National Portrait Gallery talk to celebrate lesbians and gay men in British cinema

The National Portrait Gallery in London is to host a talk highlighting key lesbian and gay figures in British cinema.

The talk will be held by south London writer Stephen Bourne, author of Brief Encounters: Lesbians & Gays in British Cinema 1930-1971. Some of the luminaries of the medium are also represented in the Gallery’s Collection, including Anthony Asquith, Dirk Bogarde, Mary Morris, Kenneth Williams and Derek Jarman.

The talk comes just prior to the opening of the 25th London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and will take place on Thursday 24 March at 1.15pm. It is free to all.

Read the full story on PinkNews here.

Same sex parenting film released in the UK

The Kids Are All Right, a film about lesbian parenting , was released in the UK this week.

Directed by Lisa Cholodenko and starring Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, the affirmative film deals with parenting from the IVF stage and beyond. Cholodenko and Moore are both in the country to promote the film. Julianne Moore was interviewed by Evan Davies on the Today programme and an extended edition can be heard on the Radio 4 Today website.

Lisa Cholodenko featured on Radio 2's Art Show with Claudia Winkleman on Friday as well as on Radio 4's The Film Show.

Check out the LGBT TV and radio listings on this blog for timings.

For The Daily Mirror review click here

'Come Together' - Celebrating 40th Anniversary of the Creation of the Gay Liberation Front

‘Come Together’ is an afternoon of celebration, challenge, cinema and chin-wagging looking back over the last 40 years since the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) made its demands; looking at where we are today and looking ahead to where we could be.

The afternoon will start with some amazing archive footage including ‘Come Together’, a 1971 Panorama documentary, excerpts from A Lesbian and Gay History and an exclusive screening of films Mair Davies made in the GLF communes. This will be followed by a panel debate with lots of audience participation.

In 1970 the GLF made 8 demands:
1) That all discrimination against gay people, male and female, by the law, by employers, and by society at large, should end.
2) That all people who feel attracted to a member of their own sex be taught that such feelings are perfectly normal.
3) That sex education in schools stop being exclusively heterosexual
4) That psychiatrists stop treating homosexuality as though it were a problem or sickness, thereby giving gay people senseless guilt complexes.
5) That gay people be as legally free to contact other gay people through newspaper ads, on the streets, and by any other means they may want, as are heterosexuals, and that police harassment should cease right now.
6) That employers should no longer be allowed to discriminate against anyone on account of their sexual preferences.
7) That the age of consent for gay males be reduced to the same as for straights.
8) That gay people be free to hold hands and kiss in public as are heterosexuals.

40 years since the demands were first state we are still waiting for all of them to be met. Why? Join our panel for a frank discussion about LGBT rights, what can we learn from our queer history and what can we as a community do to achieve what GLF demanded 40 years ago? Given we now have some of the rights we have fought for, what could we be doing as a community to support LGBT people around the world?

The event is hosted by STEWART WHO? with some special guests involved in LGBT activism including:
Roz Kaveney - Trans poet and activist
Shami Chakrabarti - Director of Liberty
Peter Tatchell - Human rights campaigner
Stuart Feather - Artist
Andrew Lumsden - Artist and journalist

Come Together
Electric Cinema
191 Portobello Road, Notting Hill, London W11 2ED
26 June 2010
1pm - 3.00pm
Entry £7.5 (£4 NUS & unwaged)
Tickets from www.ticketweb.co.uk
All door proceeds to go to Pride London.

Colin Farrell Condemns Homophobia

Hollywood actor and star of Alexander and The Phone Booth Colin Farrell condemned homophobia in his native Ireland.

Supporting Irish youth group BeLongToYouth's STAND UP anti-homophobia campaign, Farrell talked frankly about the bullying and abuse his brother Eamonn had to face on a day-to-day basis during his schooldays.

