26th Boston LGBT Film Festival Hits Screens May 6--16
The 26th annual Boston LGBT Film Festival brings gay and lesbian cinema from around the globe to the Boston area starting May 6, and continues through May 16. The festival’s venues will include the Museum of Fine Arts, located at 465 Huntington Avenue in Boston, the Brattle Theatre at 40 Brattle Street in Harvard Square in Cambridge, and the Fenway Community Health Center, a new Boston Venue located at 1340 Boylston Street.
Featured on this year’s slate of films are Cheryl Dunye’s The Owls, a dark comedy starring Skylar Cooper and Guinevere Turner; Javier Fuentes-Leon’s Undertow, a haunting story of love and release set in a Peruvian fishing village; and the world premiere of documentary filmmaker Stu Maddox’s filmed-in-Boston Gen Silent, a film the examines the travails of the gay "greatest generation," now being forced back into the closet in order to survive the bureaucracy and homophobia associated with elder care facilities and services.
Kareem Mortimer’s drama Children of God, about anti-gay religious persecution in the Bahamas, receives its New England premiere at the film festival, as does Rivers Wash Over Me; for queer horror buffs, the festival includes Kevin Hamedani’s Zombies of Mass Destruction. There’s even a rockumentary, Madsen Minax’s "transfabulous" Riot Acts.
The festival brings together films from 20 countries, and includes selections for all ages groups. "As New England’s premiere LGBT film organization, the Festival reaches out to the cullturally rich and diverse communities of the region through Screenings on Tour and Festival Partnerships, in collaboration with other film festivals," the festival’s press release says. "With its Young LGBT Filmmakers program, the Festival provides education, outreach and exposure for emerging fillmmakers.
"The Boston LGBT Film Festival aims to stimulate thought and encourage dialogue while offering exposure and continued presence for filmmakers, artists and community organizations."
The festival opens with director Bob Christie’s globe-spanning documentary Beyond Gay: The Politics of Pride, which will be screened May 6 at the Museum of Fine Arts. A $40 combination ticket for the screening includes admittance to a pre-screening reception to take place at Bravo, a restaurant located at the MFA.
