IF EVER THERE’S an example of the emotional range that can be packed into such a short length of film, this is it. VIDEO: Vice President Kamala Harris Addresses the Crowd at D.C.’s Capital Pride Why should you see this one? Because it’s so delightfully batshit - and utterly endearing as a result. If you can get past the in-your-face absurdity of it all, not to mention the strained singing and lyrics that won’t trouble Broadway (or even off-Broadway), and make it to the end credits, which features the entire cast engaging in choreography that would make a typical high school musical look like the Bolshoi, and do so without laughing, then you’re either dead or just dead inside. A mini-musical, it features a rather glum young man who eschews moving to London with his austere, demanding girlfriend and declares his love for … well, you’ll just have to see for yourself. IF THE INTENTION of this film, directed by Joel Rahkonen and Sonia Stenius, is to make us laugh, it thoroughly succeeds - even if the overall quality will leave cinephiles wanting. Wong covers an impressive amount of ground in ten minutes, and the light script and lithe performances add up to a sweet little film with a jubilant ending as Aaron comes to accept himself for who he is. The ensuing makeover montage - as Matt molds Aaron into his ideal (read: sterotypical) Asian - is amusing, but the line is drawn when Matt chastises him for using a fork to eat Chinese food. Too discriminating, he rejects anyone with a hint of “rice queen.” He finally lucks into Matt (Brett Donahue), a handsome man with an increasingly apparent Asian fetish. Geoff (Adamo Ruggerio) prefers men of a bearish nature, and Steve (Ben Lewis) freely admits he’s a “sexual racist” who “only sleeps with White, middle-class, Anglo-Saxon guys.” While their sexual appetites are well-defined, Aaron (Richard Lee) is undergoing a bit more of a crisis. WHAT’S IT LIKE to be the subject of a fetish? That’s the question posed - and humorously explored - in Austin Wong’s brisk, frisky comedy. With 20 films from across the gay spectrum, it’s three hours of LGBT cinema that won’t leave you feeling shortchanged. No matter how you digest these shorts - in bitesize nuggets, or one long session, on iPad, computer, or even via Chromecast - it’s an experience worth having. Postmates Serves Up A ‘Bottom-Friendly Menu’ for Pride Yes, short films are sometimes easy to figure out - when the genre is specifically LGBT, it can be hard to truly surprise your viewer - but look beyond that and, in the fleeting moments you spend with each film, absorb what the filmmaker is trying to impart. So, when a filmmaker gets it right - such as Carlos Molina with the unnerving thriller Red or Lance Larson with the emotionally raw Bloom or Arnaud Lalanne with the blissful La Princesse - you have to admire the craftsmanship at work. It takes a special gift to craft a cogent narrative, to capture a powerful emotion, to convey an idea in a film whose average length is 9 minutes. The beauty of a short film - most of which range from 2 to 20 minutes - is that even if they’re not perfect, they can be easily endured and then you’re onto the next. Gann (see profile, page 20) unearthed 20 LGBT nuggets for us to review, and while, as with any collection of shorts, the quality varies considerably, the collection as a whole captures the entire gamut of the LGBT experience. And who better to curate our mini-festival for us than Gann, executive director of DC Shorts, which, every fall, stages a massive, citywide shorts festival. Since 2009, just prior to the Oscars, we’ve occasionally put together lists of “25 Gay Films Everyone Should See.” When it came time for this year’s list, we thought we’d give feature films a break and turn our attention to an oft-neglected, but much beloved category - the short.
In some of the stories, the LGBT portion is very small, but the LGBT component is really critical to how the story unfolds.” Illustration by Christopher Cunetto I like them because they are about the entire community. “I’m not sure that these are the greatest LGBT films ever,” says Jon Gann.