This year's Frameline Film Festival has been really fun so far. As you can see from the photos attached, I've been hanging out with WOW alum, Alec Mapa. We found this giant Hello Kitty in one of the rooms at a party Saturday night – it was as big as him. Alec plays a closeted teacher in a film called Tru Loved, which gets a repeat this Wednesday @ the Castro Theatre. It's a heartwarming fairy tale with some amazing cameos by Jasmine Guy and Nichelle Nichols. The idosyncracies of digital video, like hyper blurred motion, usually overshadow a production and in lesser hands it may have done in this project, but the writing and performances were so strong even the limitations of the medium couldn't distract too much. It's a great exploration of small-town small-mindedness and the amount of courage needed to overcome it.
I also met Grant & Dan the guys behind the thriller, Cthulhu which features WOW alum Tori Spelling in a supporting role. I convinced Dan to join me for Randy's screening of When I Knew. The film is so uplifting and thought-provoking, you guys really did a good job on it. I've talked to a few friends this morning who saw the film yesterday and I wanted you to know that people are still talking about it and thinking about their own coming-out evolutionary paths. I can't remember the editor's name [Mark Cohen] but Randy said he was straight and stayed up all night to put together a special "San Francisco Remix" with footage from the When I Knew video booth stationed in the film festival pavilion. Since I recognized a few of the people featured, it felt even more special. I love the way both versions captured a distinctive mix of immediacy and nostalgia with such raw honesty and authenticity. It felt like a celebration of the special qualities that make the LGBT experience so unique. I'm really excited to see how the web project evolves and I've bookmarked wheniknew.com and I hope you'll encourage your readers to post their videos there.
