This year, Outfest played host to a wide range of films, which also include an extensive list of notable actors such as Robin Williams, Kathy Baker, Liv Tyler, Matt Bomer, Mary-Louise Parker and many more.
The event also showcased a fantastic line-up of lesbian and female focused films. From Marina Rice Bader’s Anatomy of a Love Seen, to Crazy Bitches staring Guinever , and a wonderful collection of shorts films written, produced and directed by a new generation of storytellers; who all graduated from 2014 Out Set – the Young Filmmakers Project from Life Works.
“In the year following major civil rights victories across the country, Outfest 2014 pays tribute to the artists and the activists who refused to play nice and color inside the lines. The films in this festival remind us that artists lead the charge for a better world,”
Kristin Pepe, Director of Programming
Anatomy of a Love Seen
Writer/director Marina Rice Bader (executive producer of Elena Undone, A Perfect Ending) will make her directorial debut at Outfest with the world premiere of her feature film ‘Anatomy of a Love Seen’. Staring Hollywood newcomers Sharon Hinnendael, Jill Evyn and Constance Brenneman, ‘Anatomy of a Love Seen’ is a film within a film which explores love.
52 Tuesdays
Winner of the best director award at Sundance (for World Cinema), this heart breaking Australian drama follows sixteen-year-old Billie, whose path to independence is accelerated when her mother reveals plans for to transition to from female to a male named James. Blindsided by the news, Billie and James agree to meet every Tuesday during their year apart. As James transitions and becomes less emotionally available, Billie covertly explores her own identity and sexuality with two older schoolmates, testing the limits of her own power, desire, and independence.
And this emotionally charged story isn’t just set over a year of those Tuesdays, but it was actually filmed over the course of a year—once a week, every week, only on Tuesdays.
Crazy Bitches
From writer / director Jane Clark, and staring lesbian favourites Guinevere Turner, Mary Jane Wells, Cathy DeBuono, and Samantha Colburn – Crazy Bitches focuses on a group of ex Alpha Kappa Pi Sorority girls plan a getaway weekend for their friend.
Escaping to a remote ranch, they settle in for several days of gossip, girl-time and fun. The bunch start off where they always do, old rivalries in place, extreme vanity covering great insecurities, but a true love for each other underneath the bickering and sniping.
A number of drinks into the first evening and a dark secret is revealed. The house they rented is the sight of a mass murder of teenage girls. Blood still stains the floors, and the killer still runs free. The girls take it for what it seems – a fun story for a rainy night, but after one of them disappears and is discovered, dead – the story doesn’t seem so fun anymore. One by one, they die, killed by their own particular vanity. The fun-filled week will turn into a race against death. Who will make it out alive?
My Prairie Home
With only a guitar and a handful of cash, transgender singer-songwriter Rae Spoon, who prefers the gender-neutral pronoun “they”, takes us on a journey through both the landscapes of the Canadian west to the dingy bars and badly lit concert halls in which Spoon performs.
Chelsea McMullan, who uses endlessly stunning cinematography to interpret Spoon’s songs, directed this gorgeous National Film Board of Canada musical documentary. Together McMullan and Spoon’s transport audiences from small, confining nightclubs into dreamy, beautifully photographed landscapes of music and memory.
The film disposes of traditional documentary filmmaking, opting instead to explore Rae’s discovery of love outside their evangelical home with haunting visuals and a hypnotic score that go hand-in-hand with Rae’s highly personal melodies. A particular joy comes from delving into an artist’s world of quiet musings; and discovering Rae Spoon is this film’s biggest reward.
Appropriate Behavior
After a bad breakup with her girlfriend Maxine (Rebecca Henderson), Shirin (Desiree Akhavan) desperately throws herself into the Brooklyn dating scene in hopes of finding a man or woman able to bury her resentments.
However, with each bust of a date, she’s forced to confront a host of real-world issues she previously ignored, including masking her bisexuality from her Iranian parents.
While the film could have easily ventured into a sort of feature length version of ‘Girls’, it develops a true voice of its own. Writer-director-actress Desiree Akhavan uses deadpan satire, to single-handedly raises the bar for queer comedy.
