Provincetown Int. Film Festival - Filmmakers on the Queer Edge!

As the sun shines and a delicious breeze coats the main strip of East Coast gay summer mecca Provincetown, Mass., a darkened movie theater seems an unlikely, even absurd place to park oneself. But the Provincetown International Film Festival celebrating its tenth anniversary with the theme “Filmmaking on the Edge,” was very much packing them in. It was all so mini-Cannes, right down to Quentin Tarantino excitedly chatting about Italian horror films with fellow cinephiles, and stars including Gael Garcia Bernal, Jane Lynch, Gregg Araki, Charlie David, Tom Kalin, Christine Vachon, and John Waters.

(Commerical Street)

Many could be spotted all over town, some on bicycles pedaling along Commercial Street, or to and fro the beach (mucho thanks to gay-owned Ptown Bikes Bike Rental Company, which hooked up fest guests).

Bernal sightings occurred not just daily, but almost hourly - at one point, he and a female friend zipped right past me.

(Mulligans' Charlie David and producer Linda Carter)

Oh, but this being gay Ptown – and there’s really nothing like it, a blend of families with kids and lesbians and gays and trannies and drag queens like Jackie Beat and Varla Jean Merman thoroughly mixing, from shore to pool to bustling strip Commercial Street – numerous queer films screened including some making the rounds on this summer’s queer circuit.

(Jackie Beat at her show at the Post Office Cabaret)

Bisexual doc Bi The Way, family queer drama Mulligans, Israeli gay pride doc Jerusalem is Proud to Present; Amy Redford’s dying-girl-goes-credit-card-and-threesome-crazy drama The Guitar; Isaac Julien’s Derek Jarman documentary Derek; Tom Kalin's incest-alicious tragedy Savage Grace; and family-friendly gay dads with a gay kid comedy, Breakfast With Scot amongst them.

(Tom Kalin)

Meanwhile, two of my favorite festival titles hailed from Scandinavia and indeed had a little edginess going on: Denmark’s The Substitute, a superior twist upon USA sci-fi/horror film The Faculty about a kid whose substitute schoolteacher is a really bitchy, hateful alien who one-ups even Baby Jane, and Swedish vampire film Let The Right One In. The latter, to be distributed stateside later this year, is a must-see about Oskar, a 12-year-old oft-bullied loner who falls for Eli, the vampire girl next door. Many ambiguities to the film and its characters provide a queer read, the least of which involves whether Eli is actually a girl or might have been a boy at some point.

Speaking of queer reads, Tarantino was also talking about ambiguously queer characters in his films, at least after he and I were introduced by ever-erudite NYC-based PIFF publicist Jeff Hill.

 
(Quentin Tarantino)

“Gay characters in my films? How do you know some haven’t been in there!” he responded, laughing, when I asked when we’ll see some LGBTs in his work. Hmm. O-Ren Ishii always seemed a little Sapphic to me. “I love subtexts!” he enthused. Tarantino was in town to accept the fest’s Filmmaker on the Edge Award (and a surprise honor from a local official, who proclaimed June 21st Quentin Tarantino Day). But back to queer subtexts, someone had pointed out one between Reservoir Dogs’ Mr. White and Mr. Orange, he shared. Tarantiono’s next planned film has no explicit gay context per se, the WWII drama Inglorious Bastards, but then our chat turned to George Clooney and Joel Schumacher’s nipple-ized Batman & Robin – which he loved. “It’s amazing to see what is basically a $100 million dollar Kenneth Anger film!” Meanwhile, Kill Bill fans can look forward to a massive, single film version of the revenge opus with a new, extended animation sequence in May 2009.

(Ptown's Tarantino Day is proclaimed - and he has the plaque to prove it!)

Almost every festival guest, celebs, press and industry alike, appeared at almost every party and event – sort of rare for film fests, where uber-exclusive VIP rooms and private little dinners keep them out of disappointed fans’ way. At a lunch I sat down with American Beauty/”Six Feet Under”’s Alan Ball, whose button-pushing dramedy Towelhead – about racism, sex, parent-child conflict, and coming of age in suburbia as seen through the eyes and experience of a 13-year-old Arab-American girl, Jasira – screened (Ball told me that several other potential titles were bandied about, including the lame “Nothing is Private.”). It’s quite fantastic and outrageous, with thematic similarities to American Beauty (this time Aaron Eckhart is the one with short eyes).

(Alan Ball and James Lewis)

At lunch, Ball shared some details with me about “True Blood,” his new HBO series about vampires living amongst us. Anna Paquin stars as a Louisiana telepath who falls for a vampire because she can’t tell what he’s thinking. Of course, many bi and queer characters pop up in the series, based upon Charlaine Harris’ series of books, including Lafayette (played by Nelsan Ellis), a flamboyant African-American cook at the restaurant Paquin works at.

At one of the fest’s bigger shindigs, at a schoolhouse, I Shot Andy Warhol director Mary Harron – now developing an IFC series titled “Best American” - looked on amused as her daughter chatted up John Waters. I lamented how nothing shocking had rocked the festival yet, to which Waters quipped: “Shocking? The only shocking thing that could happen in Provincetown is if somebody turned straight!”

(John Waters)

Randy Barbato, here to screen his and Fenton Bailey’s HBO documentary When I Knew, enthused about his upcoming Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam of Crystal documentary, also airing on HBO this summer.

(Gael Garcia Bernal)

Bernal, in town to receive the Excellence in Acting Award, chat with queer film critic B. Ruby Rich, and screen his directorial debut, Deficit (a literal thumbs down, according to at least one viewer), had many flashbulbs popping. Jane Lynch was charming and funny – and brought her own six-pack to a party, mind you, it was non-alcoholic beer! – and received the Faith Hubley Memorial Award.

(Jane Lynch and John Polly)

On the ferry home, I sat next to Robin Honan, associate producer of Oscar-winning documentary about a dying lesbian cop’s fight to secure her pension for her partner, Freeheld, which is soon to come out on DVD with 100 minutes' worth of extras. It was stormy weather home, with plenty of chop and sploshing waves against the windows – but what other sort of closure to expect from an experience, despite sunkissed days, bike rides, and lobster rolls, that was on the edge?

(Lobster roll at Ptown's amazing local fave, Clem & Ursie's)

- Lawrence Ferber