Colin Farrell’s statement:

"I can't remember much about the years of physical and emotional abuse my brother Eamon suffered. I was very small. The thing i do remember though, quite literally, is blood on his school shirt when he came home in the afternoon. The beatings and taunting were very frequent for my him and a constant part of his school years. I didn't understand at that time the concept of 'difference'. Back then, as now, he was just my big brother. If I did understand what difference was I understood it in the most pure and unaffected childlike way. To me then, as a child, difference meant being left out. Joy and laughter came with being included, being embraced , and belonging to.

People are often afraid of difference. They feel that anything that causes fear, should be turned away from. My brother represented fear for so many people, but caused joy in my life. From a very young age he made me laugh with his intelligence and wit, made me aspire to his strength and goodness. He was to be embraced. To many of the students of his school however he was to be feared. He was to be turned away from. I didn't understand it then, and I still don't know. As a race we humans are united and divided by emotions. The mother and father of all emotions, the queen and king are love and fear. Love unites, it brings us closer to an understanding of the possibility of beauty amidst all the confusion and pain that life can bring. Hate is a disease. It is fear's messenger and it makes us do terrible things in a shadow of our better selves, of what we could be.

Intolerance is not genetically encoded - it is taught. It is learned at home. It is learned in the classrooms and it is learned anywhere else we gather as a group. But it is usually learned early and added onto from there. If there is nothing to feared, there is nothing to hate. If there is nothing to hate there is no pain. My brother was so forceful in standing up for who he was, and for the good that he knew wa inside of him. Many people missed out on an opportunity, not only to enjoy him, but to enjoy themselves by embracing his "difference". They missed out because they saw him as a threat - not as a testament to the kaleidoscope and diversity of this beautiful world. Bullying is torture, it is another betrayal of basic human decency and its scars reach way into the future of its survivors. But the saddest truth is that not all children survive it. It is a potentially fatal societal illness and must be respected and not feared. Respected and dealt with as a very real problem and as an adversary of a potentially harmonious world, that should have no place for bullies or bullying."

Source.

The English Patient had a gay lover

The man who was the inspiration for the film The English Patient had a gay lover, letters have suggested.

Count Laszlo de Almásy, a Hungarian-born adventurer, was the inspiration for the heterosexual hero played by Ralph Fiennes in the film.

In the film, Fiennes' character is a womaniser but letters discovered in Germany show that Almásy actually had a gay relationship with a soldier called Hans Entholt.

The claim was made by the Heinrich Barth Institute for African Studies in Cologne, although it has not released any further details about the correspondence.

But a staff member from the insitute told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine that there was evidence he had several gay lovers, including "Egyptian princes".

Entholt, an officer in the Wehrmacht, died after stepping on a landmine.

The letters also showed that Almásy did not die of a morphine overdose, as the character does in the film and novel on which it is based.

Instead, he died from amoebic dysentery in 1951.

With thanks to PinkNews.

A Single Man Released

The film adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's 1964 novel A Single Man was released in UK cinemas yesterday.

Set in Los Angeles in 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, A Single Man, is the story of George Falconer, a 52 year old British college professor (Colin Firth) who is struggling to find meaning to his life after the death of his long time partner, Jim (Matthew Goode). George dwells on the past and cannot see his future as we follow him through a single day, where a series of events and encounters, ultimately leads him to decide if there is a meaning to life after Jim. George is consoled by his closest friend Charley (Julianne Moore), a 48-year-old beauty who is wrestling with her own questions about the future. A young student of George's, Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), who is coming to terms with his true nature, stalks George as he feels in him a kindred spirit.

The film is directed by gay fashion designer Tom Ford. Colin Firth has been nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of George.

Gay Sherlock Holmes

Guy Richie's newest version of the cerebral detective'story is released today, with what we are promised is a homoerotic view of the relationship between the famous sleuth and his accolite Dr Watson. Robert Downey Jr, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock, told a British newspaper the film was about “two men who happen to be roommates, wrestle a lot and share a bed”.

To mark the occasion, Robbie Hudson explores for the Times the various guises that the relationship between Sherlock and the Doctor have taken over the years.

Read the full article here.

