Time to Get Your Frameline On!

In the world of queer cinema, Frameline is the fabulous personality who needs no introduction; everyone perks up and pays attention when she speaks.

This year she's just a hair shy of 40; and, in her 39th year she's proving herself to be just as playful, smart, and mindful of diversity as in previous years. While the World Cinema section (which this writer is partial to) always has some strong offerings and represents at least Europe, East Asia, and South America, one thing that stood out this year was a particularly strong turnout of promising Latin American features and shorts. So, that became a way of narrowing focus in what could be an overwhelming cine-menu in San Francisco.

Before that, though, a quick mention of three from the Middle East, because we don't get much from that region. "Alex and Ali" is an American production but documents the reunion, in Istanbul, of the filmmaker's father, an American, and an Iranian man. These two men fell in love while the former was serving in the Peace Corps in Iran, and were forced apart by the revolution of 1979. It's a complex and heartrending journey that includes a rocky re-connecting and an arduous attempt to get Ali out of harm's way. Then there are the Israeli shorts "Noam" and "Thirst." The former, from the Coming Up Queer program, is an endearing look at two high school thespians navigating fledgling affection; the latter is a sexy power play in the desert as one friend cunningly tests his bond with his best friend. Find it in the provocative Thirst and Desire program.

Racial tensions are underlined and teenage allegiances are tried in "Hidden Away," a Spanish drama that still manages to be provocative despite its relative predictability. Virility and tenderness co-mingle in this narrative about a nascent friendship between a local and an undocumented Moroccan in Bilbao. Rafa is increasingly alienated from his libidinous buds who are tirelessly chasing girls, cracking crude jokes about their objects of lust, and inviting confrontations with the Arabs in their midst. Some of them he can shrug off without too much conflict, but it is more complicated with his closest friend. At the same time, the affable Ibra is dealing with strained bonds of his own as he resides at a community center for undocumented youth and navigates an older, more experienced Arab teen's attempts to manipulate him into being an accomplice in his thievery and drug dealing. Rafa and Ibra are not ostensibly outsiders; they excel in their respective social realms when they try, but they are harboring disenchantment and find solace in each other (even if it means inviting the ire of everyone else in their circles).

Teenage bonds are also tried in the wintry and sometimes wistful Brazilian drama "Seashore." Whereas the forging of a new friendship spurred fissures in old friendships in "Hidden Away," in this case the central relationship is an older friendship in flux. Martin and Tomaz aren't as close as they used to be, but when Martin travels to the coast to attempt to reconnect with a part of his extended family that has been estranged due to a strained relationship with this father, Tomaz goes along for the ride. When flirtations with girls culminate in a night of drunken fornication, Tomaz intentionally gets shit-faced so that he'll have an excuse not to do the deed with his admirer. Instead, after retrieving a condom for another mate, he steals a glance of his best bud bedding his girl.

Even if the scene in which Martin and Tomaz discuss Tomaz's sexuality for the first time seems cut from the fabric of fantasy (what we would all like to happen when we tell our straight friends we are gay), the film has an organic approach to coming of age, in that in mood and narrative it is much more than an accumulation of sentimental moments.

"Mariposa" succeeds even further in depicting teenage homosexuality without relying on overly familiar tropes. The moments of subtle flirtation and blissful satiation are all the more charming because they are a minor part of a relatively complex narrative. This Argentinian drama is decidedly more hormonal than its peers, as well, with sexual tension running high between two sets of protagonists, as well as supporting characters in its parallel stories. Viewers have to be on their toes to notice when cuts are taking them from one story of German and Romina to the other and to keep up with the details of relationships in the respective stories.

In one, German's family saves infant Romina from abandonment in a forest, and as teens their intimacy is complicated by the incest taboo and competing attractions. In the other, they become friends after an accident introduces them, German frustrated by thwarted efforts to secure her exclusive affection. In both narratives, Bruno is the gay guy who has to wield his charms with a bit more cleverness because of his sexuality and his context.

Fans of Peter Greenaway know to expect heaps of artistic vigor and originality from his paeans to the wonder of cinema. In "Eisenstein in Guanajuato" he applies his mania and erudition to a bit of cinephilic biography - Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein's (famous for the historical masterpiece "Battle Potemkin") foray into Mexico, after having alienated Hollywood. Eistenstein, as imagined by Greenaway, is a hypersexual goofball, and Guanajuato is a stunningly scenic backdrop for both filmmakers' odd flourishes.

Little is known about Eisenstein's actual elated exile, but it is almost certain that it couldn't have been more delightful than what sprouts from Greenaway's mind. The misadventures center around the Russian's sexual discovery at the aid of his smooth and obliging guide, Palomino.

Another midlife sexual awakening is depicted in the Chilean debut, "In the Grayscale," a mature and assured rendering of flirtation arising out of a professional relationship. Bruno is a successful architect launching a new project as he is dealing with the messiness of tentatively splitting from his wife and having to explain the decision to his hurt son and disapproving relatives.

He seems calm and confident, considering, but it isn't until he begins attracting the lust and affection of his new assistant, Fer, that he shows signs of vibrancy. Fer is youthful and adventurous, apparently just what Bruno needs to propel himself over his midlife slump. With Santiago as a dynamic backdrop, this drama is a sexy and resonant story of identity complications and rejuvenation.

In the Mexican mystery "Carmin Tropical," a transgender woman treads into murky waters when she ventures back to her hometown of Juchitan, in the south of the country. When Mabel learns of her friend Daniela's death, she is compelled to enter a world that is in some ways familiar and in some ways ominous and unknown.

This is a low-key drama that grows increasingly foreboding as Mabel may or may not be getting closer to answers, and we slowly start to understand why she felt she had to flee. It seems violence could erupt at any moment, and it's especially uneasy being a 'muxe' (transwoman) in such a milieu. She mines her former haunts, tracks down Daniela's macho lover in prison, and perhaps imprudently becomes romantically intimate with her driver - all towards an ambiguous end.

Latin American shorts also made their way into several of the shorts programs. Among them: "Open Relationship," included in the Fun In Boy's Shorts program, is a light and comedic look at the misunderstandings that can result when a couple considers opening up their relationship.

And perhaps one of the festival's most charismatic couplings can be found in "San Cristobal," in the Worldly Affairs program. In it, Lucas is all ready to move abroad, but while visiting his sister on an island off Chile's southern coast, he falls hard for a local fisherman. What can transpire in the finite time that these young lovers have?

Frameline39 runs June 18-28 at the Castro Theatre, Roxie Theater, and Victoria Theatre in San Francisco, as well as the Rialto in Berkeley and Landmark Theatres Piedmont in Oakland. More info at: http://www.frameline.org