12
September 17 - 21 in Fresno's historic Tower Theatre and Starline
Lounge
The Fresno Reel Pride Film
Festival continues this week with its tradition of excellence in cutting-edge selections of LGBT films and events.
The Festival's 19th year features an eclectic five-day lineup of a record 68 international films at the Tower
Theater and the more intimate
Starlight. Festival organizers have searched the world, literally, for important and socially relevant films that otherwise would not be available on the big screen to Fresno's film-loving community.
This year's festival brings both obscure and renowned features from
Oscar-winning screenwriters and
Oscar-nominated actors with themes that will appeal to all audiences.
Fresno film lovers will also enjoy having a chance to talk to visiting filmmakers and stars about the creative process, with the type of access only a festival of this size can offer. The highlights of Central California's largest Gay and Lesbian event include:
Friday, September 19th
Break in Florida, to compete in the ultimate contest, "Gays Gone Wild."
With shirtless, bikini-clad collegiate hunks around every corner, this is an unabashed, laugh out loud, eye-popping good time.
Friday begins at 4:30pm at Starline
Lounge with Out Late, a brilliant and touching collection of stories from folks who simply came out a bit later than perhaps the rest of us.
At 6:30pm the film Between Love
and Goodbye at the Starline Lounge presents an entirely different story of love, friendship and family-- three things that are often the most challenging parts of your life. Marcel and
Kyle are in love at first sight, and
French Marcel marries a lesbian friend so he can stay in the USA with
Kyle. Together they can overcome any obstacle, hurdle any barrier. However the perfect couple fall headlong into a tangle of emotions found in that space between love and goodbye. Just how far will one of them go to put a stop to the madness?
Saturday, September 20
Saturday's festivities begin with a
10:00am screening for families and children of Dottie's Magic Pockets at the Tower Theatre. The all-accepting new series is designed especially for toddlers, pre-school and kindergartners. Children are free and juice boxes will be provided.
It is followed at 11:00am by the
Youth Shorts program, a series of eight short films highlighting the challenge of growing up LGBT and coming to terms with accepting yourself.
At 1:00pm at the Tower Theatre
Reel Pride presents Clapham
Junction, a sexually graphic, gritty, and often violent, British drama that takes a look at gay men in contemporary London whose lives intersect during a 36-hour period. .
Friday night at the Tower Theatre is the 6:45pm showing of Girls Gone
Wild - a fun and entertaining series of women's short films exploring the how NOT-to's of being butch, first love, the challenges of a romantic beach getaway, role reversals and other lesbian experiences all wrapped up in a sexy and comic package.
The Starline program begins with the 1:30pm screening of Equality U, a documentary featuring the famous bus tour of LGBT college students as they crisscross the country to visit colleges that openly discriminate against gay and lesbian students.
Not to be outdone, the men will enjoy the 9:00pm screening of
Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild at the Tower Theatre. The lovable high schoolers from the 2006 hit Another
Gay Movie are in college now, and they're meeting up at steamy Spring
The next Starline film begins at
3:30pm with Ciao, which explores the budding relationship of two strangers who meet after the death of a friend.
As the two men try to piece together a complete picture of the man they knew and loved, they find empathy and the spark of desire. Is it a longing to keep their friend alive? Or a final gift, to introduce two strangers who never would have met otherwise?
of events that changes both women forever.
Sunday, September 21
Sunday's program begins at noon with A Jihad for Love, at the Tower
Theatre. A documentary from executive producer and former
Congressman Michael Huffington, this film was shot in 12 Muslim countries by Muslim gay filmmaker Parvez
Sharma, and follows the lives of homosexuals in Arab countries as they reconcile their lives with the Koran.
At 12:30pm at the Starline, The Art
of Being Straight, explores one young man's unexpected search for identity with both comic honesty and warm insight with exceptionally strong performances and razor-sharp dialogue.
Afternoon Delights (Boy's Shorts) begins at 2pm at the Tower Theatre.
Boy's shorts is a perennial favorite and this year is no exception with 11 short films crafted to excite and entertain, provoke and ponder, and tease and titillate in a program designed to give audience members an unforgettable experience.
Take a wild cross-country trip across the map of sexual liberation and meet today's bi generation, from an 11-year-old boy to a 28-year-old female dancer at 2:30pm screening at the Starline of Bi the Way. This will be followed by the Starline's closing program of Director's Cut Shorts, a series of amazing shorts featuring the bizarre, the controversial, the experimental, and the true essence of great filmmaking.
She's a Boy I Knew at the Tower
Theatre at 3:30pm is a first-person documentary by Canadian filmmaker
Gwen Haworth shot as she transitioned from male to female. Director
Haworth will appear Saturday to talk with the audience about the film. This film is followed by Newcastle at
5:30pm. Tanned, chiseled and horny surfers provide an irresistible backdrop to the film's focus on Jesse and
Fergus, a gorgeous aspiring professional surfer and his gay younger brother.
The Starline closes Saturday with the riotous laugh out loud Laughing
Matters… Next Gen at 5:30pm featuring the stand-up stylings of five new up and coming LGBT comics. All five featured comics are scheduled to appear and charm Fresno audience members with their unique comedy.
At 4:30pm at the Tower Theatre female impersonators take to the stage as they compete for the prestigious
Miss Gay America title in Pageant.
This fascinating and entrancing documentary follows five of the hopefuls, including a flight attendant (go figure!), a landscape architect and a devoted father as they give 110% to their quest to be the best.
Closing night of the festival begins at 7:30pm with the multiple awardwinning film XXY by director Lucia
Puenzo. XXY already has the buzz to be this year's foreign film Oscar entry from Argentina. A young girl born with both male and female chromosomes and ambiguous genitalia must chose her gender when she reaches puberty, but whether she goes through with surgery is made more complicated when she becomes interested in the doctor's gay son. After the film attendees will enjoy the closing awards night gala with food, cocktails and dancing while the 2008 festival winners are announced.
Saturday's Centerpiece feature at the Tower Theatre is the 8:30pm screening of The World Unseen. Set in 1950s South Africa, the film is a gorgeous depiction of love in the face of oppression. Free-spirited, sexy
Amina has broken all the rules of her own conventional Indian community and the new apartheid government by running a café with Jacob, her mixed-race business partner. When she meets the breathtakingly beautiful
Miriam, their unexpected attraction pushes Miriam to question the rules that bind her, setting in motion a chain
The 19th annual Fresno REEL
Pride Gay & Lesbian Film Festival is made possible by the generous support of over 80 national and local individual sponsors and businesses including presenting sponsors AAA,
Clear Channel, Comcast, Fresno Arts
Council, here! networks, Starbucks, and Westcare,
Complete film information on
Fresno Reel Pride Film is available at www.reelpride.com Tickets are available for purchase at the Reel Pride box office located at the Tower Theatre
815 E. Olive Avenue in Fresno.