Gay Film Week, which commences at Hindley Cinema 3 on February 17th, will showcase a season of recent international and Australian films. It has been sponsored by the AFI and is presented in Adelaide by the Media Resource Centre.
As organiser, John McConchie, explains, the films have been drawn from the National Film Theatre’s Gay Film Festival in London, which in turn, draws from festivals in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The selection he has made comes from the USA, Canada, Finland, the UK and France plus one Australian film, Travestito.
“First and foremost this festival is for the lesbian women and gay men of Adelaide,” says McConchie, ”Traditionally homosexuals in this city do not organise much. I think these days it is a very necessary thing to do. We have to reclaim the language, if you like – define homosexuality. Even that label is problematic because of its connotations with illness, or some kind of disorder or dysfunction, which is not the case. That’s why the term gay was introduced. And this is precisely what these films are about. Cinema is one means by which these issues can be addressed. Especially in the face of AIDS it is essential to try and get rid of homophobia.”
“In the visual arts and theatre there have been serious attempts to represent gay issues but rarely in the cinema. Commercial considerations have been such that only independent and documentary films have been made, but that is starting to change and now its opening up into fiction.”
The season opens with the Canadian film, Urinal. “The title is directly confrontational,” says McConchie with understatement, “Filmmaker John Greyson is talking about the most unsavoury aspect of gay men’s lives – public sex.” Part documentary about the washroom scene in Toronto and police attitudes in Ontario generally, it also surrealistically includes a sub-plot which brings Eisenstein, Mishima, Langston Hughes and Dorian Gray back to life (just read ‘to life’ for Dorian) to investigate the situation for gays in Canadian cities.
Other films look to be equally contentious. Kamikaze Hearts, directed by Juliet Bashore is set in the porn movie sub-culture in San Francisco’s North Beach. It is about a woman who becomes infatuated with a female porn star and a relationship develops. “It contrasts the sex industry with a gay relationship. Two different values or two possible points of moral indignation come into conflict,” says McConchie.
The programme has an almost even split between films about women and those about men. Tiny and Ruby is an American documentary about the 1940s jazz trumpeter, ‘the female Louis Armstrong’, Tiny Davis and her lover, a drummer named Ruby Lucas. Another American film comes from director Amy Goldstein – Because the Dawn is a love story which shows how misunderstood a vampire can be.
Other films include the French features Black and White and L’Homme Blesse, Ian Taylor’s Travestito, a documentary about Italian burlesque artist Tito le Due, and the English film Empire State. McConchie picks that one as having a more general My Beautiful Laundrette appeal. Directed by Ron Peck, with music by the Communards, it is said to be a political satire “where businessmen crave S & M and the worst nightmare for East End rent boys is a stockmarket downturn.”
John McConchie hopes that gender divisions won’t split the audience for the festival. “It’s true that gay women have usually found solidarity in the women’s movement rather than with homosexual men but that is slowly changing and there are many reasons why it should. I hope the programme will attract cross-over audiences.”
Future screenings of films, such as the New Zealand film Beyond Gravity and the American doco Rights and Reactions which couldn’t be included in this season, will depend on the success of this month’s venture.
The Adelaide Review, No.60, February, 1989.