The 13th Chicago Lesbian & Gay International Film Festival runs from Friday, November 5, through Sunday, November 14, at Chicago Filmmakers, 1543 W. Division, and the Music Box, 3733 N. Southport. Tickets are $4 or $5 for most matinees, and $5 or $6 for most evening shows. Tickets go on sale a half hour before the first show; advance tickets for all programs can be purchased at Chicago Filmmakers the day before the scheduled screening. Festival passes and discount cards are also available. For further information call 384-1406 or 384-5533.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5
Forbidden Love
A 1992 documentary by Aerlyn Weissman and Lynne Fernie about the difficulties of being a lesbian in Canada in the 50s and 60s, including testimonies from nine women, archival footage, photographs, and covers of pulp novels that depict period stereotypes. (Music Box, 7:00)
It’s a Queer World
Five short films: Isaac Julien’s British The Attendant (1992), Stefan Hayn’s German Fontvella’s Box (1992), Denis Langlois’ Canadian Ma vie (1992), and, from the U.S., Brian Sloan’s Pool Days and Steve Levitt’s Deaf Heaven (1992). (Music Box, 9:00)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6
Feed Them to the Cannibals!
An interesting, hour-long Australian documentary by Fiona Cunningham Reid about the Sydney Lesbian and Gay Mardi Gras, an annual bash that draws half a million people. The diverse legal and social ramifications of this event are explored in some detail; interviews with police officials as well as the organizers of various events are included. On the same program, James Whitington’s Australian short Into the Light. (Music Box, 1:00)
Tectonic Plates
In Peter Mettler’s 1992 Canadian picture, a woman named Madeleine is disappointed in her romantic love for her male art professor and runs off to Venice, where she falls in love with a Scottish woman; when Madeleine resurfaces in Manhattan, her professor has adopted the name Jennifer and is hosting a radio talk show. (Music Box, 3:00)
Enchanted
A collectively made 1992 German documentary in which 13 gays and lesbians who are now in their 70s recount their experiences during the Nazi era and postwar years. (Music Box, 5:00)
Worldly Desires
Half a dozen short films by women: Jackie Farkas’s Australian Amelia Rose Towers (1992), Marta Balletbo-Coll’s Spanish Intrepidissima (1992), Lea Pool’s Canadian Rispondetemi (1992), Christine Parker’s Peach from New Zealand, and, from the U.S., Christine Rasmussen’s Doll Shop (1991) and Liz Foley’s Jeanne & Hauviette. (Music Box, 7:00)
For a Lost Soldier
A choreographer recalls his adolescence and early erotic relationships in a 1992 Dutch feature by Roeland Kerbosch. (Music Box, 9:00)
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 7
International Affairs
Half a dozen films drawn from the Friday and Saturday shorts programs: Jackie Farkas’s Australian Amelia Rose Towers (1992), Isaac Julien’s British The Attendant (1992), Marta Balletbo-Coll’s Spanish Intrepidissima (1992), Christine Parker’s New Zealand Peach, Lea Pool’s Canadian Rispondetemi (1992), and from the U.S., Steve Levitt’s Deaf Heaven (1992). (Music Box, 1:00)
The East Is Red
A “gender-bending” follow-up to the Hong Kong films Swordsman and Swordsman II, directed by Ching Siu-tung and Raymond Lee. (Music Box, 3:00)
Amazing Grace
Amos Gutman’s Israeli feature about the unconsummated love between two men (Sharon Alexander and Gal Hoyberger) from Tel Aviv, one of whom is HIV-positive. Serious and thoughtful, if not very energetic, it won first prize at the 1992 Jerusalem film festival. (Music Box, 5:00)
A Queer Feeling When I Look at You: Hollywood Stars and Lesbian Spectatorship in the 1930s
A lecture by Andrea Weiss, illustrated with many clips. (Music Box, 7:00)
Pink Narcissus
Jim Bidgood directed this 1970 underground feature centered on the surreal sexual fantasies of a teenage boy (Bobby Kendall). (Music Box, 9:00)
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8
Prince in Hell
A German feature by Michael Stock about three gay dropouts in Berlin, framed by a fairy tale about a gay prince. (Music Box, 5:00)
Dare to Look, Dare to Touch
Five short films: Marta Balletbo-Coll’s Spanish Harlequin Exterminator (1991) and, from the U.S., Sandra Nettelbeck’s A Certain Grace (1991), Christine Rasmussen’s Doll Shop (1991), Liz Foley’s Jeanne & Hauviette, and James Raymond’s The Standard of Living. (Music Box, 7:00)
From Havana to Moscow
Three short films: Natasha Sharandak’s Russian-German To My Women Friends and, from the U.S., Melissa Shore’s Pravda (The Truth?!) and Carl George’s La Historia Me Acusara. (Chicago Filmmakers, 7:00)
