Has Sundance gone
postgay? It's hard to imagine, but this year's
lineup for the landmark film festival raises that very
question. Though the roster boasts perhaps more openly
gay filmmakers than ever before, the number of
programmed films featuring gay and lesbian content has
dropped precipitously. Even Sundance stalwarts like
Tommy O'Haver (Billy's Hollywood
Screen Kiss) and Gregg Araki (Mysterious
Skin) come bearing films with no gay content.
"The
coming-out story is no longer the fresh story,"
explains John Cooper, director of programming for the
festival, which runs January 18-28 in Park
City, Utah. "Neither is what I call the 'gays
are people too' story. Those movies are still
going to be made, and I think they need to be made,
but at the time, what's fresh, what makes your hair
stand up?
For director Ian
Iqbal Rashid, whose queer film Touch of Pink
premiered at Sundance in 2004, it's not quite that
simple. Rashid is bringing his sophomore feature,
How She Move, to this year's
festival, and though there's nothing overtly queer
about the film's story line (which chronicles a
high school student's unlikely interest in
competitive step-dancing), he thinks there's more to
it than just what's on the surface.
"I do
believe that a film can have a queer sensibility without
necessarily being explicitly about LGBT characters or story
lines," he says. "But I also believe
there's still a need for stories where
queerness is named and explicitly articulated--and
yes, I still believe there's a need for
coming-out stories."
A substitute
trend this year may be films exploring the hot-button
intersection of homosexuality and religious faith--in
particular Save Me, arguably the most
high-profile gay movie at the festival. Directed by
Robert Cary and cowritten by Craig Chester (creator of last
year's Adam & Steve), the film features
gay thesps Chad Allen and Robert Gant and is
coproduced by their production company, Mythgarden.
Save Me is set in a New Mexico
"ex-gay" ministry, where an evangelical
woman (Judith Light) finds herself drawn to one of the
young men in a way that challenges her
beliefs--especially when he falls in love with
another man.
"I thought
it was important in Save Me to create a place that
wasn't horrific or extreme because I wanted to tell a
story that had a sense of compassion for characters on
both sides," says Cary. "I wanted to
tell this story in a way that doesn't judge the
characters before their actions speak for
themselves."
For Allen, who
had just finished the religious film End of the
Spear, that evenhanded approach was particularly
important. "There's nothing to be
inherently afraid of when it comes to homosexuality,"
he says, "but how do we reconcile that with the
religious doctrine we were taught when we were
young?"
Gant agrees:
"As a little boy I had excitement and enthusiasm
about God. It's heartbreaking to see the extent
to which, for many gay and lesbian folks, it gets
subjugated. We're all equal participants in
God's world and [have] the right to have a
spiritual life."
That's
also the premise of Daniel Karslake's For the
Bible Tells Me So--the likely queer
standout in the documentary lineup--which explores
the ways conservative Christian groups use the Bible to
justify antigay discrimination around the world. Among
others, the film profiles V. Gene Robinson, the first
openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church (and its
global body, the Anglican Communion), and Chrissy Gephardt,
the lesbian daughter of former U.S. representative
Dick Gephardt. Both figures discuss their very public
declarations of homosexuality and the ripple effect of
their actions through politics, religion, and culture.
Ultimately, these
films at Sundance will be hoping for a similar reach.