- Whats ON -

26th May - 3rd June 2007

The Reel Queer team is thrilled to present the 13th Annual Outtakes Festival. It's been a great year for queer films around the world and we've chosen the best to bring to you.Outtakes remains the second biggest film festival in New Zealand and gives us a chance to celebrate the diversity and vibrancy of queer communities.

Auckland and Wellington schedules, and full film listings are now available on this site, For more info go to http://www.outtakes.org.nz


Backs with ya's soon.

Film-Review

"Shortbus"

Cast:
Paul Dawson... James
PJ Deboy... Jamie
Sook-Yin Lee... Sofie
Lindsay Beamish... Severin

Writer/Director: John Cameron Mitchell

Plot Outline: Set in modern-day New York City, a heterogeneous group of straights, gays and transgenders find common ground at Shortbus, an underground salon where people are free to explore their most carnal sexual desires with random hookups and nightlong orgies – sometimes even finding bits of wisdom along the way.

Review: Now I was at the video store last night and my partner had been wanting to get this out, and it just didn't appeal to me... a friend had seen it and thought it was great... but I have to say my gut feeling was wrong, Yes, the on-screen sex is real. And there's lots of it. But rather than displaying sexually explicit scenes for the sake of cheap titillation, "Shortbus" is provocative with an actual purpose. We're not in Hollywood anymore.From the first sceen of James (Paul Dawson) nude in the bath to Sofie trying to get an orgasim, its a funny almost twisted look into the lives of some differant lives.but instead of ruining it go and see it. While sex is a main focal point in the film, it is not the sole one. "Shortbus" deals with all manners of human relations. Not stressing one form over another, it shows how sex, friendship and love continually intermingle. Because one's comfort level with their sexuality mirrors how one relates in all other relationships, showing the raw and carnal aspect of each character so explicitly works beautifully to accurately convey their motivations and struggles.This won't be a cult film, but will be one worthy of the home video shelve.

Back with ya's soon

NEWS: Gas attacks in gay village?

Canada:

On Saturday night, 28th April, a colourless, odourless gas was released into the ventilation systems of two Toronto gay bars, the Globe and Mail newspaper has revealed. "I had just gone in and checked my knapsack," said Mike Graydon, a graduate student from Ottawa who was at the first bar hit, the Black Eagle, about 11.20 pm, "and then, wham! I breathed in, and there was this burning. You didn't see or smell anything, then it just hit you." Graydon recalled helping people out the door, and then going back in to see if others needed help, getting a double dose. "This could have been much nastier... If you did that in the middle of Woody's," Graydon said, referring to a much larger bar a few doors north of the Black Eagle, "and all those people have to get down the stairs into the street, you'd have a panic." In fact, scores of people were removed, and the gas reportedly burned people's mouths and lungs for hours afterward. Yet the two attacks, in the heart of the city's gay village, have elicited little response from either the community or the police. Despite the possibility of a hate crime, staff at the Black Eagle did not call police, nor have police decided independently to investigate, dismissing it as a probable joke or accident. In Toronto’s gay village, the days of regular bashings and drive-by homophobic epithets seem mostly in the past, but there has been some recent violent - though not, apparently, homophobic - activity in the area, including three muggings in the past three months. Toronto Public Health manager Jim Chan is advising everyone affected to see a doctor immediately, calling the incident "suspicious." "It's too bad they didn't go through the 911 system," Chan said, "because then there would be record tracing, health, police would be informed, and they would send paramedics." He said that this long after the incident it would be difficult, probably impossible, to determine what the substance was.

More on this story is available on the link below.

Ref: Globe and Mail (m)

Related links: www.theglobeandmail.com

Gay Asian NZer's - Be Proud & Strong

It is very obvious that Asians are an increasingly visible part of the New Zealand community. The presence and impact of Asian culture in New Zealand is a reality. The question now is: "What percentage are gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender?" Yes, it's true that you can rarely tell "who is and who's not". The reason for this maybe, is because most glbt Asians are scared to get out of their shell and don't want to be identified as being homosexual. Many Asian countries are very vocal in condemning homosexuality, and religions with an anti-gay philosophy often have a strong influence on Asian cultures. As a result of this, many Asian gay men try to migrate to another country in which they think they can live and express themselves more freely. One of the popular choices for these men is New Zealand. What happens when they arrived here? Many react to their new freedoms by jumping into gay culture "boots 'n all" without taking time to think about consequences of their actions (i.e. they tend toward overindulgence). They want to experience everything gay that they have never experienced in their own country. But, without the skills for handling themselves in a community with different social rules, expectations and different codes of behaviour to what they are used to; and often coming to New Zealand with no condom culture; these men can be vulnerable to being taken advantage of, and of course, to the risk of HIV. This represents a challenge to New Zealand health services and the NZ AIDS Foundation, to find the means to get HIV/AIDS awareness into the Asian gay and bisexual community that we know has an increasing presence here.
Are Asian men aware of the recent increase of HIV among Asian gay and bisexual men in New Zealand?
Is HIV prevention information reaching them and relevant to their cultures?
What do we know about safe and/or risky sex practices among this group?
How many of them have had an HIV test? Let's face it; HIV isn't confined to one particular group or ethnicity. We are all susceptible, wherever we're from, whatever the economic status is, or age. But, to reach Asian gay and bisexual men in New Zealand with HIV prevention education - and, remember, these men who are often deeply closeted because of the anti-gay culture they bring with them, and potentially more vulnerable to harm because of the lack of social skills and lack of control that can sometimes come from sudden freedoms and immersion into a new and exciting culture - health providers must first ensure that they are inclusive, visibly open to issues of sexuality, and actively seeking ways of engaging within the Asian gay community.

c/- www.GayNZ.com
_____________________________________________________________________

The New Zealand AIDS Foundation's Gay Men's Health team is to launch its first resource aimed at raising HIV awareness among Asian gay and bisexual men on Friday 11th May in Auckland. Find out more on the link below.

Back with ya's soon