DANIEL RADCLIFFE’S GAY FILM TO OPEN OUT IN AFRICA

The 21st Out In Africa (OIA) Gay and Lesbian Film Festival is back this May with a selection of four exceptional features and two documentaries bound to spark debate.  

Africa’s leading queer film festival opens on Wednesday 28 May at Cinema Nouveau in Rosebank, Johannesburg and V&A, Cape Town, with Kill Your Darlings, starring Harry Potter alumnus Daniel Radcliffe as gay Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. The film and refreshments (free popcorn and a cold drink) on the opening night are courtesy of Cinema Nouveau. The festival runs until Sunday 1 June. 

Festival guest Jan Soldat will present his unusual and extraordinary documentaries Weekend in Germany and The Incomplete at all screenings in both Jozi and Cape Town. Soldat travels courtesy of the Goethe Institut. The festival is supported by the National Film & Video Foundation, the Goethe Institut, Graton Guest House, 6 Spin Street Restaurant, loyal 8333 members, the 700 MySchool contributors and our advertisers.

BOY MEETS GIRL
Dir: Eric Schaeffer / 2014 / USA / 95min
Eric Schaeffer’s new film, Boy Meets Girl is a poignant, sexy, romantic coming of age comedy about three twenty year-olds living in Kentucky: Robby and his best friend since childhood, Ricky, have never dated. Lamenting the lack of eligible “bachelors,” Ricky considers dating a girl. In walks Francesca, a beautiful young debutante waiting for her Marine fiance to return from the war. Ricky and Francesca strike up a friendship, and maybe a little more, which forces Robby to face his true feelings for Ricky. This is a sex/human positive modern fable and identification with its story crosses all gender and sexual orientation lines.

CONCUSSION
Dir: Stacie Passon / USA / 2013 / 97min
Abby, charming, honest, curious, and hopelessly restless is a suburban lesbian housewife, living a seemingly model life with two adorable children in a comfortable suburban home. After suffering a blow to the head, Abby starts to see the world through different eyes and so transforms herself into Eleanor, a high end lesbian escort. She becomes another woman – sensual, self-possessed and secretive. Concussion is a keen observation of the complicated contours of midlife crisis and an engrossing meditation on modern alienation and the ways we cope when we discover something missing in our lives. Winner of the Teddy Jury Award at the Berlinale, Concussion is palpably sensual and deliciously contained.

Awards: Berlin International Film Festival 2013 – Won Teddy Jury Award; San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2013 – won Best First Feature – Special Mention

KILL YOUR DARLINGS
Dir: John Krokidas / USA / 2013 / 104min
Daniel Radcliffe stars as Beat Generation icon Allen Ginsberg in this biopic set during the famed poet’s early years at Columbia University, and centering on a murder investigation involving Ginsburg, his handsome classmate Lucien Carr, and fellow Beat author William S. Burroughs. The year is 1944. Ginsberg is a young student at Columbia University when he falls hopelessly under the spell of charismatic classmate Carr (Dane DeHaan). Alongside Carr, Ginsberg manages to strike up friendships with aspiring writers Burroughs (Ben Foster) and Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston) that would cast conformity to the wind, and serve as the foundation of the Beat movement. An older outsider named David Kammerer falls deeply and madly in love with the impossibly cool Carr. When Kammerer dies under mysterious circumstances, police arrest Kerouac, Burroughs, and Carr as potential suspects, paving the way for an investigation that would have a major impact on the lives of the three emerging artists.

Awards: Cork International Film Festival 2013 – won UCC Film, Academy Student Jury Award; Hamptons International Film Festival – won Breakthrough Performer; Palm Springs Interntional Film Festival 2013 – won Directors to Watch

STRANGER BY THE LAKE
Dir: Alain Guiraudie / France / 2013 / 101min
Winner of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival best directing award in Un Certain Regard, Stranger by the Lake is a candid and absorbing portrait of passion and murder at a secluded lakeside cruising spot. Handsome young Franck visits the lake daily, increasingly bold in his search for sexual partners among the nude beachgoers. He befriends lonely, middle-aged Henri, but he also obsessively fixates on the darkly attractive Michel, even after he witnesses Michel’s violent late-night encounter with his latest partner. Nonetheless, Franck remains focused on attracting Michel’s attention, no matter what the potential risks are. Striking, beautiful, and stark as its lakeside setting, Stranger by the Lake is a stunning minimalist erotic thriller that explores with arresting photography and economical use of dialogue how human identity is defined, and sometimes imprisoned, by our desires, drives, and passions.

Awards: Cannes Film Festival 2013 – won Queer Palm & Un Certain Regard, Regard – Directing Prize; César Awards, France 214 – won César & Most Promising Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay and Best Sound; Montréal Festival of New Cinema 2013 – won Special Mention

WEEKEND IN GERMANY (Ein Wochenende in Deutschland)

 Dir: Jan Soldat / Germany / 2013 / 25min +

THE INCOMPLETE (Der Unfertige)

 Dir: Jan Soldat / Germany / 2013 / 48min

Welcome to the Germany of Jan Soldat, with this most provocative, outrageous and touching documentary-double-bill: In A Weekend In Germany, meet Manfred and Jürgen, both in their 70s, happily indulging in their suburban Saturday pastimes of sunbaths, microwave lunches and S&M bondage. In constant good humour, the couple debate the merits of fetish masks and online hook-ups, all the while fending off Jehova’s witnesses and sharing their erotic online videos with the world. And then, meet Karl Johannes Wolf, in his own words: “60 years old… gay… slave.” A tax advisor during the week, Klaus’s slave duties range from doing the vacuuming to enduring severe beatings by his various ‘masters’. But is there as much pleasure and play within the pain? And what does it feel like to be The Incomplete? As he signs up for slave camp and reminisces about his Wehrmacht officer father, Klaus guides us out of shadows of taboo, into a new light on lust, love and what it means to be naked. With unprecedented access, intimacy and humanity, without flinching or judging, Jan Soldat invites us behind closed doors and into the meeting place of our deepest fears and desires.

Out In Africa runs from 28 May to 1 June. Bookings open on 19 May via Ticketline on 08 21 67 89 or at www.cinemanouveau.co.za.