Ask AfterEllen.com (August 18, 2009)

Want to know the status of a particular movie, TV show, or band? Wondering what a certain actress is up to these days? Send your entertainment-related questions to askafterellen@gmail.com — with your first name, city and country — and we'll try to answer as many as we can.

Question: I love everything that Leisha Hailey has recorded with Uh Huh Her and loved her in The L Word. I was wondering when we can expect new music or other projects from Leisha since The Farm never took off?

― Tiffany

Leisha Hailey and Camila Grey of Uh Huh Her

Answer: Aside from her recent appeared in the Lifetime mini-series Maneater, there's not much news on Hailey's post-L Word acting career. Of course, that could all change if Ilene Chaiken makes good on her threat promise to bring the show to the big screen. In addition to the joy of potentially seeing L Word-themed Happy Meals (the Shane action figure would, naturally, come with a set of mini-shears), many fans of the show would like to see Hailey's Alice and the other series regulars get another shot at redemption after the controversial series finale.

In the meantime, Hailey fans can look forward to a new release from Uh Huh Her sometime soon. Hailey and bandmate Camila Grey are in the studio working on the CD now (with Wendy Melvoin), and they're posting progress reports and some fun pictures on Twitter and the Uh Huh Her MySpace page.

Leisha Hailey clowning in the studio

Here's a tidbit from a recent update:

We’re currently in the middle stages of recording our record, which is very exciting. We’ve had a lot of time to sit back and contemplate life, liberty, and the usual. This new record is very adventurous, and we’ve found that we have so much material that we’ll have ample songs leftover for B-sides and another EP for sure.

The band also reports that their most recent release, Common Reaction, is going to be released in the Europe later this month and in early September they'll be performing at the Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle.

Question: I recently discovered the Australian short film Lightswitch starring Kylie Watson and I was wondering if I could watch it anywhere online?

― Meg

Answer: Lightswitch is a short that's getting a lot of attention in both the lesbian press and on the LGBT festival circuit. Directed by Emma Keltie and written by Natalie Krikowa and Penny Glasswell, it stars Kylie Watson (Home and Away) and Lara Dignam as two women brought together by a chance meeting.

The filmmakers (from Down Dere Films) made an appearance on AfterEllen.com in comedian Cat Davis's vlog Cat on the Prowl back in February. They talked about Lightswitch and, of course, picking up girls. (It is, after all, Cat on the Prowl!)

The film continues to travel the festival circuit, with an upcoming screening at the Paris International Lesbian and Feminist Film Festival (October 29 - Nov 2, 2009). But if you can't make it to Paris, you can also order the DVD (loaded with lots of bonus features) from the Lightswitch website.

For those of you unfamiliar with Watson, she played sassy lifeguard Shauna on Home and Away (2000-2002) and publicly came out in an interview with Cherrie magazine in 2008, probably to the satisfaction of all the H & A viewers who had sent her fan mail asking if she was gay.