Friday, November 3, 2000
The Salt Mines – by Carlos Aparicio
Susana Aikin explores the lives of Sara, Gigi and Giovanna, three Latino transvestites who for years have lived on the streets of Manhattan supporting their drug addictions through prostitution. They made their temporary home inside broken garbage trucks that the Sanitation Department keeps next to the salt deposits used in the winter to melt the snow. The three friends share the place known as "The Salt Mines" with a varied community of homeless people. They talk about their sexual identity, their past and their dreams. We follow their daily lives day and night until the place is closed and sealed by the city, forcing everyone to disperse.
1990 • USA • 47 min.
The Transformation – by Carlos Aparicio / Susan Aikin
explores the changes that Ricardo (Sara in The Salt Mines), former homeless prostitute transvestite, undergoes after discovering that he is HIV+ and deciding that he is not going to die on the streets. In order to move out of his street life he accepts help from a group of Born Again Christians who in exchange demand his complete transformation: that of homosexual to heterosexual. Ricardo is taken to Dallas where he tries very hard to transform himself: inside and out. During this process he becomes a Christian and ends up marrying Betty, a woman he meets through the chuch.
Meanwhile the church organizes a trip to New York to "rescue" other transvestite street walkers and invites Ricardo to go along with them and preach his example.
As time goes by and Ricardo is affected by the onset of AIDS-related illness, he looks back on his life and reflects that if he could choose all over again he would still want to be a woman.
1995 • USA • 58 min.
Saturday, November 4, 2000
Home For Christmas – by Frank Mosvold
In Frank Mosvold’s "Home For Christmas", Annie has some good news to share with her family. While mom is preparing the Christmas turkey, Annie tells her that she is a lesbian. Is her family’s loving response a dream or a dream come true?
2000 • Norway • 5 min. • Norweigian w/ English subtitles
Wavelenths – by Pratibha Parmar
Wavelengths explores the time honored quest for love and human intimacy in the polished world of computers and the Internet. Set in gay bars, dreams, and cyberspace, this perceptive and highly visual film contemplates one woman’s search for emotionally safer sex. Mona's girlfriend has left Mona with a broken heart, an empty goldfish tank, and – in her altered state – the ability to pick up other people’s conversations. Stuck in the post relationship blues, Mona just can’t seem to move on… that is until she discovers "cybersex".
1997 • USA • 15 minutes
A Kiss In The Snow – by Frank Mosvold
Teenagers can be experts at talking circles around what’s really on their minds. It is usually the weighted spaces between those words that speak volumes, as they do in "A Kiss In The Snow". Mosvold’s young characters pull the common teen angst of sexual awakening into the much less familiar territory of same-sex attraction.
1997 • Norway • 22 min. • Norwegian language, English subtitles
Hide and Seek – by Su Friedrich
Su Friedrich’s brilliant new film, Hide and Seek, mixes documentary and fiction to create a fascinating portrait of lesbian childhood. Revealing the imaginary universe of young lesbians, it’s about being at an age when sexual feelings are still vague. The fictional narrative tells the story of Lou: a twelve year old girl living in Brooklyn in the mid 1960’s, coming to terms with her burgeoning sexuality. Her story is skillfully woven between interviews with twenty adult women who recount salient moments from their childhoods, including their first attractions, how they felt when they first heard the word lesbian and thoughts about the possible cause for their homosexuality.
1996 • USA • 65 minutes