Gay & Lesbian Film Series

Schedule of Films

Tickets are available online. Click any title below to go to its sales page on the Village 8 website.

Shelter, June 6-12

Forced to give up his dreams of art school, Zach has become accustomed to a life where he neglects his own needs in favor of taking care of others. He spends his time working a dead-end job at a diner, and skates the urban streets of San Pedro stenciling his signature “crane” wherever he can find vacant wall space. At home he takes care of his nephew, Cody, as his older sister, Jeanne, has clearly shown that her priorities lie elsewhere. In his free time he surfs, draws and hangs out with his best friend, Gabe, who lives on the wealthy side of town.

When Gabe's older brother, Shaun, returns home to cure a case of writer’s block, he is drawn to Zach's selflessness and talent. Zach falls in love with Shaun while struggling to reconcile his own desires with the needs of his family.

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Vivere, June 6-12

From German director Angelina Maccarone, a romantic drama about three women on the run, saving each other, saving themselves.

Francesca wishes she were having a better Christmas Eve. Instead of sitting home by the fire, she has to go out into the cold to find her little sister, Antonietta, who has run away to Rotterdam with her musician boyfriend. On the way to find her, Francesca picks up Gerlinde, another troubled young woman, suicidal and lovesick. Now she has two lives to save.

With the paths of three lost souls criss-crossing in Rotterdam, it soon is hard to tell who is saving whom.

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The Witnesses, June 13-19

Manu is 20 years old when he arrives in Paris to look for a job. Initially, he moves in with his sister, Julie, who rents a room in a sleazy hotel. Her life revolves around music. She is training to be an opera singer and tries hard to partition herself off from her ebullient brother. Manu is a night bird. One night he meets Adrien, an extrovert and cultivated gay doctor in his early 50s with whom he strikes up a carefree, platonic friendship. Adrien soon introduces Manu to his circle of friends.

Adrien takes Manu for a boat trip on the Mediterranean with a young married couple: Mehdi, who is a cop, and Sarah, a writer. The recent birth of their first child seems only to have made this unconventional couple even happier together, but appearances are deceptive. For Mehdi, the zealous police inspector, paternity has magnified his tyrannical side and this leads to excessive behavior both at work and in his sex-life. Meanwhile, Sarah is unable to come to terms with being a mother, feeling that it encroaches on her identity as a woman. Unable to bond with her baby, she immerses herself in her writing in a desperate quest for inspiration. Manu's arrival in Paris and his intrusion into Julie, Adrien, Mehdi and Sarah's lives creates shockwaves in all their relationships. Unintentionally and unknowingly, Manu forces them confront their true desires.

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Kiss the Bride, June 13-19

When Matt receives an invitation to high school best friend Ryan's wedding he's surprised--especially that Ryan is marrying a woman! Matt plans to rescue his former love from whatever "she-devil" has trapped him into this huge mistake. On the other hand, Ryan's perky fiance Alex takes quite the liking to Matt. Is she very cunning, disarmingly ditzy, completely adorable--or all three? As Matt tries to rekindle the old flame, Ryan is intent on putting out any sparks. Ryan dismisses their old romance as just a high school thing, but Matt realizes Ryan may still be the love of his life. All the while, Matt must deal with "his new best friend" Alex, the two families, and a hometown he thought he'd left entirely in the past.

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The Houseboy, June 20-26

Ricky is left alone to house-sit after the couple he shares a bed with go away for the holidays. When he learns that his relationship with them is about to end, he tries to find human connection through internet hookups and anonymous sex. These transitory romps seem to do nothing to combat his loneliness and isolation, so he begins to consider more drastic measures.

Ricky is a lost boy looking for love in all the wrong places, but will he learn that what he needs more than sex is friendship before his planned Christmas Eve farewell? Like an anti-war film about war, this is an anti-anonymous sex film about anonymous sex. This is a human story about treating others humanely and the power of friendship and savoring relationships as opposed to instant gratification.

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Finn's Girl, June 20-26

A grieving mother who has lost her partner and the rebellious daughter who flouts authority both become locked on parallel paths of destruction in this look at contemporary family values, reproductive rights, and pre-teen angst from co-directors Laurie Colbert and Dominique Cardona. Dr. Finn Jefferies works at a Toronto abortion clinic, and shares her life with a longtime partner and an eleven year-old daughter.

When her partner dies, Dr. Finn becomes lost. Despite the fact that she wants the best for her daughter Zelly, Dr. Finn finds the intensity of her job and her unbridled grief gradually impeding her from being a responsible parent. Now, as Dr. Finn falls into the arms of a new lover, Zelly and her friends prowl the streets smoking dope, stealing, and ditching school. But sometimes, in the darkest depths of grief, suffering has a way of challenging ones concept of who they truly are and what they really know. Through it all one thing remains certain: if their mutual grief doesn't bring Zelly and her mother closer together it will drive them further apart than they ever imagined.

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The World Unseen, June 27-July 3

In 1950's South Africa, apartheid is just beginning.

In a tightly knit community of South Asians in South Africa, the people live in limbo between the stark racial poles of apartheid. They have been able to carve out a delicate peace with the exception of Amina. She is a rebel. Free-spirited Amina has broken all the rules of her conventional Indian community, and the new apartheid-led government, by running a café with Jacob her 'coloured' business partner. It is the only place in town to have any fun, and of course, this infuriates the apartheid police.

When she first sets eyes on Miriam (Lisa Ray), a young traditional wife and mother, she is suddenly as shy as a schoolgirl. Their unexpected attraction pushes Miriam to question the rules that bind her. When Amina helps Miriam's sister-in-law to hide from the police, a chain of events is set in motion that changes both women forever.

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TransAmerica, June 27-July 3

Bree is a highly educated, conservative, transsexual woman who passes as a G.G. (a genetic girl), living in a poor section of Los Angeles and working two jobs to save money for her final sexual reassignment surgery. When she receives a phone call from Toby, a jailed teenage runaway looking for his father, she's shocked to discover that a heterosexual encounter during her life as a man resulted in a son. Bree wants no part of Toby, but her therapist insists she must confront her past, and withholds legal permission for Bree's final operation until she has met the boy.

Bree grudgingly dips into her precious operation fund and flies to New York to bail Toby out of jail. Released to her without explanation, Toby assumes from Bree's conservative appearance that she's a Christian missionary who rescues street people and converts them to Jesus. Not ready for parenthood, Bree seizes her chance and encourages Toby's misconception. When she learns that the rebellious, disheveled Toby intends to skip bail and hitchhike to L.A. to break into X-rated videos and search for his real father, Bree panics. She doesn't want him to interfere with her plans for a safe, quiet new life. She offers him a ride cross-country, secretly plotting to abandon him with the stepfather he ran away from. As each lies to and manipulates the other, Bree and Toby find themselves on an unexpected and transformative journey.

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