NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
September 27, 2005

Contact: Brenda Webb (bwebb (at) chicagofilmmakers.org)
or Dan Miracle (reeling (at) chicagofilmmakers.org)
Phone: 773.293.1447

REELING 2005:
THE 24TH CHICAGO LESBIAN AND GAY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, NOVEMBER 3-12

Presenting 130 independent films and videos from 16 countries at the Music Box Theatre, Landmark's Century Centre Cinema, Chicago Filmmakers, Columbia College's Film Row Cinema, and Columbia College's Third Floor Theatre.

CHICAGO, IL ‹ Chicago Filmmakers and Presenting Sponsors SHOWTIME and COMCAST are proud to announce REELING 2005: THE 24TH CHICAGO LESBIAN AND GAY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, to take place November 3-12, 2005. The second-oldest festival of its kind, REELING has brought the best in
international independent lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender cinema to Chicago audiences for 24 years. This year, Reeling will screen 130 films and videos from 16 countries, to be presented in 67 different programs.

Reeling's main venues are Landmark's Century Centre Cinema (2828 N. Clark St.), Chicago Filmmakers (5243 N. Clark St.), and Columbia College's Film Row Cinema and Third Floor Theater (1104 S. Wabash Ave.).

OPENING NIGHT, CENTERPIECE SCREENINGS, AND CLOSING NIGHT

Opening Night: Thursday, November 3, 7:30 pm
SUMMER STORM by Marco Keruzpainter (Germany) 2004
Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave.
After-Screening Party: Strega Nona, 3747 N. Southport Ave.

Reeling opens November 3rd at the Music Box Theatre with its opening night selection, SUMMER STORM (Summersturm), from German director Marco Kreuzpaintner. SUMMER STORM is both a poignant coming-of-age drama and a riveting sports story in its tale of Tobi and Achim, two best friends and rowing teammates, training over the summer in preparation for a big regatta in the countryside. Tobi's confusion about his feelings for his best friend and his emerging homosexuality are magnified by the arrival of an 'in your face' gay rowing team from Berlin the Queerstrokes.

The screening is followed by a gala celebration hosted by Strega Nona (3747 N. Southport), sponsored by Strega Nona, Stella Artois, and Stolichnaya Russian Vodka.
Admission: Film Only -- $12 / $10 members.
Film & After-Party: $45 / $40 members.


Women's Centerpiece Screening: Monday, November 7, 7:00 pm
UNVEILED by Angelina Maccarone (Germany) 2005 Film Row Cinema, Columbia College, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.

UNVEILED follows the courageous journey of Fariba, a lesbian fleeing Iran for asylum in Germany. When she is detained at the airport by the German authorities, with the prospect of being sent back, she escapes by assuming a male identity. Living as a man, Fariba finds work at a German factory and falls in love with coworker Anne. But their relationship is tested when Fariba's false identity comes into question and Anne learns the truth about both Fariba's illegal status and her gender.

After-screening party at Columbia College sponsored by Stella Artois and Stolichnaya Russian Vodka.
Admission: Film Only -- $10 / $8 members
Film & After-Party: $20 / $18 members

Men's Centerpiece Screening: Wednesday, November 9, 7:00 pm
SAY UNCLE by Peter Paige (US) 2004
Landmark's Century Centre Cinema, 2828 N. Clark St.

The directorial debut of "Queer as Folk's" Peter Paige, SAY UNCLE tells the story of Paul, a quirky gay artist who never quite managed to grow up, so much so that he doesn't even realize that his best friend, Russell, is in love with him. When Paul loses his job and his adored two-year-old godson's family moves to Japan, his life follows a downward spiral. Trying to put his life back together, Paul decides to fill both the emotional and employment voids in his life by pursuing a career in child-care. But when the imaginations of neighborhood moms spin out of control, they begin to believe that Paul, who innocently entertains kids on the playground, is up to no good. With a strong supporting cast including Kathy Najimy, Melanie Lynskey
("Heavenly Creatures," "But I'm a Cheerleader"), and Anthony Clark ("Yes, Dear"), this not-quite-black comedy addresses our fundamental ideas about what is appropriate, what is inappropriate, and what it means to be gay in a world where anyone different is considered at the very least suspect.

