OUTFEST 2007: THE CHAMPAGNE OF QUEERS

Ahh, Outfest. So much to write about. To make this easier on both of us, grab yourself a cocktail or two, and pretend you are at the complimentary Heineken bar. You know, the one you shamelessly dashed to, only to miss a couple important post screening Q n A’s. (don’t act like you didn’t!)….

Last June, myself and Packin’ Heat partner Jenny Caloca threw our annual East Side, gay pride party downtown, a la ‘Homo Arigato.’ It was an amazing event promoting Japanese culture, local artists, and the web launch of tokyowrestling.com. (where you can also read these reviews). A beautiful international partnership was forged and Outfest press passes were finagled. (Thank you Yuki!) If you did not get a chance to meet the girls of Tokyo Wrestling while they were in LA, here is your chance to get acquainted with a major force in promoting lesbian culture in Japan. (I will wait. whistling...)

Welcome back. Although there were so many amazing films this year, I could only ditch work long enough for three major events. Starting Tusesday nite at Barnsdall Park, I caught the Butches and Femmes shorts, and then held out for all the money shots in Michelle Johnson’s long awaited compilation of 70’s porn, which she thankfully edited to show more rock and less cock.

Here’s where I do shame to all writers, and where you my friend should grab that second cocktail I talked about earlier.

Um...highlights: the hilarious ‘how to’ film of Mary Guzman ‘Worst Case Scenario: Butch Edition’. I couldn’t wait to see more do’s and don’ts of Butch etiquette via 50’s inspired black and white scenarios. The earring scene killed me. I wanna say netflix that shit quick, but maybe you can only ‘you tube’ it, oh well. ‘FTF:Female to Femme' was an equally comical journey. I say journey because although it did bring to light the gut wrenching tales of women struggling to find their Femme identity in a world wrought with unacceptance of heels and make up, (oh you poor, poor femmes), I felt it was a little long to be a short. (dissin’ femmes = great way to get yerself laid!)

Leslie Mah: closet femme

Although I did want to pee in my pants with laughter, I did make it to the bathroom, but only to lose my shit over Anna Margarita Albelo’s Dinah Shore mock doc, ‘A Lez in Wonderland’. My banana suit and I still recovering from this year’s Dinah, Albelo took us down memory lane, to a Dinah of yesterqueer. If there was a film to be made about Dinah, and the right way to do it, this gal captured it perfectly. Brilliantly sandwiched between her mimed journey in the desert, Albelo with the cutest accent ever, candidly and comically uncovers what really does happen ‘when 10,000 women meet in Palm Springs for Dinah Shore weekend..’ To which I question, what happens when 10,000 mostly lesbian women meet anywhere? In any case, they sure ain’t watchin’ no golf!

(See below for interview with Anna Margarita)

Double Trouble! Anna LaChocha!

photo courtesy of Alexandra Gibson

Albelo is a tough act to follow, but if you stuck around after the free bar (THANK YOU OUTFEST, THANK YOU!!!), you were in for a real treat. It is rumored that Michelle Johnson’s masturbaitorial film debut…‘Triple X Selects: the Best of Lezsploitation’ actually shut down the local sex shop post screening. Even before the film had driven everyone into a methed up fuck frenzy state, role play was already abound. A barrage of lovely ladies actually found time to dress to the 9’s in support of their favorite characters of Johnson’s strapping masterpiece.

To the 9's! the 6-9's!

photo courtesy of Alexandra Gibson

Mostly arranged of the 'Off Ramp' fashionistas and burlesque troupe, ‘The Miracle Whips,’I got to see an entertaining real life reenactment of ‘Female to Femme’ pre show at Mad-Dawg's house during cocktails. And then of course, ‘F to F, Butch Edition' followed as their handsome counterparts debated on the melting point of spirit glue on an LA summer nite. To 'stache or not to 'stache? Uh, don’t act like you butches don’t need a fashion support group too!

Les Whips

Oh yeah, film not fashion. A long time hobby turned international film favorite, the body of work compiled by local dj, Michelle Triple X, showcases the finest of three decades of soft core b movie porn perfectly matched to each segment and Johnson’s fine collection of licorice pizza.

you 'member licorice pizza stores? wow, you're old.

Licorice Pizza. Delicious Vinyl. Hot Wax = 'record' . do you remember records? You're even older.

