This March the Wexner Center Hosts Three-Day Film Festival Devoted to New Queer Cinema

The Wexner Center presents Out @ Wex, Thursday–Saturday, March 1–3. A cinematic celebration of innovative queer filmmaking, this three–day, seven-film festival includes visiting filmmakers, a celebration party, and a tribute to Strand Releasing. Founded in 1989 by Marcus Hu and Jon Gerrans, Strand Releasing is one of the country’s most esteemed distributors of challenging independent film, fusing quality art films with commercial product. Strand received a lifetime achievement award from Los Angeles Outfest in 2002 for its ongoing commitment to gay and lesbian audiences and filmmakers; cofounder and President Marcus Hu visits for the screening of one of the company’s latest titles, The Man of My Life, on March 3.

Tickets to each feature are $7 for the general public, $5 for Wexner Center members, students, and senior citizens and are be available at 614-292-3535 or at the Wexner Center ticket office. All films screen in the Wexner Center Film/Video Theater located at 1871 North High Street. During the festival, audiences can also take part in a guided tour of the exhibitions Glenn Ligon: Some Changes and Sadie Benning: Suspended Animation. Both artists’ works explore issues of sexuality and identity with sensitivity, honesty, and humor. Tours are Thursday and Friday at 6 pm and Saturday at 1 pm and begin at the entrance to the galleries.

The schedule follows:

Thursday, March 1 | 7 pm 20 Straws (Youth Video OUTreach, 2007) Introduced by the filmmakers, reception follows.

20 Straws is a deeply touching and courageous film that takes a heartfelt and honest look at being young, gay, and out in America. Under the guidance of video artist Liv Gjestvang, nine talented young filmmakers share their stories of coming out and staying out in high school. For the past 18 months, the group of Columbus students has been working together to shoot and edit the film, which tells their stories in their own voices (28 mins, video). Partial proceeds from this event will go to Youth Video OUTreach to facilitate ongoing projects that build community and self-esteem through video.

8:30 pm Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner (Freida Lee Mock, 2006)

Playwright Tony Kushner, who became a public figure with his astonishing plays Angels in America and Wrestling with Angels, provides an intimate, often humorous look at his life as a gay, Jewish, leftist artist and citizen. The film begins in 2001, when Kushner was mounting the production of his play Homebody/Kabul and runs through 2004, as he worked on John Kerry's presidential campaign, got married to Mark Harris, worked with Maurice Sendak on a children’s play, and opened the Broadway musical Caroline, or Change (98 mins., 35mm).

Friday, March 2 | 7 pm Wild Tigers I Have Known (Cam Archer, 2006)

Executive-produced by Gus Van Sant, Wild Tigers I Have Known is a lyrical look at 13-year-old Logan as he acts out a crush on a cool ninth-grader named Rodeo. Director Cam Archer visualizes Logan’s progress in a hyper–sensual style, utterly reinventing the sexual coming of age genre (98 mins, video).

Wexner Center for the Arts The Ohio State University wexarts.org 614 292-3535 1871 N. High St. Columbus, OH 43210

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Immediately following the screening | Wexner Center Café Celebration Party

Stay for a party after tonight’s screening to celebrate the queer cinema at the Wexner Center. Light hors d‘oeuvres and cocktails provided immediately following Wild Tigers I Have Known.

Saturday, March 3 | 2 pm Caravaggio (Derek Jarman, 1986)

Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio, an exquisitely homo-erotic retelling of the painter’s short, violent life, is arguably the director’s greatest achievement. Jarman, who died from HIV complications in 1994, was originally a painter; his ecstatic identification with Caravaggio infuses every frame of this unique testament of one artist to another (93 mins., 35mm).

4 pm Lover Other (Barbara Hammer, 2005)

Pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer has been producing dyke–themed work since the 1970s and in Lover Other she continues her documentary investigation into hidden chapters of lesbian history. The film tells the story of 1920s surrealist artists Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, lesbians and half- sisters who lived and worked together under male pseudonyms all their lives in France (55 mins., video).

7 pm The Man of My Life (Zabou Breitman, 2006) Introduced by Marcus Hu, President of Strand Releasing.

From France, The Man of My Life is a bright, seductive story of three people enjoying themselves on a languorous, sun-dappled vacation. Upon its debut at last year’s Toronto Film Festival, the film was hailed as “alert, adult, audacious...a transcendent study of what draws men together” (114 mins., 35mm).

9:30 pm Puccini for Beginners (Maria Maggenti, 2006)

Ten years after her lesbian teen romance, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, director Maria Maggenti charts a bisexual romantic triangle in the delightful Puccini for Beginners. Focusing on a group of appealing New Yorkers uncertain where to look for love, the film is a lesbian screwball farce about emotional commitment and the comic consequences of doing it on the rebound. This film was also released by Strand Releasing (82 mins., 35mm).

EVENT SUPPORT

Promotional support for the Out@Wex film festival is provided by Outlook Weekly and Out in Columbus.

Community partners for the Out@Wex film festival are BRAVO, Equality Ohio, and Stonewall Columbus.

SEASON SUPPORT

Major support for the Wexner Center’s 2006–07 film/video season is generously provided by Abercrombie & Fitch and Mills James Productions.

Significant contributions are also made by the Rohauer Collection Foundation.

Additional funding is provided by the Corporate Annual Fund of the Wexner Center Foundation and Wexner Center members.