PUNTO DE VISTA FESTIVAL—Oskar Alegria Appointed New Artistic Director

One of the definite highlights of my participation in the recent San Francisco International Film Festival was befriending Oskar Alegria and having the opportunity to watch his transcendent experimental documentary In Search of Emak Bakia (2012) three times, which proved the charm. I'm delighted to announce the following, cribbed from the Punto De Vista Festival website.Taking over from Josetxo Cerdán, Oskar Alegria will be the Artistic Director of the Punto de Vista Festival for the next four years. The festival is maintaining its policy of having two directors, an Artistic Director, a pos

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FANTASIA 2013: SPECIAL LIVE THEATRE EVENT—Clive Barker's A History of the Devil

Photo courtesy of Julia MilzThe Fantasia International Film Festival (Fantasia) will again be delving into the realm of live theatre with a special three-night engagement of Title 66 Productions' acclaimed adaptation of Clive Barker's play, A History of the Devil. An epic show to stage, History weaves a tale told across thousands of years over the span of a near-three-hour running time. Director Jeremy Michael Segal and his team have created a macabre mounting that writhes with visual invention and primal acrobatics of performance. Black divinity will strike on August 1, 2 and 3, at Place

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FANTASIA 2013—A Lifetime Achievement Award for Andrzej Żuławski

Photo courtesy of SIPA Press / East NewsFor his singular vision, passion and bravery, the Fantasia International Film Festival (Fantasia) is bestowing their 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award to the great Polish master Andrzej Żuławski, director of such individualistic and award-winning acts of filmmaking as Possession (1981), La Femme Publique (1984) and L'Amour Braque (1985). A gifted and enormously unconventional talent, Żuławski has created some of the most breathtakingly unique films you will ever see. Feverishly cinematic and often controversial, Żuławski's filmography explodes with dizz

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FANTASIA 2013—THE FIRST WAVE

The Fantasia International Film Festival (Fantasia) is coming back, and coming soon. From July 18 through August 6, Montreal will be home to a showcase of over 100 feature films from around the world, along with a wealth of special events, conferences, and parties. Audiences can look forward to discovering numerous World and International premieres, as well as the Canadian debuts of some of the most acclaimed genre works from this year's Cannes, Sundance, SXSW, Berlin, and Tribeca film festivals. Fantasia's full lineup will be announced shortly; but, for now, Fantasia is pleased to reveal

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FRAMELINE 37—Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton (2013)

Big Joy: the Adventures of James Broughton (2013) [Official site / Facebook], a documentary portrait of the famed poet / filmmaker / sexual liberator, has been created with evident affection by co-directors Stephen Silha, Eric Slade and Dawn Logsdon. Big Joy is screening at Frameline only once this weekend, and is on hold-review so I'm not allowed to say much; but, it must be stressed that Big Joy is an absolute must-see at the festival, delightfully visualized through archival footage, crafty and seductive in its poeticized graphics ("Feathers or Lead" is brilliant, breathtaking), and vital

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FRAMELINE 37—Michael Hawley Previews the Line-up

The world's oldest LGBT film festival celebrates its 37th anniversary this year, as Frameline's 2013 edition rolls out in San Francisco and Berkeley from June 20 to 30. Globally, the fest also remains the largest event of its kind, with this year's record-setting 800 submissions being whittled down to a mere 82 features and 155 shorts representing 30 countries. At the festival press conference it was noted that 2013's line-up is top-heavy with romances and comedies, something not necessarily reflected in the seven narrative and four documentary features I previewed.For queers of a certain a

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FRAMELINE 37: WHITE NIGHT (BAEK YA, 2012)

Positioned within Frameline 37's spotlight on Queer Asian Cinema, South Korean entry White Night (Baek Ya, 2012) is LeeSong Hee-il's follow-up to No Regret (2006), which emerged as a milestone in Korean gay cinema. White Night had its international premiere in the Dragons & Tigers program at last September's Vancouver International Film Festival, and screened in BFI's Gay & Lesbian Film Festival and the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, and has continued its presence in various festivals worldwide, landing two screenings at San Francisco's Frameline.As synopsized by Brendan Pet

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FRAMELINE 37: PIT STOP (2013)—The Evening Class Interview With Producer Jonathan Duffy

It was my honor to write the Frameline 37 program capsule for Yen Tan's Pit Stop (2013) [Facebook], especially after having been so enamored with Tan's earlier effort Ciao (2008), and which I replicate here for easy reference.It might be difficult for urban gays to relate to the circumscribed lives of their small-town brethren, where options to assuage loneliness narrow down to limited or missed opportunities. Then again, loneliness is a universal animal, heedless of specific geography other than the vast terrain of the yearning heart, and when the "right one" finally comes along, it doesn't

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