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Scene: Los Angeles

July is a particularly good month to be a lesbian in Los Angeles. This is largely due to Outfest (the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival) but also to the disproportionate amount of bikinis per square mile (BPSM) you’ll find, even when you’re nowhere near the beach. But I did go to the beach, and to Outfest, and below are some of my notes from the field.

Scene 1: Outfest, Part 1 “Butches & Femmes” and “The Best of Lezploitation” Barnsdall Art Park, July 17

One of the high points of Outfest for me was the night of short films devoted to butches and femmes and lezploitation cinema held at the beautiful Barnsdall Art Park. The program description alone is compelling, right? I convinced my friend Buddy to come along as a photographer, using free movie tickets and the promise of intermission drinks as the bait.

Buddy is a genius choreographer (she choreographed everything we did in our drag troupe), as well as a talented DJ, photographer, painter, libertine and all-around Renaissance lesbian. She is my wingman. But she hates going to movies because she gets bored, even at the good ones. Naturally, she’d be the perfect choice as my companion to a double-feature.

The “Butches & Femmes” program was a mix of wildly diverse films. Inge Blackman’s Fem was like a visual poem, an open love letter to the femmes in her life. It wasn’t really my cuppa, but I dug the worshipful place from which it clearly came. Worst Case Scenario Butch Edition by Mary Guzmán was a hilarious primer for butch girls who are trying to negotiate various awkward social situations. (When holding the door for your girlfriend and your mom, which one of them goes first? Gads!)

FtF: Female to Femme was a long (48 min.) short that explored femme identity and sexuality, and it included much philosophizing by the likes of Guinevere Turner, Lesley Mah of Tribe 8, and other lovelies. The subject matter itself was fascinating, but I felt like the über-academic approach to the material smothered the life (and sizzle factor) out of the film.

For example, if you’re going to show me a burlesque routine, then just (as Rick James would say) give it to me, baby! Don’t deconstruct it afterward for crying out loud!

Buddy, unexpectedly, didn’t complain about FtF. But she did get up to get a drink from the concession stand and was gone long enough that I almost forgot she was there with me. Imagine my surprise (and delight) when she returned with a couple of beers!

Black Men and Me by Michele Clark was a 6-minute short filmed in a barbershop. In a voiceover, Clark ruminates about being a Trinidadian lesbian and her own complex relationship with black men as we (and the men in the shop) watch her getting her hair buzzed off. It was smart, thoughtful and personal. I loved it.

But one of my favorite parts of the evening was watching filmmaker Anna Margarita Albelo’s A Lez in Wonderland. This documentary about the debauchery that is the Dinah Shore Weekend in Palm Springs was propelled by Albelo’s hysterically funny narration, as well as the obvious glee with which she approached drunken gaggles of lesbians and asked them about where they were from and who what they were doing at the Dinah.

If you haven’t yet been to Dinah Shore Weekend, this documentary is a safe, sane, consensual (and cheap) way to have the experience. And if you have been to the Dinah, you will probably be squished down in your seat praying to God that you don’t see yourself doing body shots and some unfortunate dirty dancing with a bunch of topless lesbians. As I said to Buddy, that is one release form that I would never sign.

At the end of the program, the filmmakers were invited onstage to introduce themselves and field questions about their films. There, Albelo continued to hold court with her amusing anecdotes from the shoot. Completely charmed, we tracked her down at Ye Olde Vodka Well (aka the Absolut stand in the courtyard) and cornered her for a conversation.

She told us that she was set to depart the United States the following week for her next project, a super-secret documentary about lesbian life in Cuba.

When I followed up with her later, she told me this interesting story about getting A Lez in Wonderland funded:

The reality is that very few, if any, producers or TV channels want to fund lesbian films. Lesbian documentaries especially suffer from a bad reputation as either too niche, too austere or too amateur. Thankfully the French channel Canal Plus dedicates one night a year to produce and discuss gay and lesbian culture around the world.

In 2005 I had proposed a doc on the 30th anniversary of the Michigan Womyn’s Music fest, and the channel responded that they were too ugly.

