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Manscaping, Chris Colfer and Kylie: What’s Gay At This Year’s Tribeca Film Festival?

 


One of the hottest tickets all year, the annual Tribeca Film Festival unspools in New York April 18 to 29. And while films like The Five-Year Engagement and The Avengers are grabbing headlines, there’s a number of flicks to tempt LGBT cinephiles—including queer docs, foreign films (like Yossi, above), features and shorts. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Click through for LGBT offerings from the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival

For details on gay film festivals around the world, visit the GayCities Film Festivals page. Photo: Suzanne Houchin

 

Any Day Now
Dir. Travis Fine. Starring: Alan Cumming, Garret Dillahunt, Frances Fisher, Isaac Levya

Set in late-1970s L.A. and inspired by a true story, this buzzworthy drama from Fine (The Space Between) follows a gay couple (Cumming and Dillahunt) who adopt Marco, a neighborhood boy with Down Syndrome who’s been abandoned by his drug-addict mom. But the new family is threatened when the authorities step in to take Marco away from the only stable environment he has only known.

 

 

Chupachups (Short)
Dir Ji-suk Kyung.

After passing the civil-service examination Sung-joo returns to her Korean hometown after a year to spend the day with her friend, Shin-hee, who stayed behind and runs a coffee house.

 

Hysteria
Dir. Tanya Wexler. Starring Hugh Dancy, Felicity Jones, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jonathan Pryce, Rupert Everett

Okay, yes, this adaptation of the acclaimed Broadway play, In The Next Room—about the invention of the vibrator in 1900s England—might not seem gay on the face of it. But the comedic subversion of Victorian sexual morality—not to mention the appearance of Everett—makes it a queer flick indeed.

 

Jack & Diane
Dir. Bradley Rust Gray. Starring Juno Temple, Riley Keough,
Cara Seymour

This lesbian-werewolf loves story has gone through more transformations than, well, Transformers: Back when it was first announced in 2007, Ellen Page and Olivia Thirlby were attached. But now it’s 2012 and Keough (Runaways) and Temple (Dirty Girl) are playing tomboy Jack and bubbly Diane, whose young love is tested when Diane must leave for Europe. Keough has some major rock-star pedigree (she’s Elvis Presley’s granddaughter) but gay fans will be drooling over the super-sapphic cameo by pop diva Kylie Minogue.

Photo: Magnolia Pictures

 

http://youtu.be/ydNMHKl9ma8

 

Keep the Lights On
Dir. Ira Sachs. Starring Zachary Booth, Thure Lindhardt.

We first reported on this tumultuous gay love story when it screened at Sundance back in January. Since then it’s gotten even more word-of-mouth acclaim and took the Teddy Award at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival. Based on director Ira Sach’s real-world relationship with literary agent/memoirst Bill Clegg, the film follows a ten-year on-again/off-again affair between two gay men in New York City.

 


Mansome
Dir. Morgan Spurlock

Super Size Me helmer Spurlock does a lot more than stuff his face with Big Macs. In his latest documentary, he explores the new style-conscious man, evidenced in the rise in manscaping, murses, and other telltale signs of metrosexuality. If that’s not appealing enough for you, how about candid commentary from Hollywood cuties like Paul Rudd, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman?

 

The Procession (Short)
Dir. Robert Festinger. Starring Lily Tomlin, Jesse Tyler Ferguson

Out actors Tomlin and Ferguson co-star in this comedic short about family and life’s strange turns, set around, of all things, a funeral procession. It’s the first directorial effort—and a significant change of pace—for Oscar-nominated screenwriter Festiger (In the Bedroom).

 


Stitches (Short)
Dir.  Adiya Imri Orr. Starring  Riki Blicj, Shira Katznlanbogen, Itzik Golan

In this short film from Israeli, girlfriends Amit and Noa are certain they want a baby—but soon enough women realize they don’t have a clue about how to take care of a child.

 

Struck by Lightning
Dir. Brian Dannelly
. Starring Chris Colfer, Alison Janney, Sarah Hyland,  Christina Hendricks

Not many young gay actors could get their first screenplay turned into a film starring Janney and Hendricks, but most aren’t Glee‘s Chris Colfer, who wrote and stars in Lightning as a high-school journalist recalling the last weeks of his life before getting hit by a bolt from the blue. If you like fast-paced, charming comedies set in conformity-loving high schools, you should enjoy this new effort from out director Brian Dannelly (Saved!).

 

Yossi
Dir. Eytan Fox. Ohad Knoller, Lior Ashkenazi, Oz Zehavi, Orly Silbersatz Banai, Ola Schur

Almost a decade after garnering praise with the closeted-military romance Yossi & Jagger, Israeli filmmaker Eytan Fox (Walk on Water) returns with this sequel, which sees Yossi (Knoller) as a still-closeted doctor whose emotionally empty life is changed forever on a spontaneous road trip.

Photo: Guy Raz

 

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