The Sundance Film
Festival is presenting one of its strongest lineups of
gay and lesbian films ever, with some 20 features and 10
shorts featuring queer themes. And the Queer Lounge,
located in Park City's Gateway Center, has become
ground zero for all the activity surrounding the
films. Executive director Ellen Huang founded the lounge two
years ago after seeing pavilions for different
countries and groups in Cannes. "I thought, Why not
one at Sundance?" Huang said. "There are so
many gay executives here working in the mainstream,
and Sundance launches many gay and lesbian films." The
lounge has hosted several panels and, with its free WiFi and
chic furnishings, also provides a fashionable respite
and meeting place for festivalgoers.
This year, gay
and lesbian projects range from Shari Cookson's
documentary, All Aboard! Rosie's Family Cruise,
which chronicles the first-ever chartered ship vacation for
gay and lesbian parents and their children organized by
Rosie O'Donnell and her partner, Kelli
O'Donnell--it was the topic of a Queer Lounge panel
discussion Wednesday--to Wash Westmoreland and Richard
Glatzer's coming-of-age drama,
Quinceanera, which features gay
characters. One of the festival's most powerful films is
Small Town Gay Bar, which focuses on two gay
bars in Mississippi and the hatred that surrounds the
customers.
Even films that
aren't specifically about gay subjects have touched on
gay issues. For example, Kirby Dick's This Film Is
Not Yet Rated, a critique of the MPAA ratings board,
features a montage of gay sex scenes cited for
branding a film with an NC-17 rating compared with
parallel straight sex scenes from films that earned R
ratings. There wasn't always such a wide range of films, as
Gus Van Sant attested at a Queer Lounge panel
Saturday, when he discussed his 1985 film Mala
Noche. He recalled hearing that one film festival
rejected his movie because it already had a lesbian film on
its slate.
Just as
Sundance's film slate has changed, the lounge itself has
become more mainstream and no longer displays such
signs as "Straight People Welcome" and "Sorry, No
Makeovers" that appeared in 2004, Huang said. Some 30%
to 40% of people who drop in identify as straight,
according to a survey conducted on the lounge's computers.
"What the festival reflects is the culture at large,
so why shouldn't [gays and lesbians] be a part of the
multiplicity of the human experience on film?" said
Maria Maggenti, director of the screwball comedy Puccini
for Beginners, which features a bisexual love
triangle. Maggenti, however, doesn't believe in the term
bisexual. "I have a lesbian character and a straight
[woman] character who sleeps with men," she said. In
the movie the two women then become involved.
Defining gay
identities is a strong theme not only among many films in
the fest but also among its filmmakers. "I'm a 'has-bian,"'
Maggenti said. "I was a lesbian for a long time, but now I
see men, though I prefer to just be called Maria."
Lesbian filmmaker Jennie Livingston, best known for
her 1991 Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning,
gay-themed "voguing" documentary Paris Is
Burning, said it's not always important for projects
such as her new short film Through the Ice to
have gay themes. "Films have been traditionally made
by straight white men," she said, "so it's just as
important to have a wide variety of filmmakers and
perspectives."
"Right now
there's a lot of mobilization against gays and lesbians
largely because of the way the Bush administration used the
gay marriage issue to galvanize the Christian
conservative right," said Silas Howard, the openly
lesbian director of the short What I Love About
Dying, which centers on a lesbian with cancer.
"It's important that filmmakers are getting a wide
range of stories out there."
For her part,
Maggenti seemed surprised by people's positive reactions to
Puccini, especially at its screenings in
conservative Salt Lake City. "Maybe the world is a better
place than I thought it was," she said before adding
after a brief pause, "though I doubt it." (Gregg
Goldstein, Reuters)