Bright Lights Film Journal :: Articles

What's Up, QDoc? Portland's 2008 Queer Documentary Festival

Feisty orthodox Jewish dykes, globe-trotting ladyboys, fascistic Armani queens — you know, the gang

Getting Better All the Time: The 2008 Tribeca Film Festival

Seeing queer lives from the U.S. and Canada to South Africa and Iran

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Plus Ça Change: The 2008 Rendez-vous with French Cinema

Just lose the red carpet

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Tickets to the Dark Side: The 43rd Chicago International Film Festival

Gingerly moving out of the 20th century, not quite into the 21st

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Onward and Inward: On the 2007 Thessaloniki International Film Festival

"We will see whose heart is sharpest!"

How Did History Happen? The 2007 Melbourne International Film Festival

"Each work limns a moral dilemma that has no discernible answer."

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by Lesley Chow

"Each stranger is a figure of seemingly infinite potential, pinned down to a changing series of points."

Safety First: The 45th New York Film Festival

Movin' On Up: The 2007 Tribeca Film Festival

The 2007 NYFF's more cautious than courageous this year

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Closing the Closet: QDoc: The2007 Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival

From neighborhood festival to NYC player

Secrets of the European Union: Chicago's Tenth Annual EU Film Festival

"We couldn't figure out how to divide the cat."

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On the Border of the Thermian Gulf: The Ninth Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival

They saw what you did!

by Karin Luisa Badt

"The documentaries that most stood out have a near fictional flair, blurring the border between reality and fable."

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Dragons, Tigers, and Citizen Rayns: The 25th Vancouver International Film Festival

by Ben Cho

Asian cinema triumphs in this year's D&T, Tony Rayns's last

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Less Is Less: The 44th New York Film Festival

Chicago, je t'aime: The 42nd Chicago International Film Festival

Past trumps present in this unremarkable fest

On the Prowl with MadCat: On the 2006 MadCat International Women's Film Festival

"There are things you shouldn't sell"

Success Breeds Confidence: Korean Movies at the NYAFF

Provocative and visionary!

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by Bo-Myung Seo

A quartet of recent Korean films shows a reassuringly robust national cinema

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Hands Across the Atlantic: The 9th Annual European Union Film Festival

More Fun in the New (Old) World: The 2005 Portland Gay and Lesbian Film Festival

A Baltic-to-Balkan road trip

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The Unbearable Lightness of Cannes 2005: Diversions and Disappointments

Out of the closets and onto the screen

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by Karin Luisa Badt

At least the parties were fun

The Global Gaze: The 43rd New York Film Festival

I Am a Film Addict: The 41st Chicago International Film Festival

Much to admire, little to love

In the Realm of the Real: The 3rd Chicago International Documentary Film Festival

What the devil did they show?

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Maybe Next Year: Slim Pickings at Berlinale 2005

"The governments will be forgotten but the masterpieces will remain."

O Bruder, Where Art Thou? The 8th European Union Film Festival (Chicago)

When good ideas go wrong

Theda Bara's Eyes: The 40th Chicago International Film Festival, Part 2

Doing the Continental

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Theda Bara's Eyes: The 40th Chicago International Film Festival, Part 1

Angelopoulos to Zhu: "This is an artistic film. You wouldn't like it."

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The Verve Is Back: The New York Film Festival 2004

From Akerman to Zhu

Where Kink Is King: CineKink Festival 2004

This year's fest features a wealth of winners — and a few flops

Too Busy Making Work: Honoring Michael Snow at the — 2004 Thessaloniki Film Festival

Won't you be my pony boy?

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Together Again in the Dark: The 2003 Chicago International Film Festival

Painter, photographer, sculptor, composer, musician — and here, seminal experimental filmmaker

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57th International Film Festival in Edinburgh

The crowd has a thousand eyes

2003 Montreal World Film Festival

Not the best of times, not the worst of times

by Joanne Bealy

A world-class city offers a world-class fest — despite some troubled backstory

The 2003 New York Film Festival

by Michael Ratner

This year's NYFF is a decidedly mixed bag of tricks

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Put the Camera on Us! Documentaries at the 2003 SFILGFF

Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, 2003

Reality cinema celebrates homos of this year and yesteryear

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The 38th Chicago International Film Festival, 2002

Fine performances are the main attraction of this timely New York tribute to recent French film

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The 40th New York Film Festival, 2002

"The Scandals of 2002"

San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival: The Docs!

