We decided to focus on intersex issues at this year’s Out in Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. This happened after I spoke with Liezel Theron, a specialist who runs Gender Dynamix, a group for people who have opted for gender reassignment. These people may be pre- or post-operative — male to female, or female to male.
In our discussions Theron told me that a person who grows up female, who knows deep down she actually wanted to be a boy, would probably enter into lesbian relationships. She would be attracted to women.
The real issue, of course, is that that person would prefer to be a man. These people, once they have had their operations, and when they have taken their hormones, now pass as their reassigned identity, which is male. They, therefore, don’t want to identify with gay and lesbian issues anymore. They are, for all purposes heterosexual.
I found that incredibly interesting and for this reason wanted Theron, who is not a filmmaker, to become involved in the Out in Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.
We’ve shown movies about transsexuals since the film festival began. But now we’ve realised that this group has always been associated with gay and lesbian issues, whether they like it or not. Ultimately, it is likely that they would prefer to distance themselves from the fact. But there is a body of cinema that is precisely about their issues. Nobody knows where to stick it, so it just happens to get shown with movies about gays and lesbians because, like us, they are sexual bandits and misfits.
This year we will continue to show films about transsexuals, but we are going to include a panel discussion. Usually the documentaries fail us at the box office, but now we are hoping that, with the focus on transsexuals, more people will come to watch the non-fiction work.
Every year I say this is not a festival of excellence, it is a festival of image. We have films that can be considered excellent cinema. They have everything, regardless of their gay content, that makes excellent cinema. But, because gays and lesbian filmmakers are not as well funded as other people, we also have works that might be fairly low on production values, but that still fulfil our need for total representation.
I call these movies “neighbourhood dramas” because, inevitably, they are of specific interest. The filmmakers often work with their best friends because they can’t afford actors. One friend has done the make-up, another friend has operated the camera. We have poor and rich, we have black and white, we have religious and non religious.
We try to balance our content. The majority of our clientele are men. We have more films for men than we have for women. The truth of the matter is that the world hasn’t changed much — men have more money than women. They find it easier to go out than women do, and it’s a fact that better films are made for men.
I get pissed off at the lesbians. I ask, “Where are you? Why don’t you attend?” They say: “You don’t give us the films we’d like to see. They’re badly made.” My argument, always, is that that is the way the boys’ films started out. The boys are interested in seeing things about themselves — they will tolerate different standards. Women are definitely pickier than the men. Boys are prepared to go out and perv. They are happy just to look at beautiful boys, give them a pickle shot or six … or 20.
The market has realised that the boys are prepared to spend. So they can invest a little bit more, they can improve production values. We’ve got to get the girls in that position as well.
A larger proportion of the movies we show come from the United States, but we make a concerted effort to look for films from the developing world. We want black representation.
But in canvassing films from India, for example, we watched a romance between two girls that was terribly antiquated. All the girls do in the movie is stare at each other across a room. My lesbian audience is not satisfied with that. They are very Westernised, they have access to all kinds of information. They have seen movies, read books, they have the Internet, so they’re not prepared to go backwards.
There are a lot of American films about Hollywood lifestyles. I don’t relate to that and I don’t think our audience relates either. At the end of the day we are successful in getting about 35 films a year that satisfy our audience. On the main festival we now get about 18 500 people through our doors over the month.
In 2004 we started an outreach programme. We went to Ster-Kinekor cinemas in the countryside. But unfortunately The Passion of the Christ and Oh Shucks, I’m Gatvol! were released at the same time. So any little moffie who wanted to go out in Bloemfontein, Pietermaritzburg or Potchefstroom was surrounded by predikants (ministers) on the one side and their uncles and aunties on the other. They couldn’t come to city malls. So last year we decided to do it differently.
Our major funder, Atlantic Philanthropies, funds other gay and lesbian organisations and it seemed right that we interact with them. So last year we requested that groups from out of town organise their own members. As a result we began showing films in halls and hotels to people that were bussed in from hundreds of kilometers away. The audiences included people from Secunda, Bethal and Piet Retief. We made it as sociable as possible.
This year we hope to go to places including Kimberley, Umtata, Grahamstown, Pietermaritzburg and Ermelo. There is nothing nicer than having a large, receptive audience. I’m a very controlling individual. I love showing people things I enjoy, which challenge them.
The 12th Out in Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival shows at Cinema Nouveau at the Rosebank Mall in Johannesburg until March 26, and at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town from March 23 to April 9. For information call (021) 461 4027
Branding the queer idea
In 2004 Out in Africa director Nodi Murphy contacted Peet Piennaar and partners at the graphics company daddy buy me a pony. They agreed to design the festival programme cover and poster for free. Here they describe their motivations for the designs
Three years ago Nodi Murphy walked into our office and said: “I want you to do our ads and posters.” Murphy is not somebody to say no to. We had a few rules: no pink, no rainbow and make it as queer as hell.
What we are doing is using mostly South African symbols and turning them into queer icons. Think of a blue poodle with springbok horns, a black muscle man crying over rugby player Schalk Burger and a springbok transformed into a “gay genie” coming out of a beer can.
Out in Africa is one of our pro bono clients. When the lesbians arrived at our office it intimidated the shit out of me. I know how to act in front of rugby players and can play the whole butch thing, but with this team I felt like a ballerina. I always find it strange to work with lesbians — we have nothing in common. They dig chicks, I dig guys, they hate glitter … But here’s what I learned from this. We’re going places where we may not have much in common. That’s queer to me! — Peet Piennaar
Blue Poodle (2004)
My criteria were to make the image as South African as possible, writes Nodi Murphy. No pink, no projectors, no strips of film or sprocket holes. I also wanted it as queer as possible. I had to avoid the clutter of being representative of a community that is male and female, black and white and all other permutations.
And so the blue poodle was born. What could be more camp than a blue poodle with springbok horns sitting in the veld? With some added finance from Business and Arts in South Africa we were able to make a cinema advert — and everyone on the crew did it for greatly reduced rates! The company daddy buy me a pony, won multiple Pendorings for this advert.
The Boxer (2005):
Peet showed me film posters from West Africa. These are usually for United States-made B-grade pulp. In those countries distributors don’t get the original posters and have to make their own. One sees huge images painted on mealie sacks. The original idea was to have a Schalk Burger lookalike. The poster was to have a screen advert that would explain the little poster on the fence that reads “Schalk trou”(Schalk marries). In the proposed film a man in a bakkie would shed a tear when he saw the headline when stopped at a traffic light … it was never made because of lack of funds.
I asked that we not have a white man on the programme cover and poster. If Out in Africa has people on the cover then we need to be representative. The idea was to have yet another cover — that of a Xena-style woman, who would also be black. But, dare I say, we didn’t have the funds.
Bokkie (2006):
This year Peet suggested a play on the idea that there is a “gay gene”. We decided to queer it up and called it the “gay genie”. You will notice that there is a tiny banner at the bottom of the cover that reads “what did your gay genie do for you today?”
The first genie was an amorphous furry creature. I was not convinced it would work, but waited patiently for everyone else to realise that too. I trust Peet implicitly; he is such a clever wacky artist, and he too finally twigged. And so we now have the sweet bokkie — our national symbol. It has long eyelashes and a sparkle on its snout. It is representative of us queer South Africans.