Highlighing The Best Gay Films of RBFF 2015
This year’s Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival (November 7-15) offers more days of screenings for film enthusiasts to see a wonderful selection of films including ones that are of special interest to the LGBT audience.
This year the films will be presented at the beautiful Cape Henlopen High School, the Metropolitan Community Church Rehoboth, and the Baycenter in Dewey Beach.
New features of the Festival include online ticket sales, rush tickets, and a great schedule of Social Hub activities at the brand new Crooked Hammock Restaurant. After reading this article, go to rehobothfilm.com to watch film trailers or for more information about how you can attend this amazing event.
Making up this years LGBT offerings are the following films:
Fourth Man Out
Just like his pals, twenty-something auto mechanic Adam enjoys beer, hockey, and inappropriate bodily functions. But Adam also likes guys. A hilarious mash-up of man-child and coming-out comedies, Fourth Man Out examines a small-town, blue-collar guy who lets his friends know he's gay—and what happens when they try to help him find a boyfriend. Both rudely funny and daring in its exploration of the kind of gay man we rarely see on the big screen, With a strong ensemble cast that includes Glee's Chord Overstreet, Fourth Man Out is a feel-good comedy with plenty of heart that focuses on the growing pains of friendship. [Dir. Andrew Nackman, 2015, USA, 95 minutes.]
Liz in September (Liz en Septiembre)
With a powerful mixture of humor and heartbreak, acclaimed Venezuelan filmmaker Fina Torres (Woman on Top) adapts Jane Chambers' ground-breaking play Last Summer at Bluefish Cove to dazzling results. Strong-willed womanizer Liz refuses to call attention to her health issues. When she meets the equally troubled Eva while on vacation with friends in the Caribbean, the two sense a powerful, unnerving chemistry that goes beyond anything either have felt in past romances. Both have secrets they'd prefer no one know about, and yet their shared connection leads them down an unexpected path where their views of love and life change forever. [Dir. Fina Torres, 2014, Venezuela, 92 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles.]
Margarita With A Straw
In this inspirational love story, Laila is a student and aspiring writer, and a member of a band at her university in Delhi. Her cerebral palsy doesn't much get in the way of her life, although it sometimes does for others. Always seeking more freedom and new experience, Laila wins a place at New York University and leaves India for Manhattan. There she meets a fiery activist, Khanum who challenges her beliefs, sparks her creativity, and, eventually, takes her to bed. For these two women, it's the beginning of a remarkable love story. [Dir. Shonali Bose, 2014, India/USA, 100 minutes. In Hindi and English with English subtitles.]
The New Girlfriend (Une nouvelle amie)
After mourning the loss of Laura, her childhood friend (and unrequited love), Claire comes across Laura's husband David dressed head-to-toe in his wife's clothes. Unsure whether his new guise is the result of foul play, she threatens to reveal David to Laura's family. But the more time she spends with him, the more Claire becomes seduced by his beautiful new incarnation. As the two become inseparable, Claire wonders whether she is falling for David's alter ego, or perhaps a part of Laura's resurrected soul. The New Girlfriend pays homage to classic cinema—from Rebecca to All About My Mother—while injecting its own brand of sensual, sometimes sinister, eroticism. [Dir. Francois Ozon, 2014, France, 105 minutes. In French with English subtitles.]
Tab Hunter Confidential
In the squeaky-clean 1950s, Tab Hunter was the perfect pinup, a virile, handsome movie star and singer of chart-topping hits. What his female fans didn't know was that Tab Hunter was gay in an era when coming out would have destroyed his career. Director Jeffrey Schwarz (Vito, I Am Divine) tells Hunter's life story, from Hollywood stardom and his secret affair with Anthony Perkins to finding true love after 50. Hunter takes us through the ups and downs of his life, and friends and co-stars— including Debbie Reynolds, Robert Wagner, and Portia DeRossi—who share their stories about this one-of-a-kind screen icon. [Dir. Jeffrey Schwarz, 2015, USA, 92 minutes.]
Those People
Charlie and Sebastian have been best friends since childhood, despite Charlie’s not-so-secret obsession with his rich and charismatic pal. Following the arrest of Sebastian’s father on fraud-related charges, Charlie moves in with his friend to serve as support and confidant. At the same time, Charlie meets Tim, a pianist, whose willingness to talk about his feelings is both intriguing and intimidating to the perpetually single Charlie. Soon Charlie is facing a choice between what he has always wanted and what might be, though neither option proves easy. Set in the wealthy world of Manhattans elite millennials, Those People tells a familiar story of loyalty, but in a way that is uniquely beautiful. [Dir. Joey Kuhn, 2015, USA, 88 minutes.]
As usual, the festival also has a few films that, while not defined solely as LGBT films, the characters, themes, or subject matter dealing with LGBT issues, make them of interest to the LGBT community.
Best of Enemies
In 1968, liberal Gore Vidal and conservative William F. Buckley Jr. were invited to participate in a series of nationally televised debates on the Democratic and Republican national conventions as an attempt to bump up ratings for ABC. Best of Enemies is the behind-the-scenes look at the explosive live event, filled with deep insults, both personal and political, that launched the shift in public debate from substance to spectacle. From filmmakers Robert Gordon and Academy Award-winning Morgan Neville (Twenty Feet From Stardom), comes a brilliant and often hilarious take on the verbal boxing match that changed the way we talk about politics. [Dirs. Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville, 2015, USA, 88 minutes.]
Elephant Song
Bathed in the steely cold blues of a Canadian winter in 1966, Elephant Song offers a chilly look at trust, secrets, and truth. When a psychiatrist disappears, hospital director Dr. Toby Green (Bruce Greenwood) interviews Michael, the last patient who was with the missing doctor. Michael (played with hypnotic intensity by Xavier Dolan,) seems disturbingly unconcerned with the day's events and he leads Dr. Green on a twisting game of cat-and-mouse, each man vying for control. Meanwhile, Nurse Susan Peterson (Catherine Keener), who knows Michael very well, grows increasingly concerned that Dr. Green is questioning Michael without having read his files. Gradually, secrets of past and present are revealed. [Dir. Charles Binamé, 2014, Canada, 110 minutes.]
Sworn Virgin (Vergine Giurata)
As a young woman living within the confines of a Northern Albanian village, Hana longs to escape the shackles of womanhood, and live her life as a man. To do so she must evoke an old law of the Kanun and take an oath to eternally remain a virgin. Years later, as Mark, she leaves home for the first time and travels to Italy to stay with her sister, crossing over into a world unlike anything she has known before. There, she discovers herself again, leading her to contemplate the possibility of undoing the vow she made so long ago. [Dir. Laura Bispuri, 2015, Italy, 88 minutes. In Albanian and Italian with English subtitles.]
So whether it is one of the LGBT films listed here, or any one of the other great films, we hope to see you at the Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival November 7-15!