Out In Africa Film Festival

The 16th OUT IN AFRICA South African Gay & Lesbian Film Festival takes place in Johannesburg from 3-13 September and in Cape Town from 10-20 September 2009 and features 17 international feature films and 9 South African productions, five of which are world premieres.

The festival has a wide range of films to appeal to all with subjects that run the gamut of human experience. Themes range and include, amongst others: high school hilarities, forbidden love, coming out, the desire for children and ageing gigolos. Moviegoers can look forward to comedies, tragedies, dramas and thought provoking documentaries. Every genre of filmmaking is covered including homage to celebrated gay icons. Award winning international directors and actors will attend as guests of the festival.

The festival opens with Spinnin' (6 Billion Different People) a film made by Spanish director Eusebio Pastrana in 2007. This is the Spaniards at their wacky best – an exuberant award winning film set in Madrid in 1995 and follows lovers Garate and Omar as they seek to have a child.

Included in the line up is Fig Trees. Directed by John Greyson, this Canadian production is a contemporary opera based on the lives of South Africa’s own HIV/Aids activist, Zackie Achmat and Canadian Tim McCaskell. The film uses clever historical references to Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thompson and is richly layered, intelligent and unique. Greyson, who is considered the Prince of Gay Filmmaking, is a guest of the festival and will be in attendance. He travels courtesy of the Canadian High Commission.

Angel, directed by Giorgios Katakouzinos is an award winning film that when it debuted at Cannes in 1982, took the world by storm. Based on a true story this Greek classic is considered the one Greek film that all Greeks have seen.

Anyone who has seen Cabaret will be fascinated by Chris and Don, directed by Guido Santi and Tina Mascara this amazing documentary is about Christopher Isherwood whose short stories “Goodbye to Berlin” were the basis for the musical Cabaret. This sharp, witty and revealing film is told mainly by his lover, Don, and is supported by amazing archival footage of Hollywood starting in the late ’40s.

Courtesy of the British Council, the festival welcomes in attendance director Simon Pearce and producer Christian Martin whose film Shank follows the story of working class Cal who hides the fact that he is gay to his fellow gang members. Trouble erupts when he rescues a French boy his gang beats up. This explicit, shocking, largely hand-held film has already picked an international award and breathes new life into British alternative cinema.

Probably the most controversial film of the festival is the recently unbanned by the South African Film & Publications Board, XXY. This multi-award winning film is a complex tale of gender, identity and sexual orientation. Beautifully shot with stellar performances, the festival is proud to welcome the director, Lucía Puenzo and lead actor Inés Efron

Director Faith Trimel from the USA will also be in South Africa to present her film, Family, which is about a group of 30-something African-American lesbians who make a pact to finally come out to their families and colleagues with surprising and hilarious results. Trimel travels courtesy of the US Embassy, and will be accompanied in Cape Town by actor Blanca Avalos.

The South African films in the festival include a re-release of Zackie Achmat’s 1999 Apostles of Civilised Vice, an important film which unpacks the tangled, tragic and often ironic queer history of South Africa. Cunningly presented, endlessly revealing this film reclaims and rewrites the place of gays and lesbians in history and presents a new one that is celebrated, as opposed to criminalised and marginalised.

Directed by Jacque Oldfield and Adelheid Reinecke, the 16^th OUT IN AFRICA film festival will also be the world premiere for South Africa’s first full length lesbian feature film: Dykeumentary.

Opening the festival in both Johannesburg and Cape Town will be world acclaimed and beloved South African icon, Pieter Dirk Uys as himself.

Sponsors of the Festival include:
Atlantic Philanthropies, The National Lottery Board, Avis, Nu Metro, British Council,
French Embassy, Canadian High Commission, US Embassy, Argentine Embassy
La Scala Montecasino, and The Glen Cape Town

For more information go to: www.oia.co.za

The SoapBox Label

As some of you may know, Dylan Van Vuuren has started a project - The SoapBox Label - which is a brand that provides the platform for self expression using clothing as the medium of communication.

