By Beth Greenfield
The doc is in
A slew of New Fest documentaries proves that homo life is still far from homogeneous
If you've ever worried that the "gay community" has become a bland, mass-marketed scene made up of either married suburbanites or clubbing, druggy partyers, then you simply must get yourself to this year's New Fest: The 17th New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Film Festival. Because the New Fest is a testament to the mind-blowing diversity to be found in queer life—a diversity best experienced through more than 40 documentaries, each more fascinating than the next. You'll find docs on African-American lesbian drag balls and a long-term bisexual threesome, on transgender parents and Mr. Leather contests, on an LGBT retirement home in Amsterdam and German right-wing gay men, plus many more.
"This year includes a significantly higher number of documentaries than in the past, representing about 49 percent of the features," says Basil Tsiokos, director of New Fest, which opens Thursday 2. "It reflects changes stemming from the explosion in recent years of DV and video. More people are able to pick up inexpensive video cameras and make features than are able to afford 35mm."
One standout is Left Lane, subtitled On the Road with Folk Poet Alix Olson, which takes the viewer along as Olson performs in places ranging from Nebraska to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. The 29-year-old Olson is a mesmerizing firebrand, a joyful dyke-feminist preacher who started out on the poetry-slam circuit. And though her words themselves are adroit ("Attention shoppers! Attention 9-to-5 folk, cellphone masses, the up-and-coming classes, attention sports-utility, plastic-surgery suburbanites, viagra-popping, gucci-shopping urbanites, attention george cloonie loonies, promise-keeper sheep...Attention nation! America's on sale!"), it's her worked-up, passionate delivery that makes them brilliant. The film, directed by New York–based Samantha Farinella (Olson's close friend and tour manager), delivers plenty of electric performances. "I bought a Panasonic DVX100 and just starting shooting her nonstop for a year," Farinella says. In addition to the shows, we see Olson and her crew (including musicians Pamela Means and Chris Pureka) chatting in the car and clowning around backstage—and we get to meet Olson's cool, activist parents and grandmother, shedding light on where such an idealistic young spirit comes from.
Mr. Leather by Jason Garrett, meanwhile, elucidates a starkly different scene: the extensive world of leather men and leather contests, which take place in towns across the nation. "Leather, as we use it, is really a euphemism," leather-culture expert Guy Baldwin explains in the film. "The word refers to people who like rough sex, to motorcycle riders, butch gay men of all stripes and men interested in radical sexuality." After witnessing some small-time local contests, we meet the nine contenders for the big-daddy competition of them all—Mr. L.A. Leather—and watch them in pursuits both shallow, such as buying hot chaps or discussing S&M fantasies, and deep, like explaining to an audience how the leather scene is the nurturing family they've always craved.
A truly unique and loving unit is the subject of Three of Hearts: A Postmodern Family, in which director Susan Kaplan provides an intimate portrait of a long-term threesome in New York City. Filmed during eight years of the 13-year relationship among Steve, his husband Sam and their wife Samantha, the story deftly documents their youthful idealism, the confusion of friends and family, and the trio's collective journey into parenthood, ultimately raising questions like, is following your heart always the best way to go?
For Charles Busch it certainly is, as demonstrated in The Lady in Question Is Charles Busch. John Catania and Charles Ignacio's cleverly constructed movie looks at the life of this actor, drag queen and playwright, and explores the early influences of his mother, a favorite aunt and classic movies. "The old movie actresses inspired me—all these embattled women. But my aunt was an embattled woman, fighting for us, and my mother too—a tragic figure who died young," Busch recalls in the film. "And I supposed that when I do these old drag characters, it's a way of keeping these ladies alive within me."
New Fest opens Thursday 2 at Loews State Theater.