In the Bay area film scene, it's about as close as we get to a bona fide institution. The Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival has been kicking out the jams, putting us up close and personal with the world of queer cinema for 15 — you should excuse the expression — straight years. This year's festival rolls into town on Oct. 7 and runs for 10 days at Tampa Theatre and Sunrise Cinemas.Fifteen years isn't exactly a milestone as far as festival longevity goes in the rest of the world, but in terms of the Bay area — where most film-related events are lucky to make it to their second anniversary — TIGLFF is indisputably the grande dame of the local scene. This is an event that has seen both good times and bad, and that has weathered more than its share of changes — including a name change and what has sometimes seemed like a revolving door of programming directors. Through it all, though, the festival has managed to maintain its integrity and its focus, as well as a consistently upbeat attitude.
The 15th annual Tampa International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival finds this time-honored event in better-than-average form, with a slew of films on tap that should please the crowds and a few that will appeal to the more adventurous film buffs amongst us. I'd be less than honest if I didn't admit to missing the impressive chunks of more challenging programming that previous curators like Margaret Murray and Dorothy Abbott brought to TIGLFF in the past, but the festival's 2004 line-up is, for better or worse, probably right in synch with what's craved by contemporary audiences, both gay and straight. This year's festival is heavy on the light romantic comedies, dramedies and message-driven documentaries, and even though there's not much here that's designed to surprise, much less amaze us, that doesn't mean you won't find a few truffles sprinkled amongst the meat and potatoes (all screenings are at Tampa Theatre unless otherwise noted).
The festival kicks off on Thursday, Oct 7, at 6 p.m., with a '50s-themed opening night party at TECO Plaza. The party segues into the opening night film, Straight Jacket, not to be confused with the old Joan Crawford camp classic about the battleaxe with the axe (talk about your missed programming opportunities, TIGLFF!). Don't, however, let that dissuade you from checking out Straight Jacket. This sweetly raunchy ode to a closeted Hollywood matinee idol comes from the creator of the absurdly hilarious Girls Will Be Girls, so that bodes well even if Mommie Dearest will be nowhere in sight.
Another likely highlight of the festival's first week includes Sugar, screening at 9:45 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 8. I wasn't able to preview the film in time for deadline, but anything based on short stories by the notorious and always provocative Bruce LaBruce (Hustler White) has got to be worth a look. Atom Egoyan regulars Sarah Polley and Maury Chaykin co-star in this tale of a young man's curious relationship with a seriously messed-up street hustler. The buzz on the film is mixed, but those with a taste for undiluted cinematic weirdness are likely to find something right up their proverbial alleys.
There's a full day planned for Saturday, Oct. 9, beginning with a 1:30 p.m. program of gay-themed shorts from all around the world (although most of them hail from right here in the good ol' U.S.A.). Among the films being shown is the intriguing Red Flag Women by Tampa's own Victoria Jorgensen, who will be in attendance at the screening.
Following at 4 p.m. is one of the more interesting events scheduled for this year's TIGLFF, a workshop on gay horror movies moderated by former festival programmer (and current Sunrise Cinemas manager) Margaret Murray and Fangoria Magazine contributor Steve Barton. The horror workshop should segue nicely into the ominously atmospheric French film Ballroom (5 p.m.) and the reinvented genre flick Hellbent (7 p.m.), in which four gay men are stalked by a studly psycho-killer with a very big knife. And if you were still trying to wrap your mind around the Freudian implications of big knives in your regular everyday slasher movies, just wait until you get a load of how that imagery plays out in a gay slasher flick.
If your heart's still beating after all that homoeroticized horror, there's one final screening slated for Oct. 9: Naked Fame, an engaging albeit conventionally made documentary on beefcake star Colton Ford's struggle to exchange a life in porn for a singing career. Ford and his partner Blake Harper (another ex-porn guy featured in the film) will both attend the screening, and Ford will be performing music from his new CD at a post-screening party at Chrome (238 N. Franklin St.).
On Sunday, Oct. 10, the festival features Grand Ecole (1:30 p.m.), an ambitious French import about an upper-class college student torn between his girlfriend, his handsome, aristocratic roommate and a hunky Arab manual laborer. The film attempts to say some important things about class, race and identity, but its well-meaning politics are drummed into our heads with such clumsy insistence that we nearly forget what an elegant, sensual movie this almost is. A much better film is Goldfish Memory (6:15 p.m.), in which a cross-section of modern-day Dubliners change partners and sexual preferences with dizzying frequency and (usually) huge, infectious smiles on their faces. The film is sweetly witty and even a little wise, sort of an Irish La Ronde set to an irresistibly bouncy bossa nova beat, as it examines an intricately interwoven network of gay, hetero and yet-to-be-decided relationships at various stages of development. Smart, fun and a genuine crowd-pleaser.
Monday and Tuesday are relatively slow days for the festival, highlighted by a surprisingly interesting documentary called Farm Family (Oct. 12, 7 p.m.), and a surprisingly dull one called Dangerous Living (Oct. 11, 7 p.m.). The latter details the trials and tribulations of being gay in the Third World, but is far too dry and self-righteous to have the impact it should have, while the former is a warm and lively look at rural gays in far-flung spots like Wisconsin and New Mexico. Director Tom Murray, a Sarasota resident, will be on hand for the screening. You might also want to check out the steamy lesbian drama Un Amour de Femme, screening at 7 p.m. on Monday at Sunrise Cinemas, or the romantic comedy Slutty Summer (Monday, 8:45 p.m.), probably worth a peek just on the basis of the title alone.
Wednesday, Oct. 13 boasts another of the festival's strongest line-ups. Sunrise Cinemas screens Arisan! at 7 p.m., a perky, candy-colored romance from Indonesia that broke box-office records in that country and titillated Indonesians with their first same-sex on-screen kiss. Also at 7 p.m., at Tampa Theatre, there's False Offender, a slick but not entirely original Spanish thriller about a lesbian whose lifestyle becomes an issue when she's wrongly accused of murder (the real murderer eventually shows up and transforms the film into standard Hollywood serial killer fare). And finally, at 9 p.m., there is Brother to Brother, which despite the corny title turns out to be one of the very best films of this year's TIGLFF. Director Rodney Evans, working on not much of a budget and shooting on the streets of Manhattan, gives us a powerful and excitingly literate film paralleling the vibrant history of the Harlem Renaissance with the struggle of a sensitive young African-American coming to terms with his sexual and artistic inclinations.
That's only a portion of what's in store at this year's festival. TIGLFF runs a full 10 days, a few days past the time period covered by this issue of Weekly Planet, so rest assured that we'll be back next week with lots more on this rarest of Bay area gems — a film festival that, when all's said and done, is still minty fresh after 15 years. All that's missing is Joan Crawford.
lance.goldenberg@weeklyplanet.com or letters@weeklyplanet.com
This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2004.