Too ugly? Thirty thousand women?

Make no mistake, this is a problem with many sides. For them, they are under the impression that all the lesbians they ever see are more butch, feminist or non-feminine lesbians, and they were happily surprised by the series L Word (like many others) and wanted to show a different face of lesbians in France. The next year I proposed the Dinah for its glossy allure, but used the opportunity to show as many different lesbians as I could from all ages, colours, creeds, body types or even personality types!

Instead of waging hell on the channel for their comment, I used the opportunity to show them and everyone else who sees the film that there are all types of lesbians, even at the Dinah (presumed to be a “lipstick lesbian” event). More importantly for me was to show other lesbians, “Hey, look at all these types of women feeling good about being lesbians.”

Today this is my challenge: Make more films and show more understanding and facets for lesbian and non-lesbian audiences. And also to share information without being too didactic. My “Education through Comedy” principle is the basis for my docs and the stories I want to tell.”

When she passes through LA again, I’d like to take her out for a drink. Oh yeah, and get the full scoop on the Cuba documentary to share with you here on AfterEllen.com. About half of the fully-packed audience left after the “Butches & Femmes” program, which was too bad because the lezploitation documentary that followed, Triple X Selects: Best of Lezploitation, was pure kitschy, sexy fun.

Compiled by Michelle Johnson, this collection of outrageous clips from 20 films made between 1965 and the early 1980s was at times laugh-out-loud funny. Bad acting? Check. Ridiculous scenarios? Check, check. Hordes of randy, voluptuous, scantily clad women? Check, check, check!

Setting the tone for the remainder of the evening, Johnson took the stage and announced, “What a classy place to show a bunch of sleazy movies.” Johnson’s affinity for and vast knowledge of the films was obvious, and her introduction to the film was as amusing as the film itself.

Clips from Lezploitation would be too racy to put up here on our PG-13 website, but I will tell you that some of the films featured in it were Venus in Furs, Daughters of Lesbos, Chained Girls, Score, Ilsa: The Wicked Wardenand Bare Behind Bars. At one particular point in the film (don’t ask me which, it’s all a blur of bouffants and torpedo bras), Buddy and I had a Paris/Nicole moment when we turned to each other and exclaimed, “That’s hot!”

As if all of that weren’t enough, two hotties from Toys in Babeland were handing out goodie bags at intermission. Enough said.

Scene 2: Outfest, Part 2 “Girls’ Shorts” Directors Guild ofAmerica, July 20

This particular evening of films is always one of my favorites at Outfest. Shorts are a good fit for my attention span, and it seems like every lesbian in a 40-mile radius comes out of the woodwork to watch the work of up-and-coming filmmakers.

Plus, there’s an open bar.

I rolled out to this event solo, as my photographer was M.I.A. (Don’t worry, I found her later). I ran into some friends I hadn’t seen in awhile and stopped to talk for a few minutes. Unfortunately, the Directors Guild of America building was packed, so when I got into the auditorium I had to settle for a crappy seat near the front. But it didn’t matter. The shorts program that followed was one of the best I’d ever seen at Outfest.

Anne Renton’s Love Is Love imagined an opposite world in which straight people are the “queer” ones. Casting Pearls by Andrea James was about the misadventures of a transsexual actress (played by the very charismatic Calpernia Addams) who can’t get a break. Cherien Dabis’ Palestinian film Make a Wish was an absorbing character study of a young Palestinian girl on a mission.

At the End of the Street by Jennifer Malmqvist was an atmospheric Polish short about a bad lesbian breakup (featuring top-notch acting, too). Jen Heck’s Airplanes was a gorgeously filmed snapshot of a chance meeting between two star-crossed teen lovers. Christy Wegener’s Long Ago was a loving homage to the lesbian fashion tragedy known as the rat tail. Hilarious.

But for me (and, judging from audience response, many others), the high point of the evening came in the form of Pariah, a short film about a Bronx teen struggling to come out and define her identity despite opposition from her family.

