Perez de la Paz, Nacho
Raiz, Jesus

1999

Mousy Marta is the quiet girl in the corner of every house party. She lives with her ailing mother in a small flat, goes to night school, and fantasizes about the dreamy guy in the apartment across the street who hangs his underwear out the window to dry. Over the course of an afternoon, spent painting a friend's apartment, Marta is reintroduced to the self-involved people in her circle. Two sisters argue, Marta's saucy best friend Elisa and bitchy Jimena who stole Elisa's boyfriend. Fer and his wife Carmen bicker over her ticking biological clock. Anorexic Alicia throws up her lunch in the small bathroom. And sweet Nestor can't seem to get over his failed relationship with Marc. Of course, everyone confides in Marta and she, having no life of her own, keeps their various confidences.

Like a Spanish version of a Whit Stillman (METROPOLITAN) film, most of the conversation in MARTA AND SURROUNDINGS takes place around a kitchen table where the articulate characters wittily air their gripes about growing old and facing commitment and eloquently reveal their desires.

Engberg, Mia

1999

A film abou t Mason, a FTM. Filmed in San Francisco for Swedish television.

Karagoz, Huseyin

1999

Makbul is a film about power and passion. It aims at questioning power. Who is more powerful, the Sultan or the slave that he loves?

Arnold, Jennifer

1999

In Maid Of Honor, Serena, the maid of honor, and her lover Donielle examine their own commitment and ability to be honest in an era in which no relationship – gay or straight – seems to last. In the days before a wedding, 3 women struggle with their different views of marriage, commitment and honesty.

Kao, Antonia

1999

A grandmother tells her granddaughter a feminist creation story at bedtime.

ThuyLan Phang, Jennifer

1999

A sister & brother turn a dysfunctional family dinner into an unappreciated coming out party.

Akeret, Julie

1999

Akeret, Julie

1999

Looking For Common Ground, a 1997 Frameline Completion Fund winner, documents the process of struggling for and achieving gay rights at a typical suburban school, and serves as a vivid model for empowering students nationwide. In 1993, Massachusetts passed an anti-discrimination law that established the rights of gay and lesbian students. Looking For Common Ground traces the history of how one controversial high school refused to enforce the law, and how some students empowered themselves and fought back.

Hernández, Julían

1999

A story of romance, without love being required.

This grainy, disjointed film beautifully places the conflict of sexual identity and unrequited love inside the smoggy borders of Mexico City. Using dramatic expressionistic lighting, black and white film stock, and a minimalist sound track, Hernández creates a moody portrait of Bruno, a young prostitute on the streets of the largest city in the world. While tricking for cash professionally, Bruno spends his personal time pursuing the love of his presumably straight friend Umberto. Violently, Umberto severs ties with him, which leads Bruno to his own violent and misguided expression of anger and rejection. The film's experimental structure — prophetic intertitles, dependence on gesture over dialogue, brooding music — creates a broken sense of time and a feeling of displacement within Mexico City's dark alleys, carnival midways, and sketchy movie houses. This displacement mirrors Bruno's anguish over lost love and his manhood.

Julien, Isaac

1999