The inaugural two-day Pretoria Pride Gay and Lesbian Film Festival is being held at Kiki Coqtail Lounge in Lyttelton from 27 to 28 September.

The organisers have worked with Durban Gay & Lesbian Film Festival Director Jason Fiddler to include a mix of entertaining, inspiring and thought provoking documentaries, short films and feature films sourced from independent LGBT filmmakers from across the globe.

“The importance of LGBT and queer cinema cannot be underestimated, both in terms of raising community awareness whilst providing an entertaining cultural platform for LGBT folk to come together, and in terms of conveying important stories that resonate with audiences wider than just LGBT people” says Fiddler.

“Our lessons from the Durban Gay & Lesbian Film Festival are that such events are catalysts for dialogue, platforms for the sharing of ideas and inspiration, whilst using the power of cinema to convey key messages of hope, love, interaction and understanding”.

This year’s Pretoria Pride Gay and Lesbian Film Festival will include titles that speak to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender audience members and reflect their stories through the eyes of international filmmakers from across the developing and developed world.

Kiki Coqtail Lounge in Lyttelton will be hosting the event. R20 gets you in on each of the evenings and, as usual, the sexy staff will be ready to delight with light meals and cocktails. Bookings may be done by e-mail, KikiCoqtail@gmail.com.

PROGRAMME

27 September

19:00 – Feature Film w/short (comedy, mature) 89mins

Short Film – BED BUDDIES | 2016 USA | 15mins | English
Longtime gay friends wake up together after a night of drinking, and try to make sense of the suddenly blurry line between platonic and romantic.

Feature Film – PATERNITY LEAVE | 2015 Canada | 89mins | English
Greg (Jacob York) finds out that he’s pregnant with his partner Ken’s (Charlie David) baby. Dumbstruck by the news, their relationship takes twists and turns through hardship & hilarity, while we’re left wondering if they’re going to make it through the most unexpected and difficult period of their lives together.

21:00 – Compilation short & doccie (adults only) 78mins

Short Film – PERPETUAL | 2016 Denmark | 25mins | Danish + English subtitles
(#DGLFF2016 Jury Award Best Gay Short)
An unconventional love story where young Sebastian explores his sexuality, seeking sex/love online. He meets older Jacob, who takes him to a sex club to hook up. In new and frightening surroundings Sebastian surrenders, and in their subsequent meetings love sprouts, at least for Sebastian. Outside the darkness of intense togetherness, reality penetrates. Jacob is full of lust and not love. So when Sebastian’s hopes are disappointed and Jacob pulls away, Sebastian returns to the dark room to restore that lost ‘love’ in the embrace of a stranger.

Documentary – I’M A PORNSTAR: GAY4PAY | 2016 Canada | 53mins | English
Welcome to the curious, surprising and always outspoken world of straight men who go Gay4Pay. Curiously there is a disproportionate percentage of men working in gay porn who identify as straight. Why would a straight man do gay porn? What motivates him to try this or make a career of it? Why is there such keen interest and debate into the sexuality and personal lives of these men? And what does it say about us, the viewer that so much of gay porn is dominated by images of straight men? Are there shades of internalised homophobia emerging? Why might we be turned off if the man on screen looks, sounds, or behaves in a way that is identifiably queer? To try answer some of these questions we interviewed men from some of the most popular and prolific studios which fetishize straight men.

28 September

19:00 – Compilation shorts & doccie 84mins

Short Film – IT’S OKAY TO EAT FISH CAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE ANY FEELINGS | 2015 Sweden | 12mins | Swedish + English subtitles
(#DGLFF2016 Jury Award Runner Up – Lesbian Short Film)
Matilda is home alone with her older brother Peter when his girlfriend Elin comes over. Elin is everything Matilda ever wanted to be. She loves the way she dresses, how she moves, her whole presence. Maybe even more than Peter…

Short Film – MOMS ON FIRE | 2016 Sweden | 13mins | Swedish + English subtitles
(#DGLFF2016 Jury Special Mention – Lesbian Short Film)
A quirky stop-motion animated film about defying and stretching the generally accepted standards of good motherhood.

Documentary – MEET THE BEAVERS: CAMP BEAVERTON | 2015 USA | 59mins | English
Each year, a city of 50,000 arises in Nevada’s isolated Black Rock Desert as Burning Man gets underway: eight days of a revolutionary social experiment in art, community, and self-expression. Ana Grillo and Beth Nelsen travel to the playa on a quest to delve deep into a subset of this radical population, the Beavers of Camp Beaverton—lesbian, bisexual, trans, gender-queer and beyond, who come together to commune and play.

21:00 – Feature Film w/short (drama/mature) 73mins

Short Film – NO MATTER WHO | 2015 France | 18mins | French + English Subtitles
(#DGLFF2016 Jury Award – Best Lesbian Short Film + Best Short Film in Competition)
Summertime. A troop of young girls are headed to scout camp. For Marie and Lise, it’s time for their first sparks of emotion and learning more about desire, but also how to confront a group and its morals.

Feature Film – CHRISTINE AT THE CROSSROADS | 2015 USA | 55mins | English
A young woman begins to realise that true love and the relationship she wants isn’t exactly what society would like her to think. Christine is forced to confront her repressed sexuality when she falls in love with a co-worker.