Lesbian & Gay Fest

For the second time Bilitis Lesbian and Bi-women Resource Center supports the annual Gay & Lesbian Fest that will take place at the Red House Center for Culture and Debate, Sofia, 15 Luben Karavelov Street, from 26th till 29th of October. The Red House traditionally promotes art that tolerates differences in sexual orientation and gender identity. This year, the fest will be held in parallel with the annual ILGA-Europe Conference that is hosted in Sofia. Partners in the organizing and implementation of the fest are Bilitis wit the financial support of Bulgarian Fund for Women, De Balie – Amsterdam, LesGaiCineMad – Fundacion Triangulo, Spain, Open Mind Foundation, French Institute – Sofia, Red Bed & Breakfast and other LGBT organizations.

Bilitis and the Bulgarian Fund for Women provided financial support for purchasing the participation rights of the lesbian movie Tan de Repende, Argentina, 2002, Diego Lerman.

Tan de Repende
Drama comedy, Argentina, 2002, 94’
Diego Lerman
Marcia is young and fat and lives a grey, routine life in the city of Buenos Aires. Mao and Lenin, a punk girl couple, run into Marcia and for some strange reason decide to express their love for her. Fanciful Mao declares she's in love with Marcia and offers to prove it. "The love which has no explanation can be proved, and proof is worth as much as love," Mao tells her. From there on, the three (daring couple and bewildered Marcia) leave Buenos Aires on a journey whose end and date of return keep been delayed due to all the unforeseen things that happen to them. The journey they're on gets stranger and stranger, with constant changes of landscape and pace, and with fantasy and lots of humour. A search for a place that's impossible yet eternal, a place they keep on leaving behind.
Awarded 6 times in 2002: Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the Viennale Film Fest, Winner of the Silver Leopard Special mention of the jury for the whole cast at Lucerne, Winner of the Public Award & Jury Special Award at the Buenos Aires Film Fest among other international prizes.

Exhibitions
The fest will include arts exhibition of six artists who use art as a way of expressing their sexual identity. Love, passion, loneliness are some of the topics in their art. Bilitis Resource Center supported the exhibiting of artwork of female artists, who dedicate their pieces to women.

Amenum Philip Geneva: born in Sofia in 1981, graduated college of applied art “Prof. n. Raynov” and Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (History of Art and Visual Art). She has several individual exhibitions and has participated in many graphics, sculpture and ceramics exhibitions. Her artwork is a cycle of graphics, in which the main theme is the woman. The collection of artwork has already been exhibited in a permanent exposition in Orpheus Land, Köln, Germany.

The other authors are: Alexander, Awen Art, Boyan Dimiev, M. Rahneva and Silvia Pavlova.

Public Debate
At the initiative of Bilitis Resource Center, the program of the fest included a public debate under the title “Visibility and the Images of LGBT in the Mass Media”. The debate will involve as main speakers LGBT organization activists and journalists who have written on issues related to LGBT people. The main opponent of the politically correct speaking of LGBT, Martin Karbovski, will participate, and the LGBT activists will have to persuade him that it is important for journalists to use non-discriminative language. One of the questions that will be subject of discussion will be the different level of visibility of lesbians in public space, compared to gay men and transvestites. Although the compound LGBT is often used in media texts, the focus of the mass media is on the male homosexuality and on transvestism, while lesbian images are only sporadically included, and always remain on a second plan in the media discourse of the sexual identities. Using the statement “to be means to be seen” as the starting point of discussion, the participants in the debate will argue what kind of images LGBT must promote in the mass media in order to affect greater social tolerance and acceptance of the sexual identity differences.

The Full Program of the Fest
Gay & Lesbian Fest 2
October 26-29, 2006

October 26 (Thursday)
8.00 p.m. – Opening of G&L Fest 2 / Exhibitions & reception with ILGA delegates
10.00 p.m. – Lili Hendel / Queer performance

October 27 (Friday)
4.30 p.m. – Beautiful Daughters (doc, USA, 2006, 61`)
6.00 p.m. – Straight Out (doc, Iceland, 2003, 60`)
presented by Jankees Boer, De Balie - Amsterdam
8.30 p.m. – Drôle de Félix (feature, France, 2000, 95`)
10.30 p.m. - Pashke and Sofia (doc, Germany, 2003, 28`)

October 28 (Saturday)
4.00 p.m – LesGaiCineMad Short Film Programme, 2006 - Les
Hold up – Madeleine Olnek (Canadá, 2005, 9`)
What hot guy – Mary Thompson (USA, 2006, 4`)
In memory of me – Samantha lavin (USA, 2006, 23`)
If you lived here, you’d be home now – Tamar Glezerman (Israel, 2006, 11`)
Peace talk – Jenifer Malmqvist (Sweeden, 2004, 15`)
Je souhaite un dèsir un autre encore – Eugenio Lasserre (Argentina, 2004, 11`)
Inclinations – Jen Simmons & Shelley Barry (USA, 2005, 13`)
The piper – Abbé Robinson (UK, 2005, 11`)
6.00 p.m. – LesGaiCineMad Short Film Programme, 2006 - Gay
Eargasm – Dave Quantic (USA, 2004, 5`)
Daddy’sboy – Tristan Hamilton (Australia, 2006, 9`)
You’re such a blind fold – Tony Osso (USA, 2004, 23`)
Spaceboy – Keith Dando (UK, 2005, 7`)
No ordinary joe – Jules Nurrish (UK, 2004, 13`)
New balls please – Richard James (UK, 2003, 4`)
Older – Mark Chapman (UK, 2005, 9`)
Love never dies – Frank Aron & Eirik Tyrihjel (Norway, 2003, 3`)
Hitchcoked – David M. Young (USA, 2006, 9`)
Goodboys – Mark Chapman (UK, 2005, 12`)
Cabalerno – Jarrah Gurrie (USA, 2006, 5`)
8.30 p.m. – Tan De Repente (feature, Argentina, 2002, 94`)
10.30 p.m. – Miracle / Everyone is curious what’s going on in Spain (doc, Spain, 2006, 50`)

October 29 (Sunday)
4.00 p.m – Visibility and Images of LGBT in the Mass Media
6.00 p.m. – A Knock Out (doc, The Netherlands, Germany, 2006, 50`)
presented by Jankees Boer – De Balie - Amsterdam
8.30 p.m. - La Repetition (feature, France, 2001, 96`)