Hot Bagel breakfast sponsored by Kim Schultze of Coldwell Banker
in the Sky Cafe from 10 AM.  

11:00 AM – IHOP (International House of Performances)
After breakfast, choose one of three of the year’s best international films.          

Queens
(Manuel Gomez Pereira, Spain, 2005, 107 min) In this screwball comedy, five mothers find themselves at the end of their rope dealing with their gay sons’ impending nuptials- part of a mass gay wedding ceremony scheduled to take place in a glamorous hotel in Madrid. As these five very different women deal with their own desires, prejudices and history they attempt to survive the weekend as sex, anger, bigotry and love hilariously clash in this ultimate wedding film about the strength of love and the importance of family. With the “I Do’s” pending will the hearts of Queens find the strength and love to give their sons away on this special day? This debut Warner Bros. Spanish production brings together a stellar female cast not seen since ‘8 Femmes,’ featuring Verónica Forqué (Kika, Matador), Carmen Maura (Valentin, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) and Marisa Paredes (Talk to Her, All About My Mother), and Mercedes Sampietro (Unconscious), as well as a cast of incredibly attractive Spanish men as their sons.          

My Brother Nikhil
(Onir, India, 2005, 120 min) Set in Goa, a small coastal state in India in between 1989 and 1994. Nikhil Kapoor is the state all round swimming champion. His father Navin Kapoor has raised his son to be a sports man... a dream that he never achieved for himself. His elder sister Anamika teaches in a primary school and loves him dearly. His mother Anita Rosario Kapoor adores him and from her he inherited his artistic side to his personality. One day he is arrested. The reason being…. that he is HIV positive. He is kept in forced isolation by law. The Goa public health act allowed the government to isolate HIV positive people. His parents desert him and his friends move away. The only two people who stand by him are his sister Anamika and boyfriend Nigel. A film about how a closely-knit family falls apart when faced with a crisis; about a sisters unconditional love for her brother; about a love that withstood social disapproval; a film about a man’s desire to achieve something in life and finally it’s a film about acceptance. An unflinching look at AIDS hysteria and an inspiring portrait of survival through activism.          

Looking For Cheyenne
(Valerie Minetto, France, 2005, 90 min) An epic journey of the heart about two very different women who, as lovers, struggle with the issues of love and commitment in the face of principles and personal integrity. Sonia (Aurelia Petit), a successful and attractive high school teacher is deeply in love with struggling, unemployed journalist, Cheyenne (Mila Dekker). When Cheyenne’s welfare payments are cut off, she refuses to let Sonia take care of her, instead Cheyenne, fueled by disgust for modern urban living, leaves Sonia and Paris for a simpler existence in the countryside. In response, Sonia goes through two non-fulfilling affairs. Meanwhile Cheyenne learns to survive without electricity and the amenities of modern life, but can she learn to live without Sonia? Petit and Dekker portray the complexities and subtle nuisances of a carnal love against a multidimensional geography. The originality and authenticity of this film has made it a festival favorite worldwide.    

12:45 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch Break

2:00 PM  - Small Town Gay Bar
(Malcom Ingram, USA, 2005, 81 min) Welcome to the heartland of the Christian Coalition, deep in the heart of homophobic Bible belt of NE Mississippi and home of two gay bars ‘Rumors’ and ‘Different Seasons’ who are battling to survive. small town gay bar is a tribute to the resiliency of gays living in rural areas throughout America. A moving portrait of men and women fighting to create and maintain community for themselves in the face of great opposition, hypocrisy and prejudice in a largely ignored subculture of discreet backdoor entrances and hushed sexual expression.

Preceded by Barman (Stanimir Stoykov and Sasa Stajovic, South Africa, 2005, 14 min) In Johannesburg’s Melville night scene, one gay bar is particularly sizzling hot with the main attraction being the muscular, semi-naked straight men behind the bar. These young, educated barmen with washboard abs unrepentantly flirt and titillate the night away seeking that extra tip.