After the screening, there will be a reception in honor of SAY UNCLE writer/director/actor Peter Paige, sponsored by Center on Halsted.
Location TBA.
Admission includes film and after-party: $25 / $22 members

Closing Night: Saturday, November 12, 8:45 pm
THE MOSTLY UNFABULOUS SOCIAL LIFE OF ETHAN GREEN
by George Bamber (US), 2005
Film Row Cinema, Columbia College, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.

Reeling is proud to close this year's festival with the decidedly fabulous film THE MOSTLY UNFABULOUS SOCIAL LIFE OF ETHAN GREEN. Based on Eric Orner's popular comic strip, this hilarious comedy follows the romantic misadventures of Ethan Green, a gay Everyman who makes all the wrong choices but engenders our love anyway. Ethan's life is turned upside down when his
ex, Leo, tries to sell the house Ethan lives in, and his new big-league ballplayer boyfriend isn¹t ready to cohabitate. So Ethan concocts an elaborate scheme involving a horny 19-year-old and an incompetent real estate agent in a desperate bid to save his digs! It's a "wicked gay social satire with a heart" (Variety). Ethan Green's cast features "Camp's" Daniel Letterle in the title role and Meredith Baxter as Ethan's mother, a gay wedding planner.

After-screening party at Columbia College, sponsored by Stella Artois and Stolichnaya Russian Vodka.
Admission includes film and after-party: $25 / $22 members

INTERNATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

Reeling 2005 offers diverse cultural perspectives, with selections from 16 countries: Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Norway, Peru, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, UK, and the United States. France, Germany, and Canada predominate among the festival's foreign films.

France has four selections in this year¹s festival. COLD AS SUMMER (Froid comme l'été) is the disturbing story of a young Parisian woman who abandons her child and starts her life anew in a French seaside town. Featuring remarkable performances by Sarah Grappin (as the mother) and Nathalie Richard (as the detective who trails her), the film¹s naturalistic low-key style makes the actions of its protagonist all the more chilling. A LOVE TO HIDE (Un amour a táire), set in WWII France, is about two gay men who risk arrest by the Nazis when they hide a Jewish woman, and stars Jérémie Renier ("Criminal Lovers") and Bruno Todeschini ("Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train"). THREE DANCING SLAVES (Le clan) gives us three brothers each
struggling to find their place in the world after the death of their mother. And in LIKE A BROTHER (Comme un frère) a young man escapes his small town and tries to find happiness in the gay bars of Paris.

Germany brings us GUYS AND BALLS (Männer wie wir), the hilarious and uplifting story of a spurned soccer player returning to challenge his homophobic teammates with his own queer soccer team; BEAUTIFUL WOMEN (Schöne frauen), about five actresses who meet at an audition and throw caution to the wind by spontaneously taking off on a trip together; and HALF A LIFE
(Halbes leben - yarim hayatlar), a documentary about gay repression in Turkey. Two of Reeling¹s special selections, the opening night feature SUMMER STORM (Sommersturm) and centerpiece UNVEILED, are also from Germany.

Canada is well represented in Reeling with several documentaries as well as narrative features. In SHOW ME, a woman's car is hijacked by two disturbed teens who force her to drive to a remote cabin for a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game. In WILBY WONDERFUL all hell is about to break loose in the small town of Wilby as the names of gay men who hook up at the wooded beach area known as 'the Catch' are about to be printed by the local newspaper. Comic relief is provided by the quirky Sandra Oh ("Sideways," "Grey's Anatomy", "Under the Tuscan Sun"). In FLOORED BY LOVE the availability of same-sex marriage in Canada forces two young Asian lesbians to confront their divergent ideas about how far to take their relationship. EIGHTEEN parallels the life of a self-destructive young man depressed because of his gay brother's death with the life of his grandfather fighting in WWII.

Canadian documentary subjects range from an exploration of 'fag hags' in FAG HAGS: WOMEN WHO LOVE GAY MEN to an inside look at a feminist porn collective in Vancouver in MADE IN SECRET: THE STORY OF THE EAST VAN PORN COLLECTIVE to
a controversy about whether a male-to-female transgender champion bicyclist should be able to compete as a woman in 100% WOMAN.

