We were first introduced to gay filmmaker Gregg Araki in high school when we saw The Doom Generation, but it was a few years later that we were truly won over by his earlier film The Living End. It's a tale of a street hustler and a filmmaker, both HIV+, driving across the country on the run from the cops and having lots of hot sex along the way. It's fraught with danger and sexual energy, has very spare dialogue, and requires some degree of interpretation.

Araki takes risks, and consequently his films aren't for everyone, but they are thought-provoking and always feature incredibly hot guys. Because of his groundbreaking work in gay cinema, he is being honored at the Provincetown International Film Festival with the 2006 "Filmmaker on the Edge" award. The festival started yesterday and continues through June 18, if you live nearby and want to catch a movie and see some crazy film queens running around in thongs (at least that's how we imagine it).

Gregg Araki is a filmmaker on the edge [In Newsweekly]
Provincetown International Film Festival [Official Site]