Queer Films Season at the PCC

The Prince Charles Cinema, London's West End's cheapest cinema, will be celebrating LGBT films throughout August. On Monday nights, they will be screening a selection of five classic films selected by the audience.

This is chance to see again on a big screen such old favorites as The Adventures Of Priscilla Queen Of The Desert (3rd), Before Night Falls (10th), Aimee & Jaguar (17th), Beautiful Thing (14th) and My Beautiful Laundrette (31st).

For more information visit: www.princecharlescinema.com

Mariela Castro to Speak at the Barbican

4 July will of course be Pride in London but for those who fancy winding the down with something a little quieter than a visit to a club, Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban president Raùl Castro, will be at the Barbican for a special discussion on gay rights in Cuba, following the 8.45pm screening of the film Strawberry and Chocolate.

She will be joined by Alberto Roque, a leading gay rights activist in Cuba and Juan Carlos Tabío.

Mariela Castro is director of the Cuban National Centre for Sex Education in Havana and campaigns for AIDS prevention along with the recognition of the rights of homosexuals, bisexuals, transvestites and transsexuals in Cuba. She is also a widely published author.

Strawberry and Chocolate is the winner of a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and the first film with an openly gay character to come from Cuba.

This event is part of cine cuba: 50 years of revolution in film that is taking place at the Barbican between 3 and 9 July.

Jake Arnott: Joe Meek and Me

Jake Arnott, author of The Long Firm, tells the Evening Standard of the influence the gay music producer Joe Meek had on him on the occasion of the release of Telstar, a biopic of Meek.

Joe Meek's sound has always haunted me, his weird and wonderful tunes echoed through my childhood.

This wildly imaginative and innovative record producer was one of the great English eccentrics, whose mad genius transformed cheap pop music into something wildly expressionistic and strangely ethereal. [...]

Joe was quite a character. Addicted to amphetamines and obsessed with séances and the occult, he created techniques in recording that were years ahead of their time.

Gay when it was still illegal, he was immersed in the demi-monde of Swinging London and was destroyed by a paranoia that drove him to shoot his landlady before turning the gun on himself.

My research into his life took me to some strange places.

Read the full article here.

Milk Wins Two Oscars

Milk, the biopic of gay activist Harvey Milk, directed by Gus Van Sant, won two Oscars last night during the 81st award ceremony. Sean Penn walked away with the award for best actor while Dustin Lance Black received a statuette for best original writing.

Commenting on his victory, Dustin Lance Black said:
"If Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he'd want me to say to all those gay and lesbian kids out there tonight - who have been told that they are less than by their churches, by the government, or by their families - that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures that are valued."

Dustin Lance Black also thanked his mother for her acceptance of his sexuality, and promised homosexual young men and women that, "very soon you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours."

Sean Penn said:
"Thank you. Thank you. You commie, homo-loving sons of guns. I did not expect this and I want it to be very clear that I do know how hard I make it to appreciate me often."

"For those who saw the signs of hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren's eyes if they continue that way of support. We've got to have equal rights for everyone."

The film has already garnered another 26 wins & 44 nominations since its release in October last year.

Milk on the IMDB

Spotlight: Imaan Fundraiser and Screening of 'A Jihad for Love'

To mark Valentine's Day and to raise fund for its work, Imaan, the UK's support group of LGBT Muslims, their families and friends, is screening the documentary A Jihad for Love.


Filmed over 5 1/2 years, in 12 countries and 9 languages, "A Jihad for Love" comes from the heart of Islam. 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. Muslim gay filmmaker Parvez Sharma travels the many worlds of this dynamic faith discovering the stories of its most unlikely storytellers: lesbian and gay Muslims.

Date: 14 February 2009
Time: 19:00 - 23:00
Location: Khalili Lecture Theatre, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
Street: Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, WC1H 0XG
Town/City: London, United Kingdom
Tickets: from £10

This event has received financial support from the Paul Patrick Memorial Awards, administered by the LGBT Consortium.

