On this episode of The High Bar, I welcome documentarian Steven Greenstreet (8: THE MORMON PROPOSITION) to raise a toast to, and the bar for… Marriage Equality. Should everyone be allowed an equal opportunity to celebrate true love or are some relationships destined to be torn asunder by religious doctrine and political haymaking?

Watch The High Bar, draw your own conclusions, then share them here, please.

Check out the new list of playdates for Yun Suh‘s boundary-breaking documentary, Surely, CITY OF BORDERS has been or soon will be at a theater (very) near you.

LesGaiCineMad (Madrid, Spain)
http://www.lesgaicinemad.com/peliculas/documentales/city-of-borders
Tuesday October 30 10pm Lola Bar
Tuesday November 3 3pm Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Gender Bender Film Festival (Bologna, Italy)
http://www.genderbender.it/ita/dettaglio.asp?id=285
Wednesday November 4 10:30pm Cinema Lumière

Regent Park Film Festival (Toronto, Ontario)
http://www.regentparkfilmfestival.com/filmbydate.html#borders
Friday November 6 7:30pm Nelson Mandela Park Public School

Global Visions Film Festival (Edmonton, Canada)
http://www.globalvisionsfestival.com/filminfo.php?fid=80
Sunday November 8 8:00pm (Closing Night) Stanley A. Milner Library Theatre

Reeling Film Festival (Chicago)
http://www.reelingfilmfestival.org/film.php?fid=42
Tuesday November 10 9:00pm Landmark Theater

BiMovie (Munich, Germany)
http://www.bimovie.de/links15/filmuebersicht.htm
Wednesday November 11 7:00pm Maxim Kino
Friday Novemer 13 7:00pm Maxim Kino

Aarhus Film Festival (Arhus, Denmark)
http://www.aarhusfilmfestival.dk/en/programme/love/
Friday November 13 2:30pm Ost for Paradis A

Queersicht Film Festival (Bern, Switzerland)
http://www.queersicht.ch/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=21&Itemid=24
Friday November 13 11:00pm Kino In Der Reitschule
Sunday November 15 1:00pm Kino In Der Reitschule

Holebi Film Festival (Leuven, Belgium)
http://www.holebifilmfestival.be/programma/film/921
Saturday November 14 8:00pm Cinema ZED
Tuesday November 17 5:00pm Cinema ZED

Other Israel Film Festival (Manhattan)
http://www.otherisrael.org/films
Sunday November 15 7:00pm JCC
Wednesday November 18 7:00pm Cinema Village

Temple Beith El Aptos (Santa Cruz)
http://www.tbeaptos.org/index.shtml
Monday November 16 Jewish Community Center

New Orleans Middle East Film Festival
http://nolamideastfilmfest.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-orleans-middle-east-film-festival.html
Saturday November 21 9:30pm Zeitgeist Multi-disciplinary Arts Center

Florence Queer Film Festival
www.florencequeerfestival.it

Many thanks to the rambunctious Rachael B!

This film is presented as part of The 14th Annual Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.

Many thanks to the rambunctious Rachael B!

This film is presented as part of The 14th Annual Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.

Director: George O’Donnell

In a quiet Florida suburb, a group of young men struggling to escape the wreckage of their pasts have found an unusual way to create new lives for themselves: on the Web for the whole world to see. Their new home is CollegeBoysLive.com, a voyeur house rigged with 32 webcams, where their every move is watched live by thousands of paying members. The site’s creator claims CollegeBoysLive.com is simply about showing that “it’s okay to be gay,” but the neighbors insist it’s a pornographic whorehouse and sue to have them evicted.

Moreover, drama unfolds between the roommates and their keepers when the realities of life outside their virtual walls come crashing in via obsessive viewers, relationship woes, and trouble with the law. And any attempt at leading an off-camera life at school or a regular job competes with the constant pressure to perform for the cameras and keep the customers happy.

Part “Real World,” part “Jerry Springer,” and part “Queer as Folk,” this intimate and provocative documentary examines a complex subculture of voyeurism, exhibitionism, and the tradeoffs involved in sustaining it. But at its heart, COLLEGE BOYS LIVE is a surprisingly poignant search for family and acceptance.

Many thanks to the rambunctious Rachael B!

This film is presented as part of The 14th Annual Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.

Director: Stian Kristiansen

If John Hughes had ever added a Norwegian coming-out story to his collection of contemporary teen classics, it might look and feel something like this edgy and authentic coming-of-age comedy-drama.

It’s the end of the 1980s: the Berlin Wall is falling, and the whole world is changing…except in the Norwegian town of Stavanger, where monotony comes with the territory. Seventeen-year-old Jarle’s sole escape from the grey tedium is music, so he and his friends attempt to form “the most hardcore punk band in Stavanger.” But when Yngve, a striking new student, starts at school, Jarle’s simple and familiar world is turned upside down. He soon finds himself struggling to choose between his much-envied relationship with the popular girl and the offbeat boy who captures his affection.

Based on the best-selling book “I Loved Them All” by Tore Renberg, and featuring music from some of the most cutting-edge bands of the time (including The Stone Roses, The Cure, R.E.M., Japan, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Joy Division), THE MAN WHO LOVED YNGVE was a huge box office hit in Norway and continues to receive international critical acclaim and audience awards.

Many thanks to the rambunctious Rachael B!

This film is presented as part of The 14th Annual Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.

