Andrew Worsdale
NODI MURPHY, the ebullient co-director of the Out-In-Africa Bell’s Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, acknowledges that this year’s selection is more mainstream than before. “We’ve learnt our lesson,” she says, downing a robust English breakfast including whisky and espresso at three in the afternoon, “and scaled down the operation. Last year there was too much choice.”
The festival has been running for three years. Its debut finance was secured from donor funding and it showed homo-obscurities from around the globe. But foreign funders don’t return the favour year after year; this time, despite operating finance from the French Institute, Murphy and colleague Jack Lewis, a gay activist and independent producer in his own right, sent out loads of e-mail trying to find money for the festival. They eventually got a response from Saatchi & Saatchi who represent Bell’s whisky – the new major sponsors of the event.
Over the past years the festival has been an unqualified success, Murphy draws a comparison to the London Queer Movie Fest: “They proudly claim to have had 16 000 viewers, in our first year we sold over 18 000 tickets.”
As for the mainstream selection on offer this time around, that’s not entirely surprising. Over the past few years queer independent film-making has enjoyed a mini- boom in production, accessibility and popularity, while international cinema has continued to incorporate non-stereotypical gay and lesbian characters into its movies.
But, at the same time, this new liberal approach has led to images of queers as sexless, heteroised characters such as in Birdcage, To Wong Foo or Reality Bites.
As for this year’s festival, there’s a plethora of girl movies. A few years ago it was boy pics, now it seems that dyke cineastes are getting their just desserts.
The festival will be having five select screenings at Ster-Moribo and the suburban movie-malls – part of its pledge to the huge black gay and lesbian community.
As Murphy says: “The festival was born out of the Cape activist group Abigail. In the first year we went into the townships but the showings were bad quality and people in the community felt they didn’t want to be outed … so this year we’re bringing queerdom to town.”
For details of the festival see back page