Back in 1992, when actor-director Craig Chester appeared in a little independent film called Swoon, he remembers it being screened at what he considered to be a quaint little film festival for gay and lesbian films. Fast-forward 13 years: Chester's latest movie, Adam & Steve, will be a centerpiece movie at Outfest, that same film festival that yesterday was to begin to screen 232 shorts and feature films from a record 28 countries around the world over 12 days.
"I've seen it over the years become this massive thing," Chester said of Los Angeles'(LA) annual gay and lesbian film festival, now in its 23rd year. "It's great mostly because of the audiences. The gay community in LA really does support the festival and loves going to see these movies, which I think is great. It's so well-attended and has such a great spirit about it."
Outfest -- the oldest film festival in Los Angeles -- kicks off at the Orpheum Theater downtown with a screening of the French comedy Cote D'Azur, starring Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Gilbert Melki.
Prior to the screening of Cote D'Azur, cutting-edge filmmaker Gregg Araki will receive the Outfest Achievement Award, the festival's highest honor, for his body of work, which has included such classic queer films as The Living End, Totally Fed Up, Splendor, and the current release Mysterious Skin.
"I am incredibly grateful for this prestigious honor," Araki said in a statement. "I feel so fortunate and thankful that I get to make the films I do. And to be recognized in the company of extraordinary creative talents like Gus [Van Sant], Todd [Haynes], John Schlesinger. It's pretty overwhelming to say the least."
Outfest will close with the Sundance Film Festival favorite and the much anticipated The Dying Gaul, written and directed by Craig Lucas and starring Peter Sarsgaard, Campbell Scott and Patricia Clarkson.
Between opening and closing nights will be an array of films from a variety of genres screened at nine different venues, including at the festival's headquarters, the Directors Guild of America.
"More than in past years, this festival reflects just how complex and sophisticated the gay and lesbian community has become," said Outfest executive director Steven Gutwillig.
"In addition to wonderful coming-of-age and coming-out-of-the-closet films, we are seeing an enormous breadth of themes and genres." The genres include comedy, drama, documentary, sports, foreign language, transgender, crime-thriller, family interest, cultures and human rights.
"We used to be the only place that you could see a reflection of gay and lesbian experience," Gutwillig said. "Now we are an anticipated annual family gathering and a launching pad for high-profile films and the only place that audiences will see most international gay and lesbian titles."
Chester's Adam & Steve is a romantic comedy about life and love in New York City that puts the gay couple (portrayed by Chester and Caroline in the City star Malcolm Gets) front-and-center with a straight couple (Parker Posey and Chris Kattan) as their friends.
"I wanted to show what it's like to have two guys be in a relationship," Chester said. "There's a lot of gay couples who go to these festivals and they'd say, 'When is someone going to make a movie about us?' Usually it's about hot guys or someone is in love with a go-go boy or a straight guy. They are about longing as opposed to actually being in a relationship."
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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