Covering
everything from passion for a ravishing neighbour to the often-tangled,
always unexpected relationships between women and their mothers,
the films in this year's girls' shorts program abandon the old formula
of " girl meets girl, girl loses girl, girl gets girl back" to take
on the complexities of relationships with friends, family, lovers,
employers, classmates and neighbours. In the riveting I Love Cinema,
two girls' wary alliance with an idealistic filmmaker-turned-teacher
has the whole school upside down. Katie and Maura, the Weeki Wachee
Girls, test the waters of their friendship when Maura's summer romance
doesn't go straight by the books. Long nights spent by the window
watching the beautiful cellist next door bring bittersweet results
in the atmospheric My Beautiful Neighbour, and coded desire and
ambiguous fulfillment are in the job description for the opera dresser
in the lushly-filmed, erotically-charged The Kiss. In Luna Butterfly,
childlike Luna discovers new feelings when she makes a new friend,
but what do these feelings mean? Finally, coming out to your mother
can be nerve-wracking, but what happens if she refuses to accept
your special Mother's Day present? (Hint: the results are as hilarious
as they are frustrating.) In contrast, coming out brings another
lesbian the best Christmas present ever when she decides to go Home
For Christmas.
J'adore le cinema (I Love Cinema)
Dir. Vincento Lannoo
(1998/Belgium/35mm/15min)
Weeki Wachee Girls Dir. Kim Cummings
(1999/USA/16mm/23min)
Covering
everything from passion for a ravishing neighbour to the often-tangled,
always unexpected relationships between women and their mothers,
the films in this year's girls' shorts program abandon the old formula
of " girl meets girl, girl loses girl, girl gets girl back" to take
on the complexities of relationships with friends, family, lovers,
employers, classmates and neighbours. In the riveting I Love Cinema,
two girls' wary alliance with an idealistic filmmaker-turned-teacher
has the whole school upside down. Katie and Maura, the Weeki Wachee
Girls, test the waters of their friendship when Maura's summer romance
doesn't go straight by the books. Long nights spent by the window
watching the beautiful cellist next door bring bittersweet results
in the atmospheric My Beautiful Neighbour, and coded desire and
ambiguous fulfillment are in the job description for the opera dresser
in the lushly-filmed, erotically-charged The Kiss. In Luna Butterfly,
childlike Luna discovers new feelings when she makes a new friend,
but what do these feelings mean? Finally, coming out to your mother
can be nerve-wracking, but what happens if she refuses to accept
your special Mother's Day present? (Hint: the results are as hilarious
as they are frustrating.) In contrast, coming out brings another
lesbian the best Christmas present ever when she decides to go Home
For Christmas. 
