description courtesy of Trista Kendall, Frameline International LGBT Film Festival.)

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On May 6th, 2009 Maine became the f irst state to legislatively grant same-sex couples the right to marry. Seven months later, a referendum reversed this right, and Maine became thirty-first state to say “no.” Question One, a new documentary by award winning filmmakers Joe Fox and James Nubile, chronicles the fierce and emotional battle. The film chronicles in “War Room” fashion the behind the scenes workings on BOTH sides of the campaign (the first time this has ever been done). With deeply personal and revealing interviews, people bared their hope and heartache as they fought to the finish for an issue framed and anchored in passion and purpose. The film also documents the controversial leading role of California based campaign consultants Frank Schubert and Jeff Flint as referendum proponents. Schubert-Flint Public Affairs headed the 2008 campaign for Proposition 8 in California, and have since taken the lead in a nationwide effort to outlaw same-sex marriage in other states. (Description courtesy of filmmaker.)

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Carlos is spending the summer in the country with his family in order to help out with things. Perhaps he won’t even be returning to the capital, as economic prospects are hardly rosy there either. Extremadura on the other hand, sparsely populated and for a long time one of the most neglected regions in Europe, is experiencing a tentative upturn. Tourism and modernisation rub shoulders with almost archaic customs and a conservative, mostly elderly population here. Sleepless Knights depicts all this in casual, unobtrusive fashion, in images that have at times a truly otherworldly beauty. The central theme is the love story between the newly returned Carlos and the young policeman Juan. “You don’t look like you’re from here,” remarks Juan when they meet. “I’m not from here,“ replies Carlos, “I live in Madrid.” Whether to be from here or elsewhere is a decision that many here have to make. Extremadura, Madrid, maybe even Munich? This uncertainty suffuses their love story with a peculiar sense of tension before the backdrop of a seemingly relaxed, uneventful summer. It is only the old men striding through the austere landscape in their strange knight costumes who remain blissfully untroubled.

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