Great production values, outrageously good performances from young lead actresses, and compelling writing held the entire theater rapt for nearly half an hour. When all of the filmmakers were invited on stage to field questions, audience members were eager to talk to director Dee Rees and producer Nekisa Cooper to find out when (not if ) Pariah would be made into a feature-length film. Yeah, it was that good.

After the shorts, I networked at the after party (i.e., I talked to a cute bartender) and then managed to steal Rees and Cooper away from their adoring fans long enough for a quick chat.

They told me that they’ve been thrilled with the positive response to the film (it was chosen as one of the official selections for the 2007 Sundance Screenwriters Lab and has won awards at Newfest, Frameline, the VIBE film festival and the Los Angeles Festival), particularly how well-received it’s been by such diverse audiences.

They also told me that they finished shooting and are now in post-production with a documentary about Rees’ grandmother, who escaped Liberia during the civil war, and her subsequent return back to her home. “The story is about rebuilding,” Cooper told me. The project was funded by Sundance, and they’re taking it to the Producers Lab there this month.

I took a great photo of Cooper and Rees at the DGA that night, but it was lost along with my camera at the Stevie Nicks concert at the Mid-State Fair the following week when I was all jacked up on cold medicine. They kindly replaced it with this one from their private collection: Later that week, Pariah won two Outfest Awards, the Grand Jury Prize for Outstanding Dramatic Short and the Audience Award for Outstanding Dramatic Short.

I told ya so.

(Look for a proper interview with Rees and Cooper on AfterEllen.com in the near future.)

Scene 3: Outfest, Part 3 VIP Filmmaker Welcome Party Sponsored by here! Networks The home of Stephen Macias, July 14

Stephen Macias of here! was kind (and brave?) enough to open up his home in Hollywood for the Outfest VIP Filmmaker Welcome Party, though he may have regretted it the next day. The gays were packed into his house like a clown car.

I met up there with my friend and “We’re Getting Nowhere” vlog partner Jill Bennett, who will be in the upcoming season of the here! gothic flesh-fest, Dante’s Cove. It’s fun to go places with Jill, because if she gets the rock star treatment, then I get it too. And let me assure you that the rock star treatment is not something to which most writers are accustomed (though I’m starting a campaign to change that). I gave my name at the door and walked through the front gate just as Jill was giving an interview to some TV reporter. She stood on smallest red carpet that I’ve ever seen, and I’m sure some humble production assistant spent a whole day trying trying to find it in various specialty stores across the city.

I watched for a few minutes and then went in to find AfterEllen.com contributing writer Dara Nai and her girlfriend, Brooke, inside. That may sound like a simple task, but with the number of bodies crammed into the place I was wishing I had a flare gun to signal my arrival.

The party was about 70 percent guys, which was kind of a bummer. It says something about the number of women filmmakers out there, or at least the number that end up participating in events like Outfest. There are definitely fewer of us than the boys. I’m hoping that there’s a more uplifting explanation for the disparity, like maybe that a lot of lesbians ditched the party in favor of a Pussycat Dolls performance.

But we made our own fun, and we met some new people too. One of them was Liz Feldman, a writer/producer for The Ellen DeGeneres Show. My First Time Driving, a comedic short written by Liz and directed by her sister, Rebecca, was featured at Outfest this year. The three of us spent some time trying to figure out which lesbians we knew in common, then Liz and Jill discussed the trials and tribulations of being poker sharks. I’m a lover, not a fighter, so I just stick with blackjack.

Later in the evening, I reconnected with a friend I haven’t seen in a couple of years, filmmaker Michelle Ehlen. Michelle was at Outfest with her feature film, Butch Jamie, which turned out to be a festival favorite. A few years ago Michelle made a couple of shorts for film school to which I generously contributed some really stilted, self-conscious acting.

When I read that she was starring in her film, I was surprised. The saying goes, “But what I really want to do is direct,” not the other way around. When did she start acting? And did she suck as hard at it as I did?