They have launched with an iconic limited edition black shirt proudly proclaiming your identity in a bold white print: “I Am An African.” The fitted style shirt is available as a vest, a crew-neck (the usual cut) and a V-neck. The vests go for just R80, and the T-shirts are only R100. By the way, they’re also proudly South African!

Check them out here:

Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/The-SoapBox-Label/108510454405?ref=ts

Website: http://www.thesoapboxlabel.co.za/

Interested? Sure you are. Send them a message, leave them a wall post or scream out loudly and they’ll get back to you. But please make sure your contact details are quite clear so that they can get back to you, otherwise they’ll just have to scream back. Be part of the movement, join them.

Support your fellow members, and remember: Wash your mouth out!

Election Fever!

The SRC is holding elections this week for next year's committee, as are we for RainbowUCT's 2010 Committee at tomorrow's discussion group! One of our very own, Brian Muller, is running for SRC and your vote would be appreciated. As we all know, LGBTI representation on the SRC has been dismal in the past, but since 2009 we have had Dylan Van Vuuren (another RainbowUCT member) on the Council. Hopefully we can keep up this positive trend - Vote for Brian Muller for SRC!

Don't forget to cast your vote, for both the RainbowUCT Elections tomorrow at the Pink Room in Centlivres Building from 16:45-18:00, and the SRC (at various voting stations on campus)! Yes we CAN!

Then, this Saturday (29 August), as you all should know, is the (Post) Mid-Year Function - East Meets West: Hollywood Meets Bollywood is going to be a blast! Be at the Tennis Club from 8pm to claim your share of 50 litres of wine! Snacks are being provided so don't be shy to come with an appetite too... I hope your sequins are all sewn on tightly, and your heels are stable, cos it's going to be a rough one!!!

Film Screening & Discussion Group

Last Friday's film screening was a huge success, with quite a big turnout! We hope that you'll join us this Friday, 14 August, for a screening of Transamerica. We'll start the film at about 17:30/18:00, and finish at about 20:00. So please join us in LS 3A for this really interesting movie. Then next Monday, 17 August, Josh (a trans-man) will share his story with us in The Pink Room in The Centlivres Building from 16:45 - 18:00.

Here is a synopsis of Transamerica from IMDb:

Bree, a pre-operative, male-to-female transsexual, holds down two jobs and saves every penny so that she can pay for one last operation that will make her a woman at last. One day, however, she receives a strange phone call. It appears that on the other side is Toby, apparently her son, who must be the product of a somewhat clumsy sexual encounter years ago when she was a man. He stays in New York, incarcerated. Bree flies from Los Angeles to New York in order to get the boy out of jail. At first she is reluctant to do so, but her therapist convinces her to face up to her past. The boy is handed over to her without a word of explanation and Toby believes the woman to be some Christian missionary determined to convert reprobates to Jesus; Bree sees no reason to clear up the misunderstanding. However, she finds out that the boy just wants to escape from her and hitchhike to Los Angeles. She persuades him to accompany her back to the west coast--secretly planning to leave him at his stepfather's along the way. Toby is happy to take her up on her offer.

See y'all!

Movie Screening!

We'll be screening the "banned" film, XXY, this Friday in LS 3A from between 17:30/18:00 until about 19:30/20:00 - the movie is about 90 minutes long. We'll be providing some snacks and refreshments, but please feel free to bring some of your own if you'd like. Also, don't be shy to bring some friends along if they're interested.

The following is a synopsis of the film from IMDb:

"Alex (Inés Efron), a 15-year old intersex person from Buenos Aires lives secluded with her parents in a fishing village in Uruguay. At birth, her parents decided not to have her operated on, in order for her to choose her gender. Therefore she still has both her sexual organs. However, she takes corticoids and is raised as a girl.
Her parents have moved several times before settling down in Uruguay in order to live a quiet life and keep her from the mockery Alex previously experienced while living in Argentina. One day, however, Alex's mother, Suli (Valeria Bertuccelli), invites a couple and their 15-year old son, Alvaro (Martín Piroyansky) for the week-end. Alvaro and Alex start a friendly relationship and spend a lot of time together under the scrutiny of their parents..."