I feel for Cameron Yates. He's the shorts programmer for the festival. I have no idea how many he has to watch to get to the number that are shown, but I can only imagine how difficult it must be. That said, we all owe him a debt that he does it and makes the choices he does, even though sometimes there are intense disagreements.
Today for example, in the shorts program called Schoolboys there was a fine little film called Front. The director was there and someone in the audience challenged both the director and Cameron on why the film was in the festival at all. I know there are times I have the same question, though today, I was mystified by that question since Front captured all the sexual tension I experienced as a 10-year old living in an area that was only recently "suburban" where there were still "wild" areas where children could encounter...well...almost anything. This was a film fraught with tension on so many levels. And because it was about 10-year olds, it wasn't about sex, though questions of how children relate to the sexualized world around them and how it affects them, made the film a very worthy choice indeed. Director Justin Kelly did a fine job with a difficult and subtle story. And of course, the sad thing is that so many of the shorts I will write about today won't be seen outside of the lgbt film festivals.
In fact, there wasn't a wrong note at all in any of the films in the Schoolboys program. Stray, directed by
Craig Boreham, was particularly interesting in that the story was put together by a group of "at risk" gay youth in Sydney. A cautionary tale with a happier ending than I am sure many of them have known.
The next shorts program, Dirty Love, had films that were sweet and films that didn't shy away from looking into the madness that sometimes masquerades as desire or lust but is really the cover for something deeper. The Famous Joe Project, directed by Eli Rarey, looked at a young video blogger who posts his sexual encounters — the emptiness and pain he runs from and the recognition he desires so nakedly.
Serene Hunter captured the superficial serenity of a compulsive cruiser incapable of intimacy beyond the physical. During the Q&A after all the films, one audience member asked the directors (and one actor) how they would define romance. The director of Serene Hunter, Jason Bushman, said "Romance is dinner before sex." It was a film that made me sad, but it was a film in which I recognized many people I know, and relationships I've seen (and sometimes been in).
Marcus Proctor, the actor in VGL-Hung was also there to answer questions. The film he was in was a bit
of magic via the internet. It is about the vagaries of internet dating, fantasy and projecting on a screen. It's about how consumer culture has invaded love and sex in the constant search for the "perfect body." A heavy subject treated with light humor and deep compassion. The director, Max Barber, gave this program its one film that didn't end with sadness or cynicism. And Marcus brought humanity to his character that made him instantly likable even when that character was behaving in a shallow way.
I skipped two of the afternoon programs I'd intended to see and came back for Boy's Love, a Japanese movie. Now I walked in with some trepidation. The Japanese have a habit of making films that are "kurai." Dark. Unhappy. Particularly romances between men — they have to end with death, if not of both lovers at least one. The tradition dates back to Saikaku, who wrote stories of samurai lovers. And in Kabuki plays like The Scarlet Princess of Edo, which opens with a love suicide pact between a Buddhist priest and his acolyte. Boy's Love did seem like it was going to go there, but I was clearly blinded by the beauty of the boys, since the evidence was there right in the first scene. Crimes of passion, murder and suicide. Kuraiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!
I should mention one last short, which opened the Boy's Love program. Shades of Grey, directed by John Cleland. In this film, after a particularly horrific bashing (I had to close my eyes) the victim's boyfriend seeks out the basher and attacks him. Only to stop as the man's 6-year old daughter enters the room. When the film ended, someone in the audience shouted out "No sympathy for bashers" and booed the film loudly. Just as with some audience members who missed the point with Front, I think this viewer missed the point here as well. Though I must admit I didn't like feeling manipulated. I already know that life isn't black and white. And that when we follow the example of those who hate us, we become like the haters as well. This film wasn't a great example of the subtleties of the issues here. But it surely belonged in the festival.
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