Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Director Franc Castro Top Five Picks for Must-See Films

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For many of its 61 years, Fort Lauderdale's Classic Gateway Theater has carved a niche for itself as a haven for alternative cinema -- especially of the LGBT sort. So it's only natural that the Gateway house the Fort Lauderdale Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, a scrappy but significant fest celebrating its third year in Broward County. And frankly, after two years of incongruously screening films in the decadent Wilton Manors nightclub The Manor, it's about time the festival had a legitimate movie theater to present the nearly 40 features, documentaries and shorts, screening this year from October 4 through 7. 

"I think that being at the Gateway has had a beneficial impact for the festival, since tickets sales are already dramatically ahead of where we were at the same time last year," says Franc Castro, executive director of the festival. "I also feel that being in a theater has brought more legitimacy to our festival, as we have 18 filmmakers and actors attending our young festival in support of our work and to further promote their respective films."

Moviegoers could easily spend the entire weekend huddled in dark Gateway auditoriums, with screenings beginning around 2 p.m. and ending around midnight. Not all will be masterpieces, but most will entertain, provoke, and challenge. To help you navigate the festival, Castro counts down five of its must-see films.


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Nan Goldin Photograph Featured at Girls' Club; Inspires Chick Flick Screening of High Art

Categories: Movie News
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One might define Nan Goldin as pretty damn punk rock.

The daring photographer brought honest scenes of the post-punk and queer counterculture of the '70s and '80s to the attention of the mainstream, and didn't forget to also beautifully shoot what weird stuff was going on in our homes either. One of her photographs is featured at the Girls' Club art gallery in Fort Lauderdale as part of their current exhibition Re-Framing the Feminine.

The gallery will screen the film High Art, as part of their Chick Flicks series, which is based on Goldin's work and life. The 1998 independent film, starring Ally Sheedy, follows the journey of a young woman whose life intertwines with an eccentric lesbian photographer. Very much a girls' club kinda film, no?

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Exposure Films at Green Room's Black Friday; Wear Your Gothic Best

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Black Friday at Green Room will host one of its most impressively interesting events to date. The weekly goth fest is the set for the filming of Hollywood suspense thriller Exposure. The filmmakers, we are told, are hitting up the South Florida party looking for the most worthy goths and industrial night-crawlers to feature in the film's club scene.

With some pretty big names in the works (Corey Feldman, anyone?) all Black Friday attendees should plan on dressing to impress. The more over-the-top, the better. A vamped-up version of Lydia Deetz, yes. An ode to The Craft, even better. Any character that gets knocked off in Blade is a pretty good bet too, as are Kate Beckinsale in Underworld and Joaquin Phoenix in 8MM. Pretty much every great movie has at least one token goth in it, and that token goth can be you.


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Does The Hunger Games Deserve the Harry Potter and Twilight Treatment?

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Recently, Hollywood filmmakers are splitting up book-based movies faster than Scientology is splitting up marriages. Just yesterday, it was announced that Mockingjay, the final book in The Hunger Games trilogy, is going to be made into two separate films. Our response: Holy Twilight-copying-Harry-Potter hell!

It's no small wonder that Lionsgate has decided to do the ol' part-one and part-two deal with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay. This is an easy way to double profits just when the cash cow is about to go dry. Just look at Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows parts one and two. They made more than $2 billion worldwide. Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 made about $705,058,657 worldwide, and part two is expected to exceed that.

But that's just the money. No movie franchise is ever successful without the heart (the Star Wars prequels don't count; they had leftover heart from episodes IV, V, and VI to drive fans to theaters). So the real question is: What do the fans think?

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