Director: Arthur Ian

Glimpse through the keyhole into the world of male prostitution and hear the stories of hustlers and the men who seek them out. Through a series of candid and compelling interviews, LOOKING FOR ROMEO uncovers the experiences of escorts and their johns. Each offering a unique perspective, the men tell shocking and exciting stories of love found and lost, of control and abuse, of hope and tragedy. We learn about what drives men to prostitution, as well as some shocking secrets of the trade. The johns expose what motivates them to seek out the company of hustlers and how they feel about their experiences. LOOKING FOR ROMEO casts light on issues of affection and companionship, and the desire to escape solitude and insecurity-all with some instant gratification and excitement thrown in. This film offers no easy answers, but lets viewers witness some of the very human experiences that all the men in this film face.

Many thanks to the rambunctious Rachael B!

This film is presented as part of The 14th Annual Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.

Dir: Gonzalo Justiano
Macho man Charly (Rodrigo Bastidas) finds his world is turned upside down when he’s released from a short jail stint in Mexico City and is forced to make a new life in Viña del Mar, Chile with his nine-year-old son, Pedro (Bastidas’s real-life son Raimundo). Short on options and cash, Charly decides to move in with his estranged father, Mario (veteran Chilean comedian Coco Legrand), who wants to help them start anew. Tradition and ideals are sorely tested when Charly discovers that Mario is flamboyantly out and proud and partnered with a man half his age. Charly tries almost everything to keep the shocking news from his son, but grandfather and grandson begin to develop a strong bond. Moreover, Charly has no choice but to take work in a nearby gay bar and pass for gay for the good tips. When he meets sexy Liliana, things get really complicated. The journey of confusion and discovery that Charly and his father take after 30 years apart illuminates this bright comedy that addresses the serious issue of homophobia in Latino society.

An Israeli, a Palestinian and a South Korean walk into a gay bar in Jerusalem and… nothing happens. That is the beauty of Shushan, the LGBQT dance club situated in the heart of the traditionally intolerant city. (Heck, when two peanuts walk down Jaffa Street, one is usually a-salted!)  CITY OF BORDERS is a testament to this Mid-East oasis, a place where Arabs and Israelis reveal(ed) their identities without fear of fallout, payback or hatred. However, beyond Shushan’s walls, the orthodoxy of ignorance remains and the threat of prejudicial violence reigns.

Director Yun Suh fashions a compassionate and compelling documentary by graciously and inconspicuously providing camera-time to some of the club’s most arresting patrons, the opportunity to share their stories of faith, fatalism and flamboyance in the face of grave danger. Adam, an Israeli, bears his scars as a survivor of a brutal hate crime. Boody, a Palestinian, masks his fears, illegally crossing the border nightly just so he can cross-dress. Samira, a Palestinian Israeli, boldly courts Ravit, a Jewish Israeli, unafraid of retaliation. Love, means more.

Although I could not sway Yun Suh to go dancing, she did agree to sit down with me — at the fabulous Pan Pacific Hotel in Seattle! — to discuss her bent on public service, racial profiling and foreign policy. (Special thanks to Simone Nelson, the dynamic yet camera-shy co-producer of CITY OF BORDERS.)

Kick off Pride weekend at the screening of “for my wife…”

A  Love Story on Marriage Equality.

Inlaws & Outlaws cleverly weaves together the true stories of couples and singles— both gay and straight — and all into a collective narrative that is as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.

At the top of the film, you meet real people one on one. You don’t know who’s gay or straight or who’s with whom. As their stories unfold and stereotypes fall by the wayside, you won’t care because you’ll be rooting for everybody. With candor, good humor, great music and real heart, Inlaws & Outlaws gets past all the rhetoric to explore what we all have in common.

We love. We lose. We all want to belong. And we’re all making this up as we go along.

Years later, New York was haunted by another killer, this one far deadlier, AIDS. Richard Berkowitz, unrelated, didn’t take orders, he shouted them at his clients, earning a “healthy” living as an S&M hustler. But seeing his friends die around him provoked a more sensitive and sensible response. David became the most vocal and, most likely, the first active proponent of “safe sex.” In 1983, Richard published How To Have Sex In an Epidemic: One Approach. He co-authored the pamphlet with Michael Callen, Richard Dworkin and Joseph Sonnabend, MD, but it was Richard who remained the greatest advocate of condom usage despite the gay community’s virulent backlash and hypocritical accusations. (Callen and Dworkin focused their energies on more charitable, community-building efforts and Dr. Sonnabend continued to develop his mutifactorial model of the disease.)

SEX POSITIVE is a sometimes shocking portrait of Berkowitz and his boat-rocking past. Directed with a respectful intimacy and remarkable audacity by 25-year-old Daryl Wein, the film reveals Berkowitz as a hero of his generation, but one with enough flaws to defy worship. Richard is a complicated man whose conviction may have save thousands of lives yet cost him his own. SEX POSITIVE is smart, surprising movie-making, reflecting humanity in all of its glorious ambiguities. 

In honor of Richard Berkowitz — and with apologies to Johnny Mercer — remember this lyrical plea: You’ve got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the SEX POSITIVE. Eliminate the negative. Latch on to the affirmative. Don’t mess with Mister Not-so-clean.

To watch the SEX POSITIVE trailer, click here. To watch a preview of The Warren Report‘s special episode about sex addiction, Do Me, click here.

Many thanks to the rambunctious Rachael B and Three Dollar Bill Cinema!

In this striking portrayal of 1960s working class British life, a young married couple find themselves drifting apart until another man steps in and revs things up. Racy and rough-edged, THE LEATHER BOYS (1964) shifts gears between fiery confrontations and quiet moments of contemplation, ultimately leading to a climactic crossroads for the two men and the woman between them.

Draw your own conclusions.