German gay footballer to get biopic treatment

The story of a former East German footballer who left the professional game after deciding to come out of the closet is to be made into a film.

Marcus Urban, 38, was sent to a sports boarding school at aged 13 and played for the national youth teams in the 1990s before settling at second division club Rot-Weiss Erfurt.

Read the full article on PinkNews here.

Notes to Obama: John Waters

As Barack Obama, the 44th and LGBT friendly president of the US is about to take the oath of office, queer filmmaker John Waters, gives him some advice.

View the video on the BBC News website here.

Tennesse Williams Season at the BFI

It has been 25 years since the death of Tennessee Williams, and interest in this great American playwright’s work remains intense. However the recent publication of some of his lesser known early and late one-act plays, in which gay characters fully emerge, has given us a chance to appreciate and understand Tennessee’s own story more fully. To tie in with the celebration of this great playwright at the Glasgay Festival, throughout November film audiences at the British Film Institute (BFI) Southbank can enjoy a flashback to the glory days of his greatest screen adaptations.


The season features some of Williams’ most celebrated work for the big screen, kicking off with The Glass Menagerie (1950) on 1 November followed by such classics as, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), Suddenly Last Summer (1959) and The Night of the Iguana (1964). As a centrepiece we’re presenting an extended run of A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), probably Williams’ most famous work in which Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh give outstanding performances in this electrifying film about broken family relations. The season also includes his lesser-known adaptations for the cinema, such as the rarely screened Boom (1968) which is regularly championed by the film-maker John Waters; and Noir et blanc (1986 - picture), based on Williams’ short story Desire and the Back Masseur.

This series of films pays tribute to some of the great actors of the 20th century, with roles for stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Natalie Wood and Montgomery Clift. Williams’ characters encompass the full range of humanity: they can be starry-eyed, needy, credulous, self-destructive, warm, wry, flirtatious and just a little bitchy. Above all, Williams’ natural sympathy is with utterly open and unapologetic outsiders and misfits. What is fascinating from a contemporary re-viewing of his drama is how autobiographical his stories are: these are works full of his love and lovers, battles for acceptance, struggles with drugs and alcohol and are populated with dysfunctional families.

For details of the screenings from the BFI's website, please click here.

London Transgender Film Festival

Independent, experimental, cutting edge and diverse are just some words to describe the first London Transgender Film Festival which will take place at the Ritzy in Brixton on the 7th, 8th and 9th of November.

Its focus is to exhibit content of transgender, intersex, androgyny, gender variant, trans feminists, gender queer, and gender fluid persons of all natures, all races and cultures, ages and abilities.

Its aim is to increase trans visibility and acknowledgement, question the gender binary, to dispel ignorance and demystify stereotypes, unite and support a diverse LGBTQI community and celebrate trans spaces and their friends.

The festival is also about communication and growth and will screen films of dynamic and important themes. It hopes to encourage and liberate self expression in independent trans filmmaking in London and globally for years to come.

Some highlights of this year’s festival will be new unreleased film screenings, important films that have not had much exposure in mainstream festivals, documentaries from around the world, an exhibition, workshops, and a panel with special guests.

to find out more visit www.transgenderfilmfestival.co.uk and www.ritzypicturehouse.co.uk

Hollywood Recognises our History with Milk

A film celebrating the life and achievements of an openly gay Californian politician is about to be released in the US. Milk is a biopic of the eponymous Harvey Milk, the USA’s first elected out politician, who became supervisor of San Francisco until he was shot dead in 1978. The role of Harvey Milk is played by Sean Penn and the movie is directed by Gus Van Sant.



Milk had been a teacher before entering politics and he campaigned against homosexual teachers being sacked from California schools under a law proposed by California Senator John Briggs. However he is probably more famous for outing the closet gay who saved President Gerald Ford’s life when he took a bullet in 1975.

Milk, and San Francisco Mayor Moscone were both murdered by arch rival anti-gay conservative Dan White. He turned himself in but his trial was a fiasco and his lenient sentence caused riots among the LGBT community.

