Third Annual Out@Wex Festival Devoted to New Queer Cinema

The Wexner Center presents the third annual Out@Wex film festival, a celebration of innovative filmmaking around GLBT issues and subject matter, Thursday–Saturday, March 12–14. The festival features seven films, a party on Friday, and a Q&A session with interfaith chaplain Kayla Bonewell, who also appears in Equality U. Screenings include Cannes and Toronto festival favorite Love Songs, Bruce La Bruce’s avant-garde take on lustful zombies in Berlin Otto, or Up With Dead People, and the underground gem The Lollipop Generation, featuring musicians Vaginal Davis and Calvin Johnson. A complete schedule follows.

OUT@WEX VISITOR INFORMATION: Tickets for each screening are $7 general public, and $5 members, students, and senior citizens More event information or to purchase tickets: www.wexarts.org/fv or (614) 292-3535. All films will be screened in the center’s state-of-the-art Film/Video Theater, 1871 N. High St. Convenient parking is available in Ohio State’s Ohio Union Garage just south of the center. (Visitors also have the option of becoming a Wexner Center member at a 15% discount off regular membership price, along with two free tickets to an Out@Wex film or two free film passes; mention “Out@Wex” to join.)

OUT@WEX SCHEDULE

THURSDAY, MARCH 12

7 pm: Equality U (Dave O’Brien, 2008) 91 mins.

Q & A FOLLOWS

Equality U follows a group of young activists on the Soulforce Equality Ride, a two-month, cross-country tour to confront antigay discrimination policies at select conservative religious and military colleges. Kayla Bonewell, Interfaith Chaplain at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, who appears in the film, takes questions following the screening.

 

 

FRIDAY, MARCH 13

7 pm: Love Songs (Christophe Honoré, 2007) 100 mins.

Followed by Out@Wex party

An audience favorite at the Cannes and Toronto film festivals, Love Songs features a memorable score song by the cast, a balcony scene, and some of the most beautiful young French movie stars. Characters hop from bed to bed and confront both love and loss in this song-filled, tragedy-inflected romance. By the film's end, the pairings show a refreshing disregard for gender.

 

In between tonight’s films, the annual Out@Wex party will be held in the café area (with snacks and a cash bar).

 

10 pm:

Otto, or Up with Dead People (Bruce La Bruce, 2008) 95 mins.

"Sexy and silly in just the right proportions."—Nathan Lee, New York Times. The latest art-porn provocation from Bruce La Bruce, Otto depicts an explosion of cannibalistic, sodomy-seeking zombies in Berlin. The film follows a young lovesick zombie, Otto, as he shuffles through the city before being enlisted by a lesbian avant-garde filmmaker to star in her new film.

 

 

SATURDAY, MARCH 14

 

2 pm: The Edge of Heaven (Fatih Akin, 2007) 116 mins.

Moving back-and-forth between Germany and Turkey, The Edge of Heaven focuses on a young German woman who befriends and falls in love with a young Turkish woman, much to the dismay of her disapproving mother. The film, from the director of Head-On, interweaves the lives of five characters: a father and son, a mother and daughter, and a political activist. Featuring German screen icon Hanna Schygulla.

 

4:15 pm:

Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden, 1983) 80 mins.

Lizzie Borden's futuristic feminist drama follows the actions of the Women's Army, a powerful underground faction of female vigilantes formed to combat the rampant oppression of women in the director’s vision of an alternate America. Stay after the film for a conversation in which audience members have the opportunity to discuss their experiences related to the film’s topic.

 

7 pm:

Straightlaced: How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up (Debra Chasnoff, 2009) 70 mins.

Featuring candid interviews with more than 50 teenagers from diverse backgrounds, Straightlaced examines the stereotypes and antigay attitudes that result from the pressure on young people to conform to gender expectations. The film explores the pressure not only on GLBT kids to "fit in" but also on straight teens. Stay after the film for a conversation in which audience members have the opportunity to discuss their experiences related to the film's topic.

 

8:30 pm:

The Lollipop Generation (G. B. Jones, 2008) 70 mins.

"This legendary, unfinished film, fifteen years in the making,... is roughly to Queer Cinema what Orson Welles' The Other Side of Midnight is to, well, Cinema."—Dennis Cooper The Torontonian G. B. Jones has been called the "matriarch of queercore" for her work in film, music, zines, and art. Since 1992, she has been traveling North America with a Super-8 camera filming footage for The Lollipop Generation, a lost relic of underground cinema finally unearthed. The gritty and sweet DIY fable follows a young runaway girl who meets up with a cast of perverts, hustlers, playground dwellers, and lollipop lovers creating a never-never land of queeruptions. Featuring appearances by a rogues' gallery of gay and indie rock musicians and artists including Vaginal Davis and Calvin Johnson.

 

 

EVENT AND SEASON SUPPORT:

Support for Out@Wex is generously provided by ButtOut Ohio.

 

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

 

Out@Wex is Cosponsored by BRAVO, Equality Ohio, HRC Columbus Steering Committee, Kaleidoscope Youth Center, Ohio State’s GLBT Alumni Society, Ohio State’s Multicultural Center, and Stonewall Columbus.