Man, I just love discovering the many secret talents of lesbians, and anyone whose hobby actually turns into somethin’ big. 69’ing nuns, dildos bein’ passed between jail cells, lesbos vampyros, and probably the best ride through Bush Gardens ever! Although most of these movies were made for hetero male enjoyment, Michelle thankfully cut the Johnson out of these films, to reclaim them for dykes and the people who love them. Hot shit.

'Vampyros Lesbos' Translation: 'damn I want in there!'

Wednesday and Thursday Nite at the Echo: ‘Boom!’ Outfest’s first of it’s kind grandscale music festival was spearheaded by the local fave’d Lavender Diamond and brought home with a long awaited performance by Portland area'd Team Dresch. Amongst other highlights, and high life’s, your ears would have been graced by Becky Stark, lead singer of Lavender Diamond, Red Car, Emily Wells, Vivek Shraya (album produced by Meghan Toohey), and multi-talented members of Addicted to Fiction’s harder core lovechild, We Float. Despite some sound (and other issues, and by issues I mean drama!) on Wednesday nite, you could catch some amazing local music between the snow and shit storms, if ya know what I mean.

+

= good times!!!

Thursday’s events seemed to be more together, and energy driven, as noted single handedly by the barrage of excited comments and eager beavers on Team Dresch’s myspace site. Each of whom I’m sure was in the audience, and rightfully vindicated. Contrary to rumor, there were no highly anticipated crowd ‘floaters’ during We Float, but the members of the ‘Miracle Whips’ traded their 70’s garb for an onstage, sexy Zorro-esque tribute to Sonic Youth via ‘Kool Thing’. Although dildo’s were not used in place of swords (wah), the We-Whips proved a deadly combination, each using their not so secret weapon to stir the crowd into a frenzy…rock and ass, respectively.

The 'We Whips'

And now I find myself in a tipsy daze, but must go on as the highly anticipated ‘Girls Shorts’ are showing at the DGA. God, i forgot what a bitch it was to drive anywhere in this town on a Friday!

Jane Lynch in 'Love is Love'. Best in blow.

But for you Jane, anything...I think ‘Love is Love’ (dir. Anne Renton) should be shown in every high school along with those really bad sex education films (which in turn should be replaced with ‘Worst Case Scenario: Butch Edition’!). Not only to help young people start seeing sexuality from different perspectives early on, but also to see what would happen if (gasp!) the heteros were the minority in a gay dominated society! So good, and duh, Jane Lynch! With all the cameos of gay icons (ie Guinevere Turner and Jane Lynch) in this festival, I really think there needs to be a subset called ‘Guin-fest’. Sorry Jane, ‘Lynchfest’ no sound so good. Also, check out another homie spotted in a film: Valerie Hurt of 'The Beth and Val Show,' in not her first nude bedroom scene! Holla!

Anyhoo, Calpernia Addams brings every (transsexual or not) actors’ worst casting calls to a brilliant satirical lisp, I mean light, in ‘Casting Pearls’ (dir. Andrea James). And ‘Long Ago' (dir.Christy Wegener), when rat tails were only second to the mullet as bad fashion dyke staples, we can laugh at the shallowness and severity of lesbian fashion faux paus’. (Not to mention, a hot cameo of our hot little Tamale at Chango). Ironically, these struggles are confided by the main character in an older barkeep, who’s mullet commands more respect than that time you had to use Palmolive as lube.

'Long Ago'. Rat tales

Hang tight here, the best is last and then I’m poppin a couple Tylenol PM’s even though it is only 2pm and I need to make it to Itty Bitty by 7:30.

Always working...with Michelle Johnson of 'Best of Lezsploitation' at 'Itty Bitty' at the Ford

‘Pariah,’ (dir. Dee Rees) a smaller version of a feature soon to be in the works, showcases the struggles of growing up as a gay woman of color in New York. Although, filmed in Brooklyn and the Bronx, I think the story commands the suspension of geography to represent the main character’s, ‘Lee’, or rather ‘Aleeka,’ struggle in any big city regardless of temporal or spatial bounds. This film had me in tears, as I watched Lee change her clothes from butch to femme to please and hide her sexual identity from her parents, and then back again to maintain her friendship/butch identity with her older butch mentor and, most importantly, all the hot ladies in her cell phone. The film expresses the one thing all queer people have in common, coming out, but through the eyes and scenarios of two (brilliantly cast) young African American women, in a most moving, unique, and powerful way.