Gay cinema has been nearly non-existent in India, with the notable exception of Deepa Mehta's highly controversial 1996 film "Fire," but that seems to be changing now. MY BROTHER...NIKHIL is the first mainstream film to come from
India with a gay man as the protagonist. Set in the late 80s and early 90s, it is the harrowing story of Nikhil Kapoor, a state swimming champion and his fall from grace when it is revealed that he is HIV positive. Isolated and imprisoned in an abandoned sanitarium, his sister and lover battle the state for his release. JOURNEY (Sancharram), made in India by Chicago filmmaker Ligy J. Pullappally, tells the story of forbidden love between two
schoolgirls, Delilah and her independent friend Kiran. Unable to profess her love openly to her best friend, Kiran becomes 'Cyrano' to a local boy who courts Delilah.

Reeling presents two films from Hong Kong. In INNOCENT, 17 year-old Eric immigrates to Canada from Hong Kong and has to come out in an unfamiliar culture. BUTTERFLY is the charming story of a married schoolteacher whose long-suppressed lesbian feelings of her youth are rekindled when she falls in love with a young singer.

Israeli films in the festival include KEEP NOT SILENT (Et sheava nafshi), about orthodox lesbians who, for the most part, keep their lesbian longings repressed or underground in order not to risk being ostracized from their communities; and SAY AMEN! about a young gay man trying to fend off familial expectations of marriage and kids while not upsetting the cart within his close-knit clan living in a small town in Israel. GOOD BOYS (Yeladim tovim) is an award-winning tale about two Israeli prostitutes who find comfort from their harsh realities in each other's arms.

Argentina is represented by it's celebrated director Edgaro Cozarinsky with NIGHT WATCH (Ronda nocturna), an alternately realistic and fantastical dreamlike descent into the night as a teen hustler finds strange things are happening to him as he roams the streets of Buenos Aires on All Saint's Day. Equally strange, but at the same time hilarious, is EL FAVOR, a farcical
tale of two lesbians who try to manipulate the brother of one of them into impregnating the other, through the use of a powerfully spiked cocktail.

The UK's BBC proves once again that its made-for-television productions are as good as anything made for the big screen with its mini-series FINGERSMITH and the endearing WHEN I'M 64. Sarah Waters landmark novel comes to life in FINGERSMITH, a follow-up to the highly successful BBC production of Waters
"Tipping the Velvet." Set in Victorian England, a young orphan is enlisted in a plot to swindle another woman out of her inheritance. FINGERSMITH will be shown in two 90-minute programs. Paul Freeman and Alun Armstrong deliver moving performances as two older men from entirely different walks of life who get a second chance at love in the beautifully told WHEN I'M 64.

Other international feature films include Ireland¹s TIMBUKTU, about a woman's search across the Sahara to find her brother who has been captured by Algerian rebels, starring Eva Birthistle ("Ae Fond Kiss..." and "Borstal Boy") and Karl Geary ("Sex & the City", "Hamlet"); and the US/Peru production BOTH, in which a movie stuntwoman living in San Francisco gets a letter and photo album from her aunt in Peru that shakes the foundation of
her own self-identity.

AMERICAN FEATURES

American filmmakers are increasingly putting a new queer twist on mainstream genres. From slasher films to science fiction to politically incorrect teen sex comedies, the range of subjects and styles being explored are more diverse than ever before.

In the suspenseful HATE CRIME, a gay couple live happily in the suburbs until the son of a notoriously homophobic pastor moves in next door. This accomplished film boasts a seasoned supporting cast including Cindy Pickett, Susan Blakely, Bruce Davison, and Giancarlo Esposito. Another crime is committed in STRANGE FRUIT, the tale of a gay attorney in New York who returns to the backward Louisiana town he escaped years ago to investigate the lynching of a childhood friend. A series of crimes are committed in OPENCAM, a techno-savvy thriller in which men are being murdered on camera when they visit a certain porn chat room. And in SCAB, young gay men in Las Vegas are being infected by the newest sexually transmitted disease: vampirism!

In the science-fiction film HARD PILL, the question of whether or not gay people would choose to be straight if they could is tested when a new pill is invented that makes this possible. And, in the reverse, a straight teen chooses to pass as gay in FRESHMAN ORIENTATION, a teen sex comedy that follows the plight of a freshman who plays gay in a desperate bid to get a
girl to 'convert' him. In the romantic comedy ADAM & STEVE, New York gay nightlife in the late '80s is hilariously recreated as we see a disastrous one-night stand between Adam and Steve, who meet again for another chance at love fifteen years later.

