Film

Tuesday 24 June 2008 6.30pm

Aimee and Jaguar


Nominated for a Golden Globe and German’s offical submission for a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, Max Farberbock’s Aimee & Jaguar is the tender accont of a forbidden love affair set against the backdrop of wartime Germany.

In performances that garnered them Silver bears at the 1999 Berlin International Film Festival, Julian Kohler (Lily Wust) and Maria Schrader (Felice Schragenheim) play the epynomous Aimee & Jaguar, an exampler of Nazi motherhood and a politically committed Jewess respecively who embark on a transgressive love affair that will ultimately shatter their lives.

Based on a true story and powerfully dramatised, it is an uplifting love story totally unlike any other.

Films in May

2 Films in May

T movie The crying game 7May

The twist. It's all everyone could talk about when this movie first was released in theaters. By now most people know what the twist is. But the movie deserves to be here for more than the shock value. It mixes politics and love as its two themes and shows better than any movie that love is a many complicated thing. The performances are outstanding by the entire cast, but Jaye Davidson steals the show. This unknown earned a Best Supporting nomination for the portrayal of the exotic hairdresser that Stephen Rea falls for. Every gay film fan should see this movie.


LGB movie Frenchtwist 27May
Loli is a stereotypical faithful wife, staying at home and taking care of the kids unaware that her husband is off on many sexual adventures. Enter Marijo, who has arrived to help Loli with her plumbing. It doesn't take much perception to see how lonely Loli is, so Marijo makes her move. Usually, right under the nose of Loli's husband. As the budding lesbian romance grows, the husband grows jealous and becomes more faithful, trying to salvage his marriage. In the end, Loli must choose between her husband, or her lesbian lover. Or, must she? There is something to be said for having your cake and eating it too.

Film and book March 2008

Reading Group Saturday 29 March 11-1pm
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.
Ambitious and brilliantly conceived, Middlesex traces a rampant gene through generations of the Stephenides family, which caused narrator Cal Stephenides to be “reborn” as a boy when he’d previously been raised as a girl. Not a “him” in the strictest sense then, but a hermaphrodite.
Moving fluidly between time frames, Cal’s story is rich with history and culture – tracing his/her Greek roots through the Depression, WWII and the Detroit race riots, up to the present - as well as Eugenides’ trademark mix of dark plotting with well observed humour.
Middlesex is a modern fairy tale with a very beguiling narrator, delving so richly into the inner lives of its characters it’s hard to let them go.


Film Tuesday 25 March 6-8pm
Billy Hollywood’s Screen Kiss

First time writer/director O'Haver sets the tone by giving his presumed alter ego, aspiring photographer Billy (Hayes), a straight to camera speech. Half confessional, half mock lecture illustrated with Polaroids, it lays down Billy's sexual-political and cinematic aesthetics and the film's modest intentions and survivalist agenda. The plot is old fashioned boy loves boy. Dissatisfied with his less romantic lover Fernando (Valdes-Kennedy), Billy notices square-jawed Gabriel (Rowe) at an art gallery, seeing in him a potential model for his Hollywood Screen Kiss photo project and, perhaps, a lover. Gabriel quickly accepts the former role but dead bats the latter, and shows signs of venality by accepting an invitation to the yacht party of a mutual gay acquaintance, big shot artist Rex (Bartel). Will it be kiss or kiss-off for Billy?

film - book February 2008

Film Tuesday 26 February 2008 7pm


High Art

101 minutes, United States (1998), 18
Ambition, sacrifice, seduction and other career moves... a nuanced exploration of junk addiction, work trials and sapphic desire
When an ambitious magazine gofer (Mitchell) bumps into a junkie photographer (Sheedy), she detects a gilt-edged career development opportunity and persuades her editors to commission a piece from the artist. But while shepherding the sapphic snapper through her first commercial shoot in 10 years, the editor develops a strong desire for her new friend.

Reading Group March

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.

As it is quite a big read, I thought it useful to announce it already now. It gives you plenty of time to read a great book. I look forward to hearing your views in March.

Film and book January 2008

Summer Storm Film Tuesday 29 January

Summer Storm is a multi award-winning, German coming-of-age film directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner. Released in 2004, the film stars Robert Stadlober, Kostja Ullmann, Alicja Bachleda-Curuś, and Marlon Kittel. The story is set to the background of a rowing regatta, which climaxes into a Summer Storm.
Teams from all across Germany descend on a quiet camping ground for a week of training leading up to a final rowing competition. The plot follows the members of the RSC rowing club from southern Germany as they train for the regatta.
The boys are excited by the prospects of camping with a female rowing team from Berlin. However, by a stroke of fate, the Berlin girls’ team cancels and is replaced by Queerschlag ("Queerstrokes"), a gay youth rowing team, and these boys are out proud and camp it up to their full potential.
Amidst the sometimes tense interactions between the members of his team and those of Queerschlag, Tobi (Stadlober) is himself forced to confront his long-time feelings for his friend and team-mate Achim (Ullmann), who is already romantically involved with his girlfriend Sandra (Miriam Morgenstern). Spurned by Achim, Tobi is devastated, but is partly consoled by his new friendship with Queerschlag member Leo (Kittel).
The tension between the members of the two teams culminates in a scene set to the backdrop of a summer storm, during which Leo confronts Tobi about his homosexuality in front of his fellow team-mates. Tobi denies being gay, and, in an attempt to defend him, one of his team-mates tells Tobi’s girlfriend Anke (Bachleda-Curuś) to tell the rest of his team-mates so. Anke, the only person to whom Tobi has confided his secret, remains silent.
Ultimately, Tobi comes out to his fellow team-mates, and his rowing team and Queerschlag go

on to compete in the final regatta.