Other Families
A video documentary by Chicagoan Dorothy Chvatal about the experiences and feelings of adults who grew up in lesbian homes. On the same program, Meema Spadola’s My Mother’s Secret: Sons and Daughters of Lesbian Mothers (1992) and the collectively made Love Makes a Family: Gay Parents in the 90s (1991), both from the U.S. (Chicago Filmmakers, 9:00)
Prince in Hell
See listing under Monday, November 8. (Music Box, 9:00)
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9
Tectonic Plates
See listing under Saturday, November 6. (Music Box, 5:00)
Among Men
Five short films by German filmmaker Wieland Speck: David, Montgomery, and I (1980), Chez Nous (1981), The Sound of Fast Relief (1983), November (1989), and Room 303 (1991). (Music Box, 7:00)
Greetings From Out Here
Ellen Spiro’s hour-long feature, shot over a year spent traveling through the south with her dog. On the same program, Su Friedrich’s half-hour Rules of the Road. (Chicago Filmmakers, 7:00)
A Touch of Fever
A first feature from Japan by Ryosuke Hashiguchi, also known as The Slight Fever of a Twenty-Year-Old, about two students and gay hustlers in Tokyo. (Music Box, 9:00)
Sisters in the Life
A half dozen films from the U.S. about black lesbians: Chicagoan Jamika Ajalon’s An Intro to Cultural Skit-zo-frenia, H. Len Keller’s Ife, Cheryl Dunye’s The Potluck and the Passion, Aishah Shahidah Simmons’s Silence . . . Broken, Yvonne Welbon’s Sisters in the Life: First Love, and Patrick Snee’s The Village Idiot (1991). (Chicago Filmmakers, 9:00)
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10
A Touch of Fever
See listing under Tuesday, November 9. (Music Box, 5:00)
Gay Israel
Three Israeli short films: Amos Gutman’s Afflicted (1985) and A Safe Place (1983), and Jonathan Segal’s At Home (1991). (Chicago Filmmakers, 7:00)
Belle
Irma Achten’s magical-realist 1992 Dutch feature, which is said to relate to operatic and poetic conventions, focuses on the lesbian daughter of a textile tycoon who leaves her parents and moves in with a lover while dreaming of becoming a poet. (Music Box, 7:15)
Famous Fantasies
A half dozen short films: from Canada, Doug Melnyk’s Danny Kaye’s Eyes (1992); and from the U.S., Chris Freeman and Jon Ginoli’s Bill & Ted’s Homosexual Adventure, Barry Morse’s Butterfly Scavenger, Jack Walsh’s Dear Rock, Christopher Johnson’s Letter to Tennessee, and Gregg Nations and Marlise Malkames’s Mr. Wonderful (1992). (Chicago Filmmakers, 9:00)
Smoke
A feature about a young loner working as a bathroom attendant who drifts from one older man to another searching for love, directed by Mark D’Auria. (Music Box, 9:15)
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11
Belle
See listing under Wednesday, November 10. (Music Box, 5:00)
Wittgenstein
See Critic’s Choice. (Music Box, 7:00)
Green on Thursdays
A strong documentary by Dean Bushala and Deirdre Heaslip about gay bashing in Chicago, alternately terrifying and empowering in its matter-of-fact instructiveness about the extent of the problem and the response of local activists–including the Pink Angels street patrol, the Coalition Against Bashing, and Horizons’ antiviolence counseling and court advocacy program. Following many examples of violence against gay men and lesbians, the film makes effective use of several local talents: two effective videos by Charles Christensen, a song by the duo Ellen Rosner & Camille, and black-and-white photographs by Allen Nepomuceno, Paul Vosdic, and Paul Roesch. The title, if you’re wondering, refers to the 19th-century practice of gay men wearing green ties on Thursdays to identify themselves to one another; today it raises the issue of how much being “out” means being a target for a sociopath. The film deals only glancingly with the reasons for homophobic violence, but has a lot to say about the possible responses to it. On the same program, Jim Hubbard’s The Dance (1992). (Chicago Filmmakers, 7:00)
Split: William to Chrysis–Portrait of a Drag Queen
Ellen Fisher Turk and Andrew Weeks’s documentary portrait of legendary New York drag queen International Chrysis (1992). On the same program, Ira Sachs’s Lady. (Music Box, 9:00)
Dangerous When Wet
Eight short films from the U.S.: Diane Bonder’s Dangerous When Wet (1992), Stick Figures (1992), and Parole; Greta Snider’s Our Gay Brothers; Holly L. Hey’s Steam Rises Knowingly; Grace Giorgio’s The Waving Fork; Quentin Lee’s Eye of the Invisible Man; and Andrea Slane’s The Alleged. (Chicago Filmmakers, 9:00)