In BAD GIRLS BEHIND BARS, Chicago filmmaker Sharon Zurek gives us a rollicking send-up of women in prison films when she recuts four classics in order to highlight their Sapphic content. The film stars bad girls Barbara Stanwyck, Pam Grier, Anne Heche, and Ione Skye.

On a more serious note, Felicity Huffman ("Desperate Housewives") gives an Oscar-worthy performance in TRANSAMERICA, the story of a male-to-female transgender person who is about to undergo sex reassignment surgery when she receives a phone call from an incarcerated man who claims to be her son.

FILM THEMES

Sports-themed films take center stage in this year¹s festival, just in time to inspire some new participants for the upcoming Gay Games VII in Chicago. From soccer players in GUYS AND BALLS and championship swimmers in MY BROTHER...NIKHIL, to a queer rowing team in SUMMER STORM and a transgender
downhill mountain bike racer in 100% WOMAN, the triumph of queers in sports lends a great deal of excitement to this year¹s festival. And the gay games event, itself, is the subject of the new documentary TAKE THE FLAME! GAY GAMES: GRACE, GRIT, AND GLORY.

Now that 'the homosexual agenda' has thoroughly infiltrated popular culture, queer filmmakers can have fun spoofing their own depictions in the mainstream. Parodies include THE D WORD ‹ where the NYC Dykes are imperfect counterparts to TV's LA Lesbians; and the short QUEER EYE FOR THE HOMELESS
GUY ‹ detailing a more drastic kind of makeover that includes tent decorating and trash-bin gourmet meals.

Murder mysteries, suspense thrillers, horror, and slasher films also predominate this year, ushering in a new trend in gay-themed violence. The horror genre is explored in the vampire film SCAB, while a serial slasher invades the porn chat community in OPENCAM. SHOW ME and HATE CRIME are taut
with suspense, while TIMBUKTU combines road movie and thriller genres. STRANGE FRUIT gives us a murder mystery in the deep South, while COLD AS SUMMER shows us the crime of indifference.

The porn industry is the focus of the surprisingly charming and hilarious EXPOSED: THE MAKING OF A LEGEND that gives us an up close look behind the scenes of making the adult cowboy film "BuckleRoos." And in the Chicago-made comedy BOWSER MAKES A MOVIE, a young inept filmmaker tries to make it in the porn industry with money borrowed from the Mob. In a side note, adult male film stars are increasingly making the transition to non-porn gay films. In SCAB, for instance, we get to see several porn stars killed off as vampire victims!

Increasingly visible in movies are transgender people. In addition to TRANSAMERICA, transgender subject films include the previously mentioned 100% WOMAN, and the similarly titled 100% HUMAN, an unconventional documentary from Norway about the personal journey of a male-to-female transgender person. TRANSPARENT looks at the complex emotional issues around mothers changing their gender and the impact on their kids; and BOTH addresses the subject of intersex people.

SHORTS PROGRAMS

Reeling¹s highly entertaining shorts programs this year range from DYKE DELICIOUS SHORTS, with new works by popular lesbian filmmakers Jennie Livingston and Guinevere Turner (among others), to BOY'S PRIME TIME SHORTS, which introduces us to Taco Chick and Salsa Girl, a fudge-packing dad, and baby time-sharing gay men, along with other outrageous characters. Other shorts programs include GENERATION Q, an unflinching look at the courage of gay youth; WHERE THE BOYS ARE, including a cheesy parody of "Starsky and Hutch"-type detective shows, along with other uproarious shorts; and BOYS WILL BE BOYS in which men looking for Mr. Right make some very wrong turns. WOMAN TO WOMAN is a program of dramatic shorts, and LIFE AFTER SEX explores platonic relationships. Chicago-area filmmakers shine in the shorts program SAME SEX WINDY CITY. And from Korea, we have the CAMELLIA PROJECT, composed of three short films by three different directors, giving us a poignant glimpse into contemporary gay life in Korea.