Calendar Girl by Stella Duffy reading group Saturday 26 January

Stand-up comic Maggie has fallen for "the girl with the Kelly McGillis body", a mysterious woman who can't commit herself. Meanwhile South London detective Saz is hot on the trail of a woman known only as "September", who commutes between London and New York in a whirlwind of drug smuggling, gambling, and high-class prostitution. A murder brings Saz and Maggie and their respective mysteries together. Smart and sexy, Calendar Girl is a lesbian thriller high on attitude and eroticism..
Stella Duffy has written ten novels, the latest Mouths of Babes was published in July this year. State of Happiness (2004) was long listed for the 2004 Orange Prize, and is in development with Fiesta Productions. Stella was born in South London and grew up in New Zealand. She has lived inthe UK since 1986.

Movies November - December 2007

Social gatherings with movies in November and December

Tuesday 27 November 7pm at THT

When Night is Falling

Camille and Martin are in love and teachers at a christian college; they get the opportunity to get a better job, but they would have to marry for that. But when Camille's dog dies, she recognizes that her love for Martin is not even as big as the love for her dog. After that, Camille gets to know Petra, and Petra falls in love with Camille. They meet again, but Camille is very unsure about her feelings. When Martin is away for a weekend, Camille and Petra meet in the Circus where Petra is working as an acrobat. They spend the night together, but Martin finds out about it and is shocked. He has an argument with Camille, and she goes burying her dog in the snow, and falls asleep...

Tuesday 11 December 7pm at THT

Sordid Lives

Del Shores' feature film debut is a hilarious trip into the lives of a Southern "redneck" family with a star-studded cast. Olivia Newton-John plays a honky-tonk lesbian singer named Bitsy Mae. Delta Burke plays Noleta Nethercott who gets revenge from her cheating husband G.W. (Beau Bridges). G.W. had killed Grandma Peggy after a sudden accident with his wooden leg tripping her in the bathroom sink. Grandma Peggy is survived by her daughters Latrelle (Bonnie Bedelia) and LaVonda (Ann Walker) and drag-queen son Earl "Brother Boy" (Leslie Jordan). Brother Boy had been sent to an institution to get him "de-homosexualized" by a bitch of a psychiatrist, Dr. Eve Bolinger (Rosemary Alexander). All Brother Boy wants to do is dress up as Tammy Wynette and continue her legend. It's not enough to have a gay brother, but Latrelle is also in denial about her closeted son Ty (Kirk Geiger). Add to the cast Beth Grant who plays Sissy, the neighbor who fails miserably trying to quit smoking. Leave your PC card out the door and enjoy this hilarious movie.

Film and Book October 2007

Film 10 October Ma vie en Rose (1998, Alain Berliner)



When seven-year-old Ludovic (Du Fresne) shows a penchant for lipstick and skirts, he unwittingly uncorks a gush of suburban prejudice. It's not that he wants to be a pint-sized transvestite, or even that he's gay, but rather an utter conviction that he should be a girl. His parents (well played by Laroque and Ecoffey) can't understand it or cope with the social stigma that's blackening their name in the tight-arsed, tight-knit community. Crippled by a mixture of liberalism, love and deep embarrassment, they end up in a comic stand-off with their son. Seasoned with spicy humour, the film never preaches. Instead, through Du Fresne's remarkable performance, it deals with a child's innocent exploration of identity and an adult perception that is tainted by sexual insecurity.

Reading Group

27 October At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O’Neill
Set in Dublin and its near surrounds AT SWIM, TWO BOYS follows the turbulent year to Easter 1916. At its core it tells the love of two boys, Jim, a naïve and reticent scholar, the younger son of foolish, aspirant shopkeeper Mr. Mack, and Doyler, the dark rough diamond son of Mr. Mack’s old army pal.

Out at the Forty Foot, that great jut of rock where gentlemen bathe in the scandalous nude, the two boys meet day after day. There they make a pact: that Dyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year, they will swim the bay to the distant beacon of the Muglins rock, to raise the Green and claim it for themselves. As Ireland sets forth towards her uncertain glory there unfolds a love storyof the utmost tenderness, carrying the reader through the turbulence of the times like a full blown sail.

AT SWIM, TWO BOYS is written with great verve and mastery. It shares those elements that are the marks of all great books – the breadth of its canvas, the skill of its brush, the intensity of its subjects and, above all, the shining light of its humanity

Venue: Terrence Higgins Trust Scotland, 34 Waterloo Place, Inverness IV1 1NB
Tel: 01463 711 585