Other films with high-profile actors or directors include Don Roos' Happy Endings with a cast that includes Lisa Kudrow, Jason Ritter and Maggie Gyllenhaal; Tim Kirkman's Loggerheads, starring Kip Pardue and Bonnie Hunt; Say Uncle, the debut feature from Peter Paige of Queer as Folk; and Wilby Wonderful, which stars Sandra Oh and others.
Among the more highly personal offerings is the documentary Little Man, about the harrowing first year of life of the son of filmmaker Nicole Conn and political activist Gwen Baba. The film, which won HBO's Best Feature Audience Award at the Miami Film Festival this year and best documentary at the New York Film Festival, details the struggle for life of a baby born 100 days early.
"It was the mother of all roller-coaster rides," Conn said. "I wanted to bring the viewer into our experience: the good, the bad, the ugly. I don't consider it a gay film, I really don't. Audiences see us as parents struggling to survive."
Conn didn't set out to make a film about her child's struggle for life. She had decided to do a documentary about surrogate motherhood and bought a camera nearly sixth months into the pregnancy. The next day, the baby was born unexpectedly. Conn said she is eager, but also nervous, about showing Little Man to a hometown audience.
"It's freaking me out!" she said. "The film is so intimate and I know a lot of people in LA There is flawed humanity spilled all over the floor."
Other nonfiction offerings include Based on a True Story, which explores the real events that inspired the classic film Dog Day Afternoon; Tammy Faye: Death Defying, which is scheduled to be screened with the film's heroine, Tammy Faye Messner, present; and Pursuit of Equality, a look at San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's challenge to California's marriage law. Newsom is expected to attend that film's screening.
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