UW-Milwaukee’s Department of Film, Video, Animation and New Genres presents the 32nd-annual LGBT Film and Video Festival with a packed 11-day run (Nov. 2-12) of full-length and short movies covering a wide range of subjects. While the film and video offerings are certainly focused on very personal stories of members of the world’s LGBTQ communities, they are of interest to everyone—regardless of sexual orientation—because these are human stories.
This year’s festival features Ohio-born artist, filmmaker and screenwriter Jennifer Reeder, who will be on hand at the Oriental Theatre on opening night for a screening of her 12th and most recent film, Signature Move. She’ll also be meeting with students on the following day, and Reeder’s 2015 girl-power short film, Crystal Lake, will be screened as part of the festival’s “And YOU Are? An Evening of Women’s Shorts” as well (the latter taking place from 9-11 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 4).
The 2017 LGBT Film and Video Festival contains local premieres of dramas, comedies and documentaries from the U.S., Qatar, Mexico, the Netherlands, Taiwan, France and South Africa. The festival opens at the Oriental Theatre (2230 N. Farwell Ave.) and then moves to the UWM Union Cinema (2200 E. Kenwood Blvd.) for the remainder of the screenings. Some highlights of the festival’s offerings this year are described below. For a full schedule and ticketing information, visit uwm.edu/lgbtfilmfestival/events.
Signature Move
7:30 p.m., Nov. 2, Oriental Theatre
This film’s subtitle is certainly intriguing enough: “Life, Love and Lady Wrestling.” This fascinating and highly entertaining comedic-drama centers on the budding relationship between Zaynab (portrayed by the film’s screenwriter, Fawzia Mirza), a Chicago-based 30-something Pakistani lesbian lawyer, and Alma (Sari Sanchez)—a bold, intelligent Mexican American woman. Meanwhile, Zaynab’s live-in mother, Parveen (Shabana Azmi), is looking for a husband for her daughter. As for the wrestling part? See the film!
I Dream in Another Language (Sueño en Otra Idioma)
7 p.m., Nov. 4, UWM Union Cinema
This Mexican-Dutch co-production opens our eyes to vanishing languages, but with an intriguing gay-themed twist. Two older men who are the only known remaining speakers of an indigenous tongue, Evaristo and Isauro, oddly enough refuse to talk to each other; that is, until a young Mexican linguist named Martín takes up the challenge to bring them back together. The nature of the men’s estrangement is the crux of the film. I Dream in Another Language won the Audience Award for Best World Cinema Drama at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.
BPM (Beats Per Minute) (120 Battements Par Minute)
7 p.m., Nov. 8, UWM Union Cinema
“It’s important to understand that, at the time, even talking about condoms in high schools and pleading for needle exchanges for drug users wasn’t standard at all,” says director Robin Campillo about his daring narrative film. “Homophobia was essentially the standard. We’ve forgotten…” The poignant film is set in Paris in the early-’90s, where a group of young activists battles for those afflicted with HIV/AIDS against uncaring government agencies and indifferent pharmaceutical companies. This was the era of ACT UP, and its members—mostly LGBTQ and many HIV-positive themselves—were ferocious; after all, it was quite literally a life-or-death struggle.
