GAY INTEREST TRAILERS

Cuatro Lunas has an interesting idea, bringing together four gay-themed stories that run from the first discovery of adolescent same-sex feeling through to desire as you get older.

Take a look at the trailer below.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘Four stories about love and self-acceptance: An eleven year-old boy struggles to keep secret the attraction he feels towards his male cousin. Two former childhood friends reunite and start a relationship that gets complicated due to one of them’s fear of getting caught. A gay long lasting relationship is in jeopardy when a third man comes along. An old family man is obsessed with a young male prostitute and tries to raise the money to afford the experience.’

The Mexican movie is currently playing at film festivals. [Read more…]

It often seems that capitalism has no time for history, and that’s the case for the bar profiled in We Came to Sweat. Founded in 1962, The Starlite was Brooklyn’s oldest black owned and operated gay bar. Over the decades it had been a refuge for people of colour who didn’t just face prejudice because of their sexuality, but also from other gay people because of their race.

The documentary picks up the story in 2010 after a new owner had taken over the building the Starlite was housed in. Due to the gentrification of the area the rent was massively increased and eviction prodeeding were looming.

As well as looking at The Starlite’s importance to New York’s gay history, the documentary also covers the fight to save it, with the patrons and devoted staff trying to find a way to save it.

The film had its world premiere on Friday at the New York LGBT film festival, Newfest. You can take a look at the trailer below. [Read more…]

One of the things I think can be most beneficial about LGBT cinema is giving us an insight into gay life in other parts of the world. However there are some places where making films about gay people isn’t just difficult is could be life threatening – that includes Iran.

The documentary Golf Alpha Yankee may not have been able to go right into Iran, but it does give a voice to those who have escaped a place where the threat isn’t just that gay sex could potentially result in the death penalty, but also the societal condemnation and risk of blackmail that goes along with that. Even in this trailer it’s pretty powerful stuff.

To help cover the cost of post-production, a Kickstarter campaign has been set up, so after you’ve watch the trailer below, you can help out. You can also find out more over at the film’s website.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘Young gay Iranians, having endured torture and imprisonment by Iran’s secret police, have escaped their homeland and managed to find temporary refuge with the United Nations Turkey.

‘Living in small conservative communities, closeted and jobless in an unending limbo, they endure a years-long process of interviews that they hope will result in permission to resettle in the west, and with it, the freedom to love without penalty.’

Take a look at the trailer below. [Read more…]

Although there’s a lot of talk about the homophobia LGBT people are exposed to from outside the community – and to a lesser extent individual, internalised homophobia – discrimination within LGBT groups is often ignored. Although there’s eye-rolling about things such as gay men’s seeming obsession with youth and large penises, the effects of such things are largely swept under the carpet.

Now a documentary has emerged, The Same Difference, which sets out to tackle discrimination and the internal policing within the lesbian community, as well as the way it can prevent some women being exactly who they want to be. It’s a topic that’s bound to cause some controversy, but definitely a worthwhile conversation to have – and gay men could do with their own documentary looking at a similar idea too.

You can take a look at a five minute teaser of the doc below.

Talking to Huffpo, filmmaker Nneka Onuorah says of the documentary, “One of the misconceptions I am trying to dispel through this documentary is the belief that there are rules to being who you are. In the lesbian community, for example, if you’re a butch lesbian you can’t do anything girly. You can’t be too beautiful, your pants can’t be too tight, if you get your hair straight that’s wrong and getting pregnant isn’t right. It’s almost like being a part of a gang. People don’t want to beat you or make you feel bad if you do something that’s out of the “norm” but we are gay we are already out of the norm. I also want people to see the true title of what “The Same Difference” means. We always judge others for things that they do, but we don’t see how the things we judge people for parallel with things we do that might not be right. It’s the Same Difference. Just like how there are some people who are a part of the heterosexual community that protest against us and think what we are doing isn’t right we are taking those same attitudes and putting them onto each other.”

She adds that The Same Difference is, “Important because it is something that is needed in the community. There are people who are suppressing who they really are to fit in, in fear of being jumped, outcaste and ostracized. It also isn’t a topic that is ever brought to light so it is an ongoing negative thing. This documentary is going to start a conversation and hopefully have people be more open-minded to being accepting of people who have different ways of doing things. Not just in the lesbian community but people in general. Who would have thought that there would be hatred amongst a community from the inside that already gets it from the outside.” [Read more…]