'Pariah'. Good shit.

Getting socked in the face by your father for being gay is no coming out party.

But thank God Outfest is. And thank God there is such a venue to show these films and potentially get them funding for bigger and wider releases and features. And more importantly to highlight all facets of the LGBT community; butch, femme, black, white, brown, pink (as in the 'Pariah' dildo), and so on. I only touched on a miniscule amount of amazingness (that is a legit word now ok). I am exhausted, but elated to have been able to see all these films and performances, and q and a’s, and Heinekens, and absoluts, and interviews, and more Heinekens, and press photos. And so F Tylenol PM, I will now try to look for the vicodin I hid from myself after Dinah Shore. Then I will chase it with a few Sofia Mini's, which, as Guinevere Turner (not to be missed at next years ‘Guin-fest’!) would agree, like Outfest, is the Champagne of Queers!

Cheers!

'Guin-fest '08' (ps, don't kill me for this)

SEE OPENING NITE AND OTHER OUTFEST FOTOS HERE!

OUTFEST 2007: Interview with Anna Margarita Albelo

Filmmaker, ‘A Lez in Wonderland’



Shown in Butches and Femmes shorts
July at Outfest Los Angeles

Interview by Xkiller.
For Tokyo Wrestling http://www.tokyowrestling.com/
At house in Silverlake.

XK: (in my best airplane robot safety voice) Hello.. I am doing an interview today with Anna Margarita, Albelo. Albelo? De Miami?
AM: Also known as La Chocha…
XK: La Chocha, si…
(Tape recorder difficulties and laughing. More laughs about how she had slept on a similar Ikea pull out sofa bed for 2 1/2 years in a drug infested apartment in Paris.)

XK: Was this when you just moved to Paris?
AM: No, I moved to Paris in 1993. I was 23.

XK: And tell me again, why ‘Paree’?
AM: It’s unexplainable but I found different rationales for it, I loved the history, I love France, and…also because I’m Cuban and I spoke Spanish at home and I was raised in America with an Anglo Saxon thing… I don’t like too much Latin and I don’t like too much Anglo, and France is like a mixture where you have Anglo intellectualism with Latin emotionalism.

There are so many paradoxes in France that I love everything it exemplifies.
Wherever you live tells a lot about you, and I like that. There’s a weird nonconformity about living in Paris…it gives all these romantic images and at the same time it’s kind of difficult. In New York, only the strong survive, in Paris only the strong survive too.
But in a more finesse way, whereas in New York, if you’re tough enough, if you’re strong enough, you can break down the doors. In Paris that doesn’t really work, you have to learn this kind of finesse about explaining what you’re doing, what you’re doing, and then just like any major city, being tough, learning by getting beat up, how to survive.

XK: Interesting…
AM: …And the women….I’ve only fallen in love with French women. It’s not an easy burden. (shaking head) Not a light burden..


I totally get it

XK: And there you are in France of all places.. (god I’m good!)
AM: You have a light?
(Anna lights up her ultra white trash out here, but uber cool in Europe, Capri cigarette. We smoke together)

XK: So wait, I wrote notes about you, I went to your myspace. [ I am semi scolded for not reading all of her blogs. Because if I had, I would have found out, as Anna tells me, of her unbridled passion for Barbara Streisand, and how she, [like tons of other panic stricken homos] rushed to one of Babs’ fifty ‘last show EVER’s’. We swap Yentl stories… ]
AM: Yeah I told my mom I wanna be ‘Jewban’. [Much to the horror of her mother].

AM: Hachoo!
XK: Salud! I read that you got a third place audience award in Toronto in the ‘Bad Grrrl’s’ program for ‘A Lez in Wonderland’….that’s amazing…
AM: Yes, that was awesome.

