Lesbian And Gay Film Festival

By James DiGiovanna

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The Sixth Annual Tucson Lesbian and Gay Film Festival kicks off this week, with tickets and schedules available at Desert Pride, Antigone Books, Orange Grove Brew & Vine, and Tucson Trunk. Screenings will be held at the University of Arizona Aeronautical Building at Mountain and Speedway. Tickets cost $5 for individual programs, $45 for festival passes, and $15 for a pass to every episode of the gay soap opera Queer as Folk, an episode of which will be aired each day, and which promises to be the biggest draw for the festival.

Leading the pack on Thursday night is Paragraph 175, the latest documentary from Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, whose The Times of Harvey Milk and The Celluloid Closet are already considered classics. Paragraph 175 uses archival footage and interviews with survivors to tell the stories of gay men and women in Nazi Germany. Thursday's program also includes the short Desert Hate, about the pro-gay march and rally in Tucson that occurred on February 13 this year.

Friday's program features the male body, as appreciated by other male bodies, in four films, including the sexy Gypsy Boys and the lighthearted Get Your Stuff. On Saturday, you can fill your afternoon with an assortment of queer shorts, and follow it up with a program of films on transgender issues. Saturday evening features a selection of documentaries on issues surrounding AIDS and the gay community, and Saturday night is "Women's Night Out," the counterpart to Friday's gay men's schedule, with three lesbian-themed films, including the well received Julie and Me, a light-hearted lesbian romance.

The program concludes on Sunday with a selection of films on women in sports, and the final documentary, Wallowitch and Ross, about 70-something gay men who have been together for over 30 years.