She told me: “I enjoyed it. I know some people find it stressful to switch back and forth between the roles, but it doesn’t bother me. When I’m acting, I like working with myself as a director because I can give myself a carte blanche. One of the challenges I have as an actor is letting go of inhibitions; for me, if there’s no one judging my performance, it helps free me to take more risks. That way I can assess my performance in the editing process and assemble a scene accordingly, rather than hold myself back on set because I’m trying to meet someone’s expectations.” A few days later, Michelle won the Outfest Award for Outstanding Actress in a Feature Film. Though she had spoken warmly of their working relationship, she did not thank her director.

At the end of the evening, we ran into Rebecca Sekulich, one of the producers of Angela Robinson’s genius web series, Girltrash. We made small talk, then Jill mercilessly harassed Rebecca about the fact that she wasn’t cast in Girltrash. Rebecca was able to come up with an excuse that Jill could live with, so then we called it a night.

On the way out, some weird straight (?) girl who had been eyeballing me all night yelled at me to “Chill out!” as I passed her in the hall. I was mortified. And confused.

I’m willing to take a scolding for being a wolf if I deserve it, but I hadn’t even done anything to earn this one! And she wasn’t even my type! So when I saw her outside by the valet, I told my friends about it, and we made sure to point and laugh.

Lesbian street justice.

U.S. Open of Surfing Huntington Beach , July 28

When we were invited to drop by the U.S. Open of Surfing to say hi to Gabrielle Christian and Mandy Musgrave from South of Nowhere, this little outing seemed like a great idea. Hang out with the SoN girls, watch some professional women surfers battle it out, and eat overpriced corndogs of dubious origins on the beach. What could possibly go wrong? I scooped up my event photographer (yep, it was Buddy) and we made the 60-mile trek to Huntington Beach, listening to vintage Melissa Etheridge, talking about the first time we ever heard “Somebody Bring Me Some Water,” then realizing in tandem that we are so gay.

A few miles away from the beach we hit a traffic jam that didn’t move. As we inched toward the beach, I assured both of us that we could pull into the closest lot and hoof it the rest of the way to the event. But there were no lots. None. There was only the standard beach parking lot that had probably filled up at dawn.

Huntington Beach hosts the U.S. Open of Surfing, and they don’t even create additional parking. I felt like the dad in Poltergeist who screams at greedy developer: “You left the bodies! You only moved the head stones!”

Mandy and Gabi were only scheduled to be there for a couple of hours, so I started to fret as the clock moved forward and my car didn’t. I asked Buddy if she was willing to take one for the team (the team being AfterEllen.com in this instance), and she agreed, hopping out of the car with her camera, going off to find the South of Nowhere tent. I meant to tell her to look for the long line of teenaged girls and embarrassed 40-something lesbians trying to hide behind their ball caps.

For the next two hours, I drove around looking for parking. I listened to Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, then all three of Pete Yorn’s studio albums. Back to back. His mellow vibe kept me from ramming into people with my car.

My photographer was having a better time of it — sort of. She easily found the girls and got a great pic of them, then spent the rest of the time wading through an unreasonably large crowd. I would periodically get texts from her: “U here yet?” or “Man, this parking thing sucks!” But then her mood turned, and I started to get texts along the lines of “Too many dudes here with no shirts and B.O. Ugh.” And “If I get pushed one more time …” She went radio silent for a while, and I hoped she was watching a woman surf and was not handcuffed to a chair in the security tent.

Eventually, I gave up. The parking gods had smote me. I texted her, “We’re outta here,” and told her where to meet me. As I inched toward her on the corner, it was clear that she’d had some sort of beach makeover. She was sporting a pink mesh trucker hat, had gotten rid of her shirt in favor of her tank top, and had some kind of surf lingo spray-painted down the side of her leg.

She told me that I was lucky that I had been in the car the whole time, then listed all the reasons why (sunburn, claustrophobia, the guys with B.O.). It did make me feel a little better.

We finally got out of the traffic snarl and found a Cuban restaurant that had cold beer and warm tapas. And then we headed back to L.A.

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