GAY & LESBIAN PRIDE
Film Festival - 18 - 26 September, Melville
August 22, 2003
This is the first year that the annual Gay Pride Parade festivities in Johannesburg will include a gay & lesbian film festival, presented by the Johannesburg-based African Film Festival Company (AFFC).
The AFFC is a new company formed specifically to organise South African film festivals: "Gary Bath of Pride Communications - the organisers of Pride 2003 - was one of the first people to approach our newly launched company, with the intention of conceiving an entirely new film festival for the SA calendar," said AFFC CEO, Gregg Abell.
"While putting together this programme, it was fascinating to see how many interesting gay & lesbian films are produced around the world nowadays… and the popularity of the annual Out In Africa festival proves that we have an eager audience out there."
The AFFC has curated an eclectic programme of films from around the world, with entries from Norway, Spain, Canada, the UK, Germany, and, of course, South Africa.
"We were especially pleased to get Class Queers, a new documentary about the Triangle Programme, an alternative high school classroom in Toronto for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transsexual youth," said Abell. This incisive documentary revolves around three teens for whom the Triangle classroom serves as a safe haven in their otherwise tumultuous lives.
Along similar lines, the festival also features Prom Fight - The Marc Hall Story. In 2002, Marc Hall challenged his local school board in Ontario, Canada, for the right to take his boyfriend to his high-school prom, and made headlines around the world.
Another notable documentary is "A Swiss Rebel", a look at the controversial figure Annemarie Schwarzenbach, a writer, journalist and photographer who travelled around the world in the thirties and denounced European fascism as well as the exploitation of American workers.
The programme brings together short films, feature films and documentaries in a diverse programme that changes every day. A 14-minute short fantasy like Bengababes will be mixed in with a feature film like the British comedy 9 Dead Gay Guys and the Spanish romantic comedy, I Love You Baby.
Fresh from the Brisbane Queer Film Festival in April this year, 9 Dead Gay Guys is a wildly irreverent story about a crisp, cute Irish lad looking for his fortune in London, and I Love You Baby is a Spanish love story in which boy meets boy, boy gets hit in head, boy loses boy to girl and will do anything to get him back. It features an outrageous cameo by Boy George.
The programme also showcases "experimental" films like Tom, a documentary made almost entirely of found footage, which focuses on Tom Chomont, a key member of the New York underground, a notorious video artist, an AIDS sufferer and tireless raconteur.
Meanwhile, dramas include the French coming-of-age story A Cause d'un Garcon (You'll Get Over It)" and "My Summer Vacation", from Canada, which offers an insight into the gay underground scene in Toronto.
The 2003 Pride Film Festival kicks off with the South African premiere of All Over The Guy, a new romantic comedy about two guys set up by their respective best friends.
The premiere event (by invitation only) will be presented in association with Mambaonline and Pride Communications at Cinema Nouveau in Rosebank, but then the action moves to Melville, where the rest of the festival will be screened at the Phat Joe studios.
"This is the first time that someone will present a film festival at the Phat Joe studios, and the first time, I think, in Melville!" said Abell. While much of this year's Pride events will be centred in and around Melville, we definitely wanted to be part of the action, he said.
"It's a great venue and if the denizens of Melville like this idea, and they turn out in force, we plan to do many more events there."
The Pride 2003 Film Festival runs at the Phat Joe studios (on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Fourth Street in Melville) from 18 to 26 September.
Screenings are at 17h00, 19h00 and 21h00 on weekdays (except on Wednesday, 24th, which only has a 21h00 screening) and 14h00, 17h00, 19h00 and 21h00 on Saturday and Sunday.
Tickets are R30 each and are available at the Pride offices in Melville.
The African Film Festival Company
Gregg Abell: 082 327 2704 abellgregg@hotmail.com
Sharon Bezuidenhout: 082 783 9109 shazza@yebo.co.za
SA Pride/Pride Communications Offices
Office Suite #7, 1st Floor, The Court (above Mugg & Bean in 4th Ave), 75 - 3rd Ave, Melville
Mobile: 083-479-6896 Louis Vermaak
Mobile: 082-547-2486 Gary Bath
Mobile: 083-590-5096 Yusoof Abdullah
Email: gary@sapride.org
Website: sapride.org
Media
Charles King, Brain Reservoir
Mobile: +27-72 198-2217
E-mail: charles@brainreservoir.co.za
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