Since 2003, the Damn These Heels! LGBT Film Festival has been sissying that walk and bringing the best of the best LGBTQ culture from around the world to our salty doorstep. We've chatted at you about all the good that this festival a few times before (check here and here), but in the interest of saving you some reading, we'll give you the skinny right quick: The festival is a "weekend-long celebration of independent, documentary and foreign feature-length films from around the world that explore LGBT issues, ideas, and art." Sound sensational? You bet your sweet Saint Laurent stilleto, it does. Year after year Damn These Heels has brought us truly inspiring documentaries, LOL-worthy comedies, and even a few camp-tastic musicals. Festivals past have brought us such gems as To Be Takei, Compared to What: The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank, Joshua Tree, and I Am Divine. The festival provides "a forum in which LGBT issues, ideas, hopes, dream, and art are explored through film and discussion," and we happen to think that's a damn worthy cause (and apparently so does the Supreme Court--hooray!). Bonus: many of the films selected for DTH! won't be screened anywhere else in the state, so attendees are guaranteed a fabulous (and oh-so-exclusive) evening. We're grateful as all get-out for the goods that the folks at DTH! bring us yearly, and COLLECTIVELY we're already picking out our best pink pumps to go with the affair.
For this year's festival, attendees will have their pick of more than 20 films, each guaranteed to be well worth seeing (obvi). In case you wanted a little help choosing, however, we've got you covered. Below is a small synopsis of those we're particularly excited to see (including the final on-screen performance Robin Williams)…but you can click here to see the trailers for the entire lineup on the DTH! website.
Damn These Heels LGBT Film Festival | July 10th, 11th, & 12th | Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 W 300 S
In the Grayscale: Bruno is an architect who has a perfect life. He’s married, with a son, a nice house, a nice car, and his own architectural firm, yet he has a deep sense of unease with his life. So, he decides to leave his wife and spend some time alone to find himself. In the process of a new project, he starts working with a young history teacher named Fer (29) who is energetic, captivating, and gay. The duo then embarks on an unexpected, intense, and passionate romance, leaving Bruno full of conflicting feelings, and forcing him to make big decisions.
Margarita, with a Straw: Laila Kapoor is a spunky, talented 19-year-old girl from a close-knit middle-class Delhi family. She was born with cerebral palsy so her speech is garbled and she sits in a wheelchair. Always curious about sexuality, Laila undergoes a journey at university that is beyond her wildest dreams. Suddenly, her world falls to pieces when her mother collapses in pain. Laila goes from being the cared for, to the caretaker and the mother-daughter bond is tested to the fullest.
Tangerine: It’s Christmas Eve in Tinseltown and Sin-Dee is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend hasn’t been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, the working girl and her best friend embark on a mission to get to the bottom of the scandalous rumor. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity. (Ahem: this film was beautifully shot...entirely on an iPhone!)
Boulevard: A subtle and moving drama following a devoted husband and dutiful bank employee who begins to confront his own secrets when he meets a troubled young man.
Out in the Night: Under the neon lights in a gay-friendly neighborhood of New York City, four young African-American lesbians are violently and sexually threatened by a man on the street. They defend themselves against him and are charged and convicted in the courts and in the media as a “Gang of Killer Lesbians.”
The New Girlfriend: After the death of her best friend, Claire falls into a deep depression, but a surprising discovery about her friend's husband gives her a new taste for life.
