4 Films of Distinction in International Gay, Lesbian Festival

The 8th annual Los Angeles International Gay & Lesbian Film and Video Festival continues tonight at the Directors Guild with four distinctive films.

Miguel Picazo’s “Extramuros” (Theater I at 7:30 p.m.) is a bizarre, gorgeously lit, pitch-dark comedy about lesbian love and ambition in a convent during the Spanish Inquisition. Mercedes Sampietro’s zealous Sister Angela persuades her devoted lover Sister Ana (Carmen Maura) to cut the palms of her hands to simulate stigmata to improve the lot of their decaying nunnery.

The film poses provocative questions about the contradictory, ironic nature of faith--Sister Angela seems to have healing powers simply because people now believe she is a saint--about the sadomasochistic aspect of extreme religious fervor and about the profane relationship of church and state.

Along with revivals of Isaac Julien’s “Looking for Langston” and Marlon Riggs’ “Tongues Untied” (Theater II at 9:30 p.m.), both of them stylish and sensual meditations on black gay sexuality, there’s Thai filmmaker Pisan Akkarasen’s unintentionally uproarious “The Last Song” (Theater I at 9:30 p.m.), in which a celebrated female impersonator and his lesbian pal, a hotel lounge singer, are betrayed by their ostensibly straight lovers. Never fear, these not-so-straights get their comeuppance in a sequel, “Anguished Love” (Theater I, Thursday at 10 p.m.), which also combines tacky production numbers and extravagant melodrama.

Tuesday evening brings two notable lesbian dramas, British filmmaker Joy Chamberlain’s “Nocturne” (Theater I at 7:30 p.m.) and South African director Helen Noguiera’s “Quest for Love” (Theater I at 9:30 p.m.).

The first is a taut chamber drama, set in a musty suburban estate to which a pretty but drab-looking woman (Lisa Eichhorn) returns upon the death of her mother (Maureen O’Brien), who in flashback we discover was a fiercely proper and dominating woman. Eichhorn’s depressed reveries are abruptly interrupted with the unexpected arrival of a pair of hitchhikers, amoral, free-spirited young lesbian lovers (Caroline Paterson, Karen Jones) seeking shelter from the rain.

In its sexually charged ambiguity and considerations of domination and submissiveness within relationships, “Nocturne” is reminiscent of Joseph Losey’s “The Servant.” This is a coolly elegant, sharply observant film in which Eichhorn is superb as a long-repressed woman confronted with her vulnerability and longing.

In “Quest for Love,” inspired by Gertrude Stein’s “Q.E.D.,” Janna Cilliers stars as a beautiful, headstrong South African journalist, just released for prison for her outspoken protest of apartheid and heading for the rural home of her lover (Sandra Prinsloo)

“Quest for Love” is incisive as a study of a woman who, quite apart from her courage as a journalist, is essentially self-absorbed and heedless of the consequences of her words and deeds. Since much of the film takes place while the journalist is waiting for her lover to return, it loses the opportunity for greater impact possible only if we were able to see how the two women manage to have a relationship.

Among Wednesday’s offerings is Leontine Sagan’s 1931 German lesbian classic “Maedchen in Uniform,” set in a severe girls’ boarding school and dealing with a student who falls in with one of her teachers, the one gentle adult in the establishment. (Note: the forbidding stone building which housed the school said to have inspired “Maedchen” still stands in Potsdam.)

Also screening Wednesday (in Theater I at 9:30 p.m.) is Australian filmmaker Lawrence Johnston’s “Night Out,” an unsparing account of the devastating impact of a gay bashing on a young Melbourne couple (Colin Batrouney, David Bonnie). The attack on one of the lovers is truly terrifying, both in its physical and emotional consequences.

“Night Out,” which Johnston made as a student, suggests how vulnerable gays are--and in ways they cannot always anticipate--in a hostile world.

As in its opening weekend, the festival is presenting many more films and programs unavailable for preview, including the Los Angeles premiere of “Empire State” by Ron Peck, director of “Nighthawks,” a key gay film of the ‘70s. For full schedule: (213) 650-5140.