The SASOD film festival, Painting the Spectrum 6, continues at Sidewalk Café next week with the programme “Coming Out Stories” which features stories of people who confront their sexuality and then let family and others now.
On Monday, Cynthia Cheeseman’s Sisters without Misters looks at two lesbians living in Trinidad talk about their lives and coming out. In Beyond the Closet, Christine Engels uses a variety of animation techniques to tell the coming out experiences of several young women and men. Monday evening closes with the important documentary A Jihad for Love directed by Parvez Sharma. Looking beyond a hostile and war-torn present, this film seeks to reclaim the Islamic concept of a greater Jihad, which can mean ‘an inner struggle’ or ‘to strive in the path of God’. In doing so, the film and its remarkable subjects move beyond the narrow concept of ‘Jihad’ as holy war.
On Tuesday, the diversity continues with a series of five experimental films by Jenni Olson, as part of a programme entitled “The Streets of San Francisco” Jenni Olson has been programming, researching, collecting, creating, and writing about gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans (GLBT) film since 1986, and is one of the world’s leading experts on GLBT cinema. She is the former director of entertainment and e-commerce for PlanetOut.com and Gay.com, where she founded PopcornQ.com, a massive GLBT film website (http://www.planetout.com/popcornq/) that is based on her book, The Ultimate Guide to Lesbian & Gay Film and Video (Serpent’s Tail, 1996). These films would be of interest to those who are interested in the art of film. The programme includes 575 Castro Street which is based on the set of Gus Van Sant’s award winning film Milk.
On Wednesday, there are two programmes; the first, “Sabores de Mujeres” features four award winning films by director Claudia Morgado Escanilla. Escanilla’s films are about women, and their bodies and desires.
The documentary transparent will be screened after. Directed by Jules Rosskum, the film details the lives of 19 female-to-male transsexuals living in the United States who have given birth and, in all but a few stories, gone on to raise their biological children.
The film focuses on its subjects’ lives as parents – revealing the diverse ways in which each person reconciles this part of their history – giving birth and being biological mothers – now that they identify as male and are perceived by the world, but only sometimes by their children, as men. The first-person stories in transparent explain how changing genders is dealt with and impacts the relationships, if at all, within these families.
All films start at 7 pm and Admission is free. Sidewalk Cafe will be smoke-free zone during the screenings. The films are intended for mature audiences. The full schedule is available at http://www.sasod.org.gy/spectrum
Guyanese born award winning singer Nhojj did not make an appearance as was reported last week. Instead his DVD was screened.