"No reassurance and little escapism — just right for the current state of uncertainty"

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San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival: The Dicks!

As usual, reality trumps the alternatives

The 20th Bergamo Film Meeting, March 9-17, 2002

Where have all the penises gone? This year, to England

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The Victoria Independent Film and Video Festival, Canada 2002

This fine Italian festival features wide variety, no polemics

by Joanne Bealy

An engaging mix of cinema — two-thirds of it Canadian — visits the Great White North's "postcard village on steroids"

The Belfort International Film Festival, France 2001

by Maria van Dijk

Identity politics, urban terror, and Bulle Ogier distinguish this festival from some of its more pretentious peers

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Uncertainty and Change: The 42nd Thessaloniki International Film Festival (2001)

San Francisco's Berlin & Beyond Festival (2002)

The fest's focus on New Argentine cinema is especially timely in light of the country's dire economic situation

37th Chicago International Film Festival (2001)

Despite the American juggernaut, Germany and its neighbors continue to make good regional cinema

Cinemayaat 2001: The Fifth Arab Film Festival in San Francisco

"It's so twenty-first century!"

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QFilmistan: The First South Asian LGBT Film Festival

More relevant now than ever, this solid fest brings some of the complexity of the Arab world to often uncomprehending western eyes

Shaddup! The 2001 San Francisco Silent Film Festival

A treasure trove of short queer cinema — and one feature — from cultures where creating it can be a criminal act

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The 2001 San Francisco International Asian-American Film Festival

All's quiet on the cinematic front in this seductive survey of the artful '20s

Queer Documentaries at the 2001 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

Gangbangers, sex robots, and babydykes, oh my!

Penisspotting in the 2001 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

A bumper crop of docs scale the heights and trawl the depths of queer culture

Yugoslavia in Focus: Observations From the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival

Our annual survey of cinematic dick in the SFILGFF

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San Francisco's 2001 International Human Rights Watch Festival

Archival footage, dramatizations, and dark satire capture the dire end-of-century events in the former Yugoslavia

San Francisco's IndieFest 2001

Celebrating activism and exposing some of the more chaotic corners of world politics

Russian Cinema After Perestroika: Notes from Thessaloniki International Film Festival

Some bright lights and a few dim bulbs distinguish this year's preeminent indie showcase

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Documentaries at the 2000 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

A heady tour of recent Russian cinema from one of Europe's oldest festivals

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Penisspotting at the 2000 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

Friendly Christians, bitter rent boys, and South Africa's liberated queens are part of this year's queer reality parade

The 1999 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

Our spongy-tissued li'l pal is a bit shy this year

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Penisspotting: Phallic Imagery in the 1999 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

The preeminent queer filmfest in overview

Ask, Tell: Documentaries in the 1999 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

Sightings of our spongy-tissued li'l pal in this year's fest

Of Loincloths and Lamé: "Sons of Hercules" at the 1999 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

Highlights of the lives of real-life queers from as far as South Africa and as near as your closet

Cultural Makeovers: San Francisco's Tranny Fest 1998

Shed a tear for these long-lost Roman go-go boys and evil queens of all sexes

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The 1998 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

Wrestling with the limits of the body — and breaking them

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Penisspotting in the 1998 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

The queer community's longstanding obsession with roles and labels may be starting to loosen up

Queer Cartoons in the 1998 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

For those who prefer anatomy to artistry, or more coarsely, meat to melodrama, we offer this consumer guide

Queer Innovators in the 1998 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

Cartoons have always been a rich repository of queer subtext. How else to explain all those too-close buddies and their serious lack of female companionship?

Queer Voices in the 1997 San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

The queer contribution to experimental film

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The Penis in the Festival (SFILGFF)

The world's biggest lesbian and gay filmfest shows the pleasures and pitfalls of gay auteurs caught between assimilation and opposition. Watch out for the "Stepford" homosexual!