6 movies I saw at the North Carolina Gay and Lesbian and Film Festival

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North Carolina doesn't get many gay films so we have to watch as many as we can during the festival. So I watched six yesterday.

The four best:

Patrik 1.5, a Swedish film where a happily married gay couple adopt a child they think is a year and a half but is in reality 15 and a troubled homophobe. While having comedic moments it is a drama which explores both the strain the child brings to the marriage and the homophobia in the Swedish town where they live. Very touching film with leads that are easy on the eyes.

Redwoods, a young partnered gay with an autistic child meets a traveling writer while his partner and child are out of town. They have a very intense affair and he has to decide whether to leave his unhappy partnership or to break off the affair. Excellent film with great chemistry among the leads.

Shank, a very disturbing film set in and made in the UK. A young thug beats up a gay teacher and later one of his gay students but falls in love with the student. Very graphic, very hard to watch but a good film as the thug gets terrorized by his former partners.

Make the Yuletide Gay, a college student who is out at school but closeted at home goes home for the holidays only to have his boyfriend show up too. Sweet film about the struggle of coming out with a very funny Meet the Parents type feel. This is a movie which could be widely distributed.

The other two

Little Ashes, the story of Salvador Dali and Fredrico Garza. What should have been a very interesting story was sabatogued by the poor choice of casting for Dali.

On the Edge of Happiness, take off of soaps where a bride is shot on her wedding day with a gay preacher brother, a lover by whom she may be pregnant, the wife of the lover, a groom with parents who don't like her, and other fun clues. Decidedly low budget and a bit campy. Fun though.