Two major festivals devoted to gay and lesbian cinema announced programming on Wednesday, and Rashaad Ernesto Green's "Gun Hill Road" took a prime spot in both the Los Angeles-based Outfest and New York's NewFest.
The film, a family drama starring Esai Morales as a convict returning home to find that his teenage son has come out as a transgender woman (left), will serve as the July 7 opening-night selection for Outfest, the longest-running film festival in Los Angeles. It will later be the July 28 closing-night attraction at NewFest, the New York-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender film festival celebrating its 23rd year and beginning a new partnership with the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
Andrew Haigh's "Weekend," a relationship drama that won the 2011 Emerging Visions Audience Award at South by Southwest, has also been scheduled for both festivals.
Other films at Outfest, which takes place at theaters across Los Angeles, include "Circumstance," a drama about two teenage girls in Tehran that won an audience award at this year's Sundance; Margaret Cho's concert film "Cho Dependent"; "Hit So Hard," a documentary about drummer Patty Schemel from band Hole; "3," from "Run Lola Run" director Tom Tykwer; and an outdoor screening of the Dolly Parton musical "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas."
The festival will close with "The Perfect Family," Anne Renton's comedic drama about a suburban housewife (Kathleen Turner) determined to win the Outstanding Catholic of the Year Award.
The complete lineup, which also includes films featuring Julia Ormond, Jennifer Coolidge, Lance Bass and Chloe Sevigny, can be found at www.Outfest.org.
NewFest will open on July 21 with a screening of David Weissman's documentary "We Were Here," a chronicle of the early days of AIDS in San Francisco. Also screening: "Wish Me Away," Beverly Kopf's documentary about country singer Chely Wright coming out of the closet on national television.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center will co-present the opening and closing-night screenings at NewFest, both of which will take place at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater.
Additional screenings will take place across New York City, including the School of Visual Arts Theater in Chelsea, Cinema Village in Greenwich Village, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, the Jewish Community Center and Harlem Center Stage.
The complete lineup will be announced later this month. Information is available at www.newfest.org.
