Brenda Webb, director of the 10th Chicago Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, wants to answer a question that hasn`t even been asked yet.
She feels it`s so important, however, that she makes it a point to ask it herself during an interview. ”After all these years, does a gay film festival still really need to exist?” asks Webb. She`s also executive director of Chicago Filmmakers, the non-profit organization that helps independent filmmakers and puts on the festival.
”In a way, the gay community is more visible and has made a lot of strides. . . . But I really feel this year is an important year, that this year we need a gay film festival even more than the first year of the festival, because for every step we`ve taken forward, it seems there are 10 steps backward.
”It hasn`t been a linear progression. There is a conservative backlash right now, and Jesse Helms is just a part of that. Gay-bashing is at an all-time high. Even though there was a period of time when there seemed to be more gay films coming out in the mainstream, it seems like even the gay community is starting to huddle in the closet again, sort of looking around. The AIDS epidemic has been a part of that.”
Webb expects 10,000 people at this year`s festival, up from 7,000 last year. Attendance has increased every year, she says, and this year, there has been an aggressive marketing campaign.
Still, Webb tells the story of a German director she knows who was recently in town for the Chicago International Film Festival, where the director`s film about a heterosexual relationship was shown. Webb noted that the film was similar to one titled ”November Moon” that the same director had made several years before, only about a homosexual love.
”She (the director) said it would not be possible for her to make
`November Moon` in Germany today,” recalls Webb. ”It simply wouldn`t be possible for her to get the money to make a lesbian love story with the production values of the first film. It`s the conservative backlash.”
The festival, the second-oldest gay-film celebration after San Francisco`s, starts Friday at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., and runs through Nov. 18 at nine locations. Besides the movies, there are parties and a panel discussion Nov. 17 at Ann Sathers restaurant on homophobia`s role in the arts. Tickets range from $4 to $6, with a festival pass good for all shows costing $55. (Call 312-281-1981 for more information.) Webb says that when the festival started, most of the films were about the gay ritual of coming out, of publicly announcing one`s gayness and living with the aftermath. ”Some still are. But what`s very nice is that many are now about relationships,” she says.
One such film is ”Johanna D`Arc of Mongolia,” a film by German director Ulrike Ottinger. Four European women, sophisticates, travel by train into Mongolia, where they`re abducted by a band of rough Mongolian horsewomen.
”It`s an exquisitely shot film, very exotic,” says Webb.
This year, the festival will stress an Asian theme with such films as
”Macho Dancer,” a Filipino entry by director Lino Brocka; ”The Last Song” by Pisan Akkarasen from Thailand, and ”The Outsiders,” directed by Taiwanese filmmaker Yu Kan-Ping. Webb says the Asian films stand out for at least a couple reasons: their convoluted plots and heavy-handed acting.
”Those of us in the West who see them tend to feel the films are a little melodramatic, a little overacted.” But the films are worth seeing for their sensitive portrayals, she says.
Another film that`s viewed as so important it`s being shown twice is
”Coming Out,” what Webb calls the ”first and last gay film to come out of East Germany.”
In it a man comes to terms with his homosexuality. Jewish, he survived a concentration camp. Once liberated and in the new workers` paradise of East Germany, he thought there`d be ”equality for everyone. No divisions based on class, race or sex. But he found that in the new system there was no room for the homosexual,” says Webb. The repression in East Germany was a metaphor for the repression of homosexuals, she says.
After 10 years, the festival isn`t ”hassled,” says Webb. But there are still plenty of indications of the discomfort much of society has with the sexual habits of this minority. ”There are the calls where people hang up, the obscene phone calls,” says Webb. ”Then there are people who ask us to take them off the (Chicago Filmmakers) mailing list because we don`t send our gay and lesbian film festival program in a brown wrapper. We don`t because it`s something we`re proud of.
”Homophobia is still there. I don`t know how it compares to the `50s, but it doesn`t seem a whole lot better.”