XK: So how did Canal Plus [pronounced ‘canal ploos’] pick you up for that?
AM: I studied TV and media and then I got into film school and I then wanted to go to Paris….in America I was learning ‘goal, goal, goal,’ and in the 90’s it was like ‘oh, you wanna be the youngest filmmaker?’…all these things started happening… independent films started happening, and it was like try to get there as fast as possible. ‘Go, go go!’… and all of a sudden, I was like, look I did it, and my family didn’t have any money, I paid for my college, I had like 3 jobs, but I don’t wanna keep goin so fast, I wanna enjoy life, but I also knew I had to relearn life. [Referring to US and France:] Here you live to work, and over there you work to live, and that’s why the French have minimum wage, but they have 5 weeks paid vacation, plus you have a paid 13th month, and a two hour lunch…

XK: A two hour lunch! I don’t know if I’d come back!
AM: [Laughs] But you do…It’s really made for living well and still working and making money. I started with video…I’m really a do it yourself filmmaker, that’s really my path after the official education of college. I did a lot of free workshops, like teaching girls how to do it. My first job in Paris, I was working for Sony video…and everyone says ‘I wanna make a film, but I don’t have the money’, and I was like ‘today, compared to like 10 -15 years ago, you have a video camera, you have a computer, you can make a movie!’

And even before you make a movie, make short movies, the 3 things you have to do is: do it, edit it, meaning finish it, and then you show it. The important thing is to finish it and show it. Most people film it and then don’t finish it. And if they finish it, they don’t show it. Even if you show it to five friends in your living room, the important thing is to show it and to send it to film festivals.

There are so few lesbians sending, there may be a lot of lesbians making it, but I’ve been doing film festivals for 11 years, and if you do show it, try as much as possible to be there, and if you can be there, try as much as possible to force them to let you do a question and answer, or at least to present you so people know who you are, so you can have that discussion, a dialogue with the people who see it. Even if it sucks, but every time you see it with other people, you see it another way…you start absorbing, and get into a different point of view, and all that helps you objectively see your film. Money is not an excuse. Time is not even an excuse.

XK: True, I think if you really want to do something, you will find a way. With fashion, I just started doing it. I just started doing fashion shows at local clubs and selling out of my house and my truck. It all depends on your drive.
AM: Exactly. And also I think the main thing that hampers everyone from doing anything is the fear of being ridiculous. You know it’s like, it’s not even really failure, it’s of being perceived as ridiculous, the idea of being ridiculed…it’s like, who cares if someone’s gonna say ‘no’, you know that somewhere along the line someone’s gonna say ‘yes’.

[and just as we are talking about failure, my dear friend Amanda, of AmandaFailurePrincess.com, is peering in the window. Gasp! I think it’s neighbor crack head Tony high as b’Jesus peering in with beckoning eyes for a cigarette. I see her curly hair and calm down. After a quick scolding, Manda comes in and kicks it.]

XK: You scared the shit outa me!
AM: She scared the shit outa me too!
AFP: Sorry guys…

XK: So yeah, fuckin’ good shit. [Profound as always]
AM: It’s like the same, HBO and Canal Plus, out here, that’s who does the original programming, the amazing, groundbreaking…

XK: Did they contact you?
AM: No. The thing is this film is the result of many years of trying to break into… from underground video and film maker and performance artist and you know…to serious filmmaker. This film cost 8000 euros, which is like 100,000 dollars. This is the first time I dealt with that much of a budget.

[She explains how European film venues wouldn’t take her seriously because she was from America, and thought she was just going to leave. No one wants to invest their time in young Americans with big Euro film dreams. But Anna kept on showing at film festivals and finally…]

… I wanted to show them it wasn’t just a lark or just a fling. So they had asked ten lesbian filmmakers from around the world to do a ten minute short doc on their city. I never did a documentary so I kind of invented it, and the idea of a reporter.

XK: Was this the Dinah thing?
AM: No, it was on lesbian life in Los Angeles. They liked it, and then two years later, they said ‘give us a proposal’, so I gave them the Michigan thing, [the annual Michigan Women’s Music Festival] and they said ‘No. We don’t want those kind of lesbians, they are too ugly, we don’t want to see this type of lesbian…’


Michigan or bust!!

XK:[Laughing or rather guffawing stupidly]
AM: They said ‘We want Dinah Shore’. So last year I said ‘fuck it’, I wanted to do a thing on the lipstick lesbian revolution…they loved it… ‘We learned so much from your 12 page presentation… but we don’t want a 60 minute documentary. We want you in front of the camera, we want you to make us laugh, we wanna know what it is, who goes there, and what’s it about. And we want everyone at the end of the film to wanna go there.’ So now I had to write myself into this serious documentary I had written, and that’s when I came back and I said to them, ‘Ok, I’m a mime, the screen’s black…I’m in the dessert….It’s a metaphor for looking for other women…’ And I did my pitch and …it was just so crazy that they said yes to everything I wanted…. ‘I want a convertible, I need money for clothes, I need a haircut, facial…’

[Damn Chocha! That’s way more primming than any lesbian I’ve ever seen at Dinah!]

