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East Bay Gay Film Fest Hopes to Build Community

From The Iron Ladies.

By Brian Kluepfel | Special to AsianWeek

It’s not Like Water for Chocolate; it’s more like white on rice. For his second cinematic venture, San Francisco filmmaker Todd Wilson explores the white/Asian dynamic in gay relationships in the romantic comedy Under One Roof, featured at this Saturday’s East Bay Asian Gay Film Festival.

Curtis, who unabashedly titled his first film Rice and Potatoes, here examines the hesitant coming-out of a Chinese American (Daniel, played by Jay Wong) whose mother (Sandra Lee) takes in a gay lodger (Robert, played by James Marks). Of course, a pipe bursts in the basement (a nice metaphor), causing a flood, Daniel and Robert are forced to share a bed, and ... Fueling the humor and drama of the film is mom’s unawareness. In fact, she continues to try to set up Wong with a nice girl. While this provides much comic relief, Wilson points out that, for “a Chinese boy brought up in a traditional family, being gay and proud is a huge step.”

For the fourth consecutive year, the Fine Arts Cinema in downtown Berkeley is the site of the festival. The event serves two purposes. It’s a festive gathering for the Asian Health Service’s HIV Outreach program, in an alcohol and drug free setting. It also helps the organization determine what services their clientele require by asking movie-goers to fill out a survey before they watch the films.

“The festival is meant to be a social space away from the sex-charged atmosphere of the bars,” said Travis Hottes, an outreach worker in HIV services. And word has gotten out on the festival: it’s certain to fill the theater, all through e-mail and word-of-mouth — no newspaper advertising was done for the free event.

“This is one aspect of a larger gay men’s program we have now,” said Philip Huang, the HIV Services Program Coordinator. “We gather data from people about sex, drug use, and other things before they go in.” This helps to focus efforts for the nearly 5,000 persons the program is in contact with annually, through street festivals, the Internet and its Oakland clinic.

“This is designed as a hub for a community that doesn’t really yet exist,” said Hottes, of the East Bay APA gay scene. “There are no gay bars for Asians. Everything happens in the city.”

Huang hopes that the film fest will be the catalyst for larger interdependent network. “We’ve had a hard time kicking off a support group,” he admits. One concern of the organization is the newest arrivals. “We deal mostly in Oakland’s Chinatown, and mostly with first-generation immigrants, with limited English skills,” said Hottes. “At the film festivals, we try to hit the immigrants more,” said Huang. The eight workers in the HIV program speak five languages among them.

This year’s festival has both a local and international flavor. Wilson’s Under One Roof is the first of a doubleheader also featuring Iron Ladies, which has already played to rave reviews at the New York, Tampa, Boulder and San Francisco Gay Film Festivals.

Ladies is the story of the 1996 Thai male volleyball team, which won the national championships with a team consisting mostly of gay men, drag queens, transsexuals — and one straight guy. Mon and Jung are excellent players, but also targets of anti-gay sentiments in the locker room. This ends when the coach allows them to pick the team from among their friends. Soon the team includes a gay army sergeant, the transsexual star of a cabaret show, and Wit, who shares the plight of the Under One Roof protagonist: his parents don’t know he’s gay.

Come to the 4th Annual East Bay Gay Asian Film Festival, featuring Under One Roof and Iron Ladies, at the Fine Arts Cinema, 2451 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley on Sat., December 14. Showings are at 7 p.m. (Under One Roof) and 9:10 p.m. (Iron Ladies).

For tickets call 510-986-6830 x371 or email thottes@ahschc.org. Admission is free, but first-come, first serve. Walk-ups without reservations are advised to arrive early.