DOCUMENTARIES

A myriad of excellent documentaries are submitted to Reeling each year and this year is no exception. The cream of the crop includes the amazing LITTLE MAN, a heart wrenchingly personal chronicle of the experiences of two lesbians whose child is delivered one hundred days prematurely when the surrogate mother's health problems surface. Struggling with whether or not to use medical intervention to keep the baby alive, these two mothers must face the most anguishing of decisions: to save their child¹s life or let him go. LITTLE MAN has deservedly won a host of best documentary awards this year at festivals around the country.

For a glimpse into the minds of the conservatives, we have GAY REPUBLICANS, in which Log Cabin Republicans explain how they reconcile being both gay and Republican; and THE EDUCATION OF SHELBY KNOX, the inspiring story of a Christian teenage girl who fights against the abstinence-only policy of sex education at her high school in Lubbock, Texas, a town with one of the
highest rates of teen pregnancy in the nation.

We catch up with the indomitable Tammy Faye Messner in TAMMY FAYE: DEATH DEFYING and hear the passionate poetry of Alix Olson in LEFT LANE: ON THE ROAD WITH FOLD POET ALIX OLSON. Gay history is explored in GAY SEX IN THE Œ70s, ORIGINAL PRIDE: THE SATYRS MOTORCYCLE CLUB, and GAY PIONEERS. And POSITIVELY NAKED documents an historic photo shoot of dozens of nude HIV positive people for the cover of POZ magazine.

One of the most entertaining and moving documentaries in the line up is LIFE IN A BOX, a diary film by a gay country music duo (a bald guy in a green dress and his lover in overalls!) that tours the U.S. in a travel-trailer. LIFE IN A BOX becomes as much about the disintegration of the duo's love relationship as it is about their unrealized dream to be discovered and offered their own TV variety show.

Other documentary topics include gay marriage (THE GAY MARRIAGE THING), the leather community (MR LEATHER), and lesbian polyamory (WOMEN IN LOVE).

VISITING ARTISTS

Due to the generous sponsorship of our travel partner Orbitz and our hotel sponsors Courtyard Marriott Chicago Downtown Magnificent Mile and Days Inn Lincoln Park North, this year¹s festival will host an unprecedented number of visiting film directors, producers, and actors who will appear at screenings and receptions.

SPONSORS

The Presenting Sponsors for Reeling 2005 are SHOWTIME and COMCAST.

Festival sponsors include 15 Letters, Black Cat Productions, Canadian Tourism Commission, Columbia College Chicago, Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership, Orbitz, Steamworks, Stella Artois, Strega Nona, and Tylenol PM.

The official host hotel is Courtyard Chicago by Marriott Magnificent Mile.

Supporting sponsors are Altavista Graphics, Days Inn Lincoln Park North, here! TV, i-Cubed, Illinois Department of Tourism, Interactive Male, Landmark Theatres, Martin & Wall, Pink Magazine, Sundance Channel, Tulip, and Windy City Media Group.

Community sponsors include the Dunes Resort, French Cultural Services, Hornbill Films, Illinois Film Office, Kodak, Lofts ¹N Homes, Starbucks, and Stolichnaya Russian Vodka. Internet sponsors are BoystownChicago.com, ChicagoPride.com, and DykeDiva.com.

Reeling is presented by Chicago Filmmakers, a non-profit organization that has served the media arts community and film-going audiences for over 30 years. Chicago Filmmakers' funders include The MacArthur Fund at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Alphawood Foundation, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Illinois Arts Council, and the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs' City Arts 3 Program.

PUBLIC INFORMATION

For more information, the public can contact the festival hotline:
312.458.9691, or consult the festival website at
www.reelingfilmfestival.org.

TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets go on sale October 22. Tickets and passes may be purchased in person at Chicago Filmmakers (Monday Friday, 10 am 6 pm; Saturday, October 22 and 29, noon 5 pm), by phone (773.293.1447), or online at www.reelingfilmfestival.org.

Ticket Prices:
Regular screenings: $10 / $8 members
Matinee screenings (5:00 pm or earlier on weekends; 6:00 pm or earlier onweekdays): $7 / $5 members
Opening Night Film Only (Summer Storm): $12 / $10 members
Opening Night Film Plus Gala After-Party: $45 / $40 members
Women's Centerpiece Film Only (Unveiled): $10 / $8 members
Women's Centerpiece Film and After-Party: $20 / $18 members
Men's Centerpiece Film and After-Party (Say Uncle): $25 / $22 members Closing Night Film and After-Party (The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green): $25 / $22 members