Big gay movie night(s)

Three nights of films with GLBT themes from all over the world and a VIP pass for the whole shebang is only $25? Yep, it’s the Sacramento International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, running Thursday, October 7, through Saturday, October 9.

The Thursday program opens with two short films. Zucht (Breath), from the Netherlands, has a 12-year-old boy discovering he’s more interested in his friend Sofie’s father than he is in her. In Inflatable Swamp, from the United Kingdom, a young gay man navigates the space between sex and love. These shorts are followed by a U.S. feature film, You Should Meet My Son, which sounds like a hoot: A conservative Southern mother, upon discovering her son is gay, goes on a mission to find him the perfect husband.

The Friday program features a short by Sacramento filmmaker Jennifer Hatton, Calling Card, which looks at the butch/femme dynamic by taking a look at hands. That’s right: hands. Chained! is another short that looks at wallet chains and lesbians, and Frischluft-Therapie (Fresh Air Therapy) takes couples counseling in a claustrophobic direction as two women are trapped—with their therapist—during a power outage. Friday’s feature presentation is the very timely A Marine Story, a film by Ned Farr about the effects of “don’t ask, don’t tell” on a female officer in the Marine Corps.

Saturday is devoted to short films of all sorts from Brazil, Canada, Korea and the United States, and audience members will have a chance to vote for their favorites. Don’t miss the best chance to see GLBT films all year; it’s all that and popcorn, too.