[Anna also got them to agree to an all American lesbian film crew.]

AM: I didn’t want to take a French film crew, I wanted to give lesbians jobs, but I also didn’t know how women would react at a lesbian weekend having fun, getting drunk, trying to get laid, and here I am ‘hi, I’m from French television can you tell me your most intimate details?’ but it was the contrary..…It was fascinating.

[Referring to Europe’s Canal Plus]
The audience is mainly a straight audience….so I had to do something for a straight audience, but I wanted also to, because I am a lesbian cultural militant, and all my intellectual friends and also for lesbians that are not in the know, I wanted to make something that was interesting to them too. A lot of gay guys in Paris when we showed it were like, ‘Oh my god! I never knew lesbians could be funny’…but at the same time lesbians still suffer from the stigma, we’re not funny, we don’t know how to dress, we’re not fun, we’re angry, not sexy…and so I wanted to address all this stuff. I knew Dinah Shore had that.

But when I went to Dinah Shore I thought it was a lipstick lesbian event, you know, only the type of lesbians mostly from Los Angeles, but there was all types of women, and I wanted to show from different countries, classes, races, clicks…and that’s what I thought was awesome… The great thing about it was they [Canal Plus] had faith in me, they let me do what I wanted to do, and I feel I really succeeded in doing it.

XK: Well I’m so glad they had you write yourself into it, because I felt it was your spirit, your personality that carried it. It was amazing, my fuckin’ cheeks hurt for hours. And I’m so glad I went to my first Dinah this year, so I could totally relate better. What I also thought was really cool was when you focused on the girl whose mom was gay, and also focused on her story.
AM: Education through comedy, that’s my documentary style. Here, I am going to give you a scoop….
I had a meeting with Here TV on Monday and the Head of Acquisitions came to the [Butches and Femmes] screening on Tuesday and they wanted to buy it, and we’re in negotiations to do a six part episode for their season…

XK: [The opportunist that I am:] How can I be in it, in the banana suit????
AM: Well, what really interests me now is to do things all over the continent, you know go and discover a place in South America, like Buenos Aires…

XK: Like Dinah’s of the world???
AM: But not like Dinah, the idea is a show that’s made specifically for lesbians, but whatever’s goin on in lesbian culture in whatever place I’m in. You know, like Tokyo, Moscow, Buenos Aires, South Africa… like an exotic travel show, but you find out about the culture and what’s goin on. And they were like ‘that’s what we want.’ They don’t just want parties...

[We talk about our mutual friend Guinevere Turner, who is featured in a most comedic pre- party lipstick lesbian montage for a second. I haven’t told Anna about ‘Guin-fest’ yet. Wait, did the banana thing just get cleverly avoided??]

Teaser for, "Alez in Wonderland"





AM: There’s nothing like Dinah Shore, there’s nothing in the world like it. Over 10 – 12 thousand women. Yeah, it’s a fine line cuz a lot of people were drunk. I didn’t wanna exploit anyone for anything, but it’s so hard because we always have our guards up, and I was so worried, cuz I didn’t want to fuck around with them or waste their time, but everyone was amazing, everyone was so generous. Even in the lesbian bars, I don’t even know if I’ve lived such generosities as I lived at Dinah Shore.


So now I sadly say bon voyage to my new, brilliant, multi-talented filmmaker friend, but of course after we pound a few dollar beers over at Shotgun. Beforehand, I was honored to fulfill Anna's request for a 'Feed Shane' beater, ah memories of MY first Dinah, oh and look out France!


Anna, a good friend, moi, and Amanda Failure Princess
at Gaunty (photo by: Mr. Party)

So inspired was I after our little interview, and so excited to have met such an innovative, clever, diy, filmmaker and human being. Viva la Chocha!!! Till Guin-fest ’08….. Oooh, I can't wait!!

For more Eagle LA/Gaunty fotos of this nite click here!
For more on Anna and her film, please check out:

http://myspace.com/annalachocha