Although the film follows the bleak Hollywood tradition that rules all LGBT lives end in tragedy, it’s a very sympathetic portrayal of a man whose life and achievements must be kept alive in history.

Milk is released in Germany and San Francisco next month and is due for release in the rest of the US in December. The date of release in the UK is unknown but it is most likely to be February.

Find out more about Harvey Milk here.

Updated 14 September 2008

Side by Side LGBT International Film Festival

The first edition of Side by Side, Saint Petersburg's international LGBT film festival is scheduled to take place in October this year.

Showcasing the very best in contemporary lesbian and gay cinema from around the world the festival aims to not only create a cultural space that allows for the celebration of sexual diversity but a forum for discussion with society at large. By generating a positive dialogue of understanding through the medium of high-quality, intelligent film Side by Side endeavors to facilitate change and fundamentally bring about broader acceptance of minority groups within society.

To find out more visit www.sbsff.com/en

Egyptian Film to Explore Homosexuality

Although Egyptian cinema, since its inception, has presented many homosexual characters, most of these have been comic devices inserted to generate a few cheap laughs. The only serious portrayals of homosexuality have been through a few minor characters in a handful of Egyptian films like Salah Abou Seif's Malatili Bathhouse (1973), Youssef Chahine's Alexandria Trilogy (1980's), Asmaa Bakry's Mendicants et Orgueilleux (1991), Yousry Nasrallah's Mercedes (1993), and Marwan Hamed’s The Yacoubian Building (2007).

However, these were presented in a manner so subtle as to often be detected only by the initiated. The Egyptian Underground Film Society (EUFS), a group of artists and intellectuals seeking a creative outlet away from political restrictions, has just completed its first production, All My Life, which falls firmly into the category of Queer Cinema. Its protagonists are gay men seen facing persecution and discrimination, particularly in the wake of the 2001 witch-hunts against them; the most famous incident being the Queen Boat arrests in which 52 alleged homosexuals were tried in a national security court.

According to the film's director/screenwriter Maher Sabry, "We all build fences around ourselves to protect ourselves from pain; that's why it's easy, when we see others treated unjustly, to assume that they must have done something to deserve punishment. It's especially easy if they believe differently from us or live a lifestyle we don't approve of. Then it comes round to us, and others say the same.. and so on until we all know what it feels like to be oppressed."

With the rise of the wave of conservatism in Egypt and the Arab world in recent years, artists have become increasingly unable to tackle a number of subjects that were dealt with in Egyptian cinema in the past. Last year, following the screening of Egyptian film The Yacoubian Building, 112 members of the Egyptian Parliament - one-quarter of the total - signed a petition demanding the removal of the scenes portraying the only homosexual character in the film. And yet, the portrayal of the gay character in Yacoubian Building is tame compared to the one in The Malatili Bathhouse in 1973, more than thirty years earlier.

All My Life, a product of guerrilla filmmaking, attempts to break away from the taboos imposed by Egyptian censorship, sexual, social and political. According to the director, "Censorship is a knife in the heart of any artistic movement. The censor treats me like a child, telling me, as a person, what to read, what to hear, what to watch, and therefore how to think, how to express myself. All this is done in the name of "protecting the public interest" but in fact it is "protecting power-holders and political interests". Censorship only flourishes in countries with corrupt and tyrannical governments afraid of a rise in public awareness; it guarantees the maintenance of the status quo. Just as the Internet revolution has opened the door to people to express themselves uncensored, so the digital filmmaking revolution has given me the same opportunity. I knew from the start that my movie would never officially be allowed a public screening; but I'm confident that people will see it, because where there is corruption, video piracy is all the rage. When the festivals are over, it'll be for sale on the sidewalks like all banned films. This way, I know I may not recoup the money I spent on the film, but at least I'll have achieved self-fulfillment."

Find out more about the film here. We do not currently know if All My Life is scheduled for release in the UK.

22nd London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival

The 22nd London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival will open on the 27th and will offering a wide selection of LGBT films from around the world until 10th April.

Click here for details.