OCTOBER
18-27, 2002

Introduction
Index of Films

10/18, Friday
10/19, Saturday
10/20, Sunday
10/21, Monday
10/22, Tuesday
10/23, Wednesday
10/24, Thursday
10/25, Friday
10/26, Saturday
10/27, Sunday

Print Version

CPArts

Queer Notions
Reel Affirmations Festival

In its 12th year, Washington's gay film fest is still called Reel Affirmations, but it's a little conflicted about the name. As conceded in the fest's program, some of these films "don't happen to be affirming."

In other words, they're bad propaganda, but good filmmaking. One of the fest's best documentaries, The Ghost of Roger Casement, is about an exemplary early-20th-century life whose most controversial aspects—homosexuality and support for Irish independence—are far less contentious today. Everyday gay life still provides worthy subjects for such nonfiction films as Ruthie & Connie: Every Room in the House and Daddy & Papa, as do the absurdities of the uptight straight world, lampooned this year in Dildo Diaries, but the schedule also includes Hope Along the Wind: The Life of Harry Hay and Hand on the Pulse, documentaries about gay pioneers who were not always popular with their peers.

As usual, the fiction selection draws on the wealth of foreign material that would go unseen in the United States without film festivals. Highlights include Days, an Italian AIDS drama; Blue Gate Crossing, a Taiwanese high-school love-triangle tale with a twist; Bad Genres, a thriller in which a murderer is stalking Brussels' transvestites; Between Two Women, a coming-out-and-getting-away saga set in working-class '50s England; Bungee Jumping of Their Own, in which reincarnation challenges a Korean man's sexuality; and Cock & Bull Story, a boxing drama that's the debut film from Billy Hayes, whose years in a Turkish prison inspired Midnight Express.

Eroticism has always been part of cinema's appeal—which is why the fest's program includes such helpful asides as the news that The Journey to Kafiristan includes "skinny dipping." (For the record, it doesn't—but Guardian of the Frontier does.) And, of course, Reel Affirmations 12 features plenty of campy farces, notably Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter and Don't Ask Don't Tell. This may not be an entirely affirming film festival, but it's still a gay one.
—Mark Jenkins

Screenings take place at the District of Columbia Jewish Community Center's Goldman Theater, 1529 16th St. NW; the Goethe Institut Inter Nationes, 814 7th St. NW; and the Lincoln Theatre, 1215 U St. NW. Admission is $9 unless otherwise noted. For more information, call (202) 986-1119 or visit www.reelaffirmations.org.

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