Today is the fifth day of the Tampa International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, and the offerings include two of the festival's best, the suspenseful, romantic Romeos and the rollicking road trip Hollywood to Dollywood — see CL's reviews below. Also on tap: Women's Shorts at Tampa Theatre at 7, and two documentaries about transgender issues at the Tampa Museum of Art: The Sisterhood (6:30 p.m.), about wine workers in South Africa, and Photos of Angie (8:30 p.m.), about the life and death of Angie Zapata, the teenager murdered in Colorado in 2008. Find more CL reviews of TIGLFF movies here.
Romeos A riveting, exceptionally well-acted German film about Lukas, a 20-year-old in transition from female to male (Rick Okon) whose determination to pass as a boy is compromised when he's placed against his wishes in a girl's dorm. His secret and his friendship with a savvy, free-wheeling lesbian are threatened when he falls for a devilishly sexy, possibly dangerous and apparently bisexual man (Maximilian Befort). Written and directed with an exacting eye by Sabine Bernardi. Mon. Oct. 10, 9 p.m., Tampa Theatre. —David Warner
This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2011.