4:00 PM – Best in Fest (76 min) – Shorts program
Presenting a collection of the award winners from our Annual Fire Island Film and Video Festival: Invasion of the Pines (Jon Morrow, USA, 2005, 8.5 min) Every Fourth of July, the fabulous Invasion of the Pines attracts hundreds of drag queens and thousands of spectators to Fire Island. Cabalerno (Jarrah Gurrie, USA, 2006, 4 min) An awkward guy, coming to terms with his sexuality gets caught pointing a video camera at his strapping young crush. LA Dolls (Lori Kaye & Les Thomas, USA, 2005, 18 min) Love, sex, therapy and betrayal provide the inspiration for these LA based songwriting dolls. Hitchcocked (David M. Young, USA, 2006, 8 min) Al and Fred discover that online hook-ups can be lots of fun…until somebody gets hurt.   Zombie Prom (Vince M. Marcello, USA, 2006, 37 min) A 1950’s horror comic book brought to life as a musical comedy film – is the Atomic Age tale of a girl named Toffee and her “rebel” boyfriend, Jonny. The two meet at high school and fall in love, but the principal Miss Delilah Strict (portrayed by vocalist and international celebrity RuPaul) intervenes, persuading Toffee to break up with Jonny. Tortured by the betrayal, Jonny flings himself into a cooling tower at a nearby nuclear plant. Toffee mourns the loss of her love, until the day when Jonny returns, risen from the dead – as a teenage nuclear zombie!

5:45 PM - Lover Other
(Barbara Hammer, USA, 2006, 55 min) “To mirror, to fix, these are the words that have no meaning here”; Under the mask is another mask, I will never finish lifting all these faces”. These words are from the 1930 anti-autobiography by the Surrealist writer, photographer, Resister, and lesbian, Claude Cahun, born Lucie Schwob (1894-1954). Lover Other is a documentary that tells her story as well as that of her partner and lover, her half-sister, Marcel Moore, born Suzanne Malherbe (1892-1972). Lover Other gives us early background on the two but the main focus is on their adult lives. After fleeing France in the late 1930’s, Claude and Marcel go to live in exile on the Isle of Jersey. When the Nazis invade Jersey as a stepping-stone to England, they became actively involved in the Resistance, trying to get the soldiers to mutiny. Eventually both women are arrested and while in prison, their home is looted and soldiers destroyed much of their work. Though an essential part of Cahun/Moores’ photographic works and archives were irretrievably lost, filmmaker Barbara Hammer masterfully combines found treasures of these artists including: photographic records of the lovers’ gender antics, an unpublished play (which is brought to life in the film), letters, prison notes scratched onto cigarette boxes and real accounts from neighbors who knew them, to help paint a picture of the two lovers.  

Coffee and Desert Reception sponsored by P.A.L.I. from 6 PM.
The reception is free with a movie admission to ‘
Lover Other’ or ‘Coffee Date’.

7:15 PM - Coffee Date
(Stewart Wade, USA, 2006, 93 min) Stewart Wade’s debut feature, a hysterical comedy about a practical joke that spins wildly out of control, started its life as a short film in 2000 which played over 35 festivals worldwide and won several awards. The feature is a cross-over romantic comedy that starts much the same way as the short - straight Todd (Jonathan Bray) strikes up a friendship with a gay man, Kelly (Wilson Cruz). This causes everyone in his life to think he too is gay. His life spins out of control as he fails to convince his mother (Sally Kirkland), his brother (Jonathan Silverman) or his co-workers (Jason Stuart and Deborah Gibson) of his heterosexuality. Todd starts to wonder if they know something he doesn’t and if he might actually be interested in Kelly after all…

Preceded by Available Men (David Dean Bottrell, USA, 2005, 15 min)  A Hollywood agent is dispatched to a trendy LA bar with strict orders to sign a hot new writer. On the same night, a sensitive gay man arrives at the bar to meet a blind date. Hilarity ensues when these two men mistake each other for the person they were expecting to meet.

9:15 PM – Phoenix
(Michael Akers, USA, 2006, 90 min) Inspired by Michelangelo Antonioni’s informal trilogy of films “L’Avventura,” “La Notte,” and “L’Eclisse.” What appears to be a search for a missing person is actually an examination of the true nature of romance and self-discovery found along a voyage through the morally decayed world of a stagnating couple. Akers tells his story through the use of highly symbolic imagery and complex characters. Akers penetrating study of commitment offers intense observations of the many meanings of love. Young Dylan waits with great anticipation all week for his traveling real estate boyfriend Ken to visit him in L.A. When Ken gets called away from Los Angeles on the weekend of Dylan’s birthday, Dylan follows Ken to Phoenix where the trail grows cold. The pieces of Ken’s fractured life begin to fall into place when Dylan meets Demetrius. NY Premiere Filmmakers Michael Akers will be in attendance. Preceded by Boomerang (Nicolas Breviere, France, 2005, 26 min) Paul is facing the hard feeling of being abandoned by the person he loves, but is his fear really justified or is it the echo of a past wound?