Falling wall

This Gay Fest looks ahead

by Scott Heller

"BOSTON GAY & LESBIAN FILM/VIDEO FESTIVAL," At the Museum of Fine Arts, through May 31.

Remember a movie called Lie Down with Dogs? Hardly anyone does. But when it arrived in 1995, this was to be the next chapter in the burgeoning "New Queer Cinema," the follow-up to such critical successes as Poison and Go Fish.

Lie Down with Dogs tanked. And with it burst a protective bubble around gay and lesbian film. Here was a movie as silly as any prefab romantic comedy squeezed out by Hollywood. Distributors and audiences continued to look for the next big thing, taking their pick from the raw (All over Me) and the overcooked (Kiss Me, Guido). By then, though, the mainstream had discovered gays and lesbians. Kevin Kline and those queens of the desert were dancing at the Birdcage.

That brings us to the 14th annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival, which is lifting off this weekend at the Museum of Fine Arts. Replete with first features conceived during those heady early-'90s days, it arrives in a tougher climate for queer indie cinema. Shy of a few films getting major releases, most of the work presented has or will travel a narrow festival circuit. See it now or you may not see it at all.

Seven American independent features make up the bulk of the festival, which wobbles to a start with Some Prefer Cake (May 15 at 8:15 p.m.) and David Searching (May 16 at 7:30 p.m.). Heidi Arnesen's Some Prefer Cake builds on the knotted bond between Kira, a fling-happy lesbian who dabbles at stand-up comedy, and her straight best friend, Syd, an aspiring restaurant reviewer who's never published a review. Punctuated by Seinfeld-style comedy routines stiffly delivered by Kathleen Fontaine (as Kira), the film rarely finds distinctive footing. But it's never as offputting as David Searching, the stilted story of a young New York filmmaker looking for Mr. Right. A nice turn by Camryn Manheim of TV's The Practice as -- you guessed it -- the overweight roommate helps, but not enough.

The MFA has inexplicably chosen to show two of its best features in the early slot on the following Fridays. In the autobiographical Green Plaid Shirt (May 22 at 6 p.m.), director Richard Natale tells the story of thirtysomething gay men in the age of AIDS through the troubled romance of Philip and Guy, a pair who meet cute over a shirt they both want at a yard sale. Gay community is forged in snooty restaurants and at tipsy dinner parties, and here the strong ensemble cast rarely miss a bitchy beat. Kevin Spirtas broods effortlessly as Guy; Gregory Phelan is a fine Philip. Each fills out the green plaid shirt nicely.

Up on the rooftops above Manhattan a clandestine band of divas, drag queens, and the otherwise despised plot to take back the city below. Dancing, drinking, and doing drugs, the sun glistening off their made-up faces, they are outrageous and beautiful, words that describe Stephen Winter's impressive feature-film debut Chocolate Babies. (May 29 at 6 p.m.). Winter sets his "gang of self-proclaimed raging atheist meat-eating HIV-positive colored terrorists" against hypocritical politicians and doctors who deny them care and housing. Looking like Barry White in Norma Desmond outerwear, Dudley Findlay Jr. is the memorable Vicomtesse Larva, standing pump to pump with Michael Lynch, all bruised elegance as the transvestite addict Lady Marmalade. To judge by Chocolate Babies, Winter is ready for his next effort: directing a bio-pic of the disco star Sylvester.

There are two remarkable entries from the festival's slim international menu. Given the circumstances, East Palace, West Palace (May 28 at 8 p.m.) should never have been made at all. Director Zhang Yuan had already incurred the wrath of Chinese authorities with Beijing Bastards and Sons. Here he offers China's first gay feature, a brilliantly acted chamber drama depicting the all-night interrogation of a young gay writer by a cop who is both repelled and attracted. And the idea that truth is stranger than fiction doesn't begin to explain the British documentary Love Story (May 21 at 6:30 p.m.). In 1940s Berlin, Lilly Wust was a nondescript German hausfrau, a good Nazi wife. Then she fell in love with Felice Schragenheim, a member of the Jewish underground concealing her identity. Director Catrine Clay has assembled the necessary archival materials to offer historical context. But nothing equals the powerful sight of 82-year-old Lilly talking about the love of her life.

Near the end of the fine documentary Out of the Past (May 16 at 5:15 p.m.), 17-year-old Kelli Peterson wonders what history will make of her own struggle. Although the law was on her side, Peterson had to fight the Salt Lake City school board in 1996 to set up the state's first club for gay high-school students. Director Jeff Dupre intersperses this battle with stories of other largely forgotten gay and lesbian heroes, including Henry Gerber, who founded the nation's first -- and short-lived -- gay-rights organization. "We were up against a solid wall of ignorance, hypocrisy, meanness, and corruption," the film quotes Gerber as saying. "The wall had won."

In Salt Lake City, the wall fell. Members of the Utah Gay-Straight Alliance will join Dupre at this Saturday's screening of Out of the Past, which was voted most popular documentary at the recent Sundance Film Festival. A brief slide presentation on gay history in Boston will precede the film.