Variety Show

Outfest ‘99, the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, which shows more movies than any other festival in Los Angeles, opens at 8 tonight at the Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. The curtain rises on the 17th festival with a gala presentation of Lukas Moodysson’s beguiling “Show Me Love,” a wry coming-of-age story that could as easily unfold in any small American city as it does in Sweden. Elin (Alexandra Dahlstrom) is a bright and pretty but sullen and friendless teenager; by contrast Agnes (Rebecca Liljeberg) is a popular blond who on a bet bestows a kiss on Elin. It understandably takes awhile for the implications of its wholly unexpected mutual impact on the girls to sink in, and their joy in experiencing first love swiftly proves a more formidable challenge than they could ever anticipate.

Moodysson expertly captures the rhythms of daily teen life and the concerns, strengths and vulnerabilities of youth--and it is just the first of many fine festival offerings. Festival venues will be the Directors Guild of America, 7920 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood; the Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood; the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center’s Village at Ed Gould Plaza, 1125 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood; and the John Anson Ford Amphitheater, with closing night at the Egyptian.

You can’t look at Britain’s Channel 4’s “Queer As Folk” (DGA 1, Saturday at 1 p.m.), a miniseries composed of eight 40-minute segments that aired earlier this year in the U.K., without thinking of “Ellen,” in which the coming out of both Ellen DeGeneres and the character she portrayed and her mere kissing of another woman sent shock waves across the country. Meanwhile, the British public was treated to a lively, amusing series set in the bustling gay community of Manchester, England, in which sex of R-rated candor is presented matter-of-factly as we follow the adventures of playboy Stuart (Aidan Gillen), his diffident best friend, Vince (Craig Kelly), who has carried the torch for Vince for years, and Nathan (Charlie Hunnam), a teenager with a thirst for experience.

For nearly 15 years, Germany’s Monika Treut has been celebrating sexuality’s infinite variety in a series of venturesome documentaries and features. With “Gendernauts” (Village, Saturday at 4:30 p.m.), she focuses on a group of people who have changed or are changing their genders, primarily female-to-male transsexuals Treut invites us to look beyond stereotypical notions of gender roles and identities to embrace a freer, richer view of human sexuality and its possibilities.

Todd Wilson’s “Rice & Potatoes” (DGA 2, Saturday at 7:15 p.m.) illuminates relationships between Asian and Caucasian men living in San Francisco and the stereotyping they face both from within themselves and from the outside world. We learn that Asian men are too often assumed to be passive and dependent, and that communication can be a formidable challenge because Caucasian men tend to be as direct as Asian men tend to be indirect. Asian men are far more frequently liable to be closely attached to their families and to have much more difficulty coming out to them. Off-camera interviewer John Blasetti asks provocative questions, and the answers he gets make for a lively, informative documentary.

Ana Kokkinos’ “Head On” (DGA 1, Sunday at 6 p.m.) is a raw, dynamic rush of a film in which a handsome young man faces escalating conflicts within himself and his conservative, highly ethnic Greek-Australian family and community (in Melbourne) as he is faced with the reality of his homosexuality. Alex Dimitriades’ smoldering Ari is as macho as the next guy as he follows his headlong pursuit of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll in constant defiance of his parents, who want him to settle down, get a job and get married. “Head On” is tempestuous in the extreme, with volcanic rages in constant eruption, especially between father and son.

Dominik and Benjamin Reding’s equally visceral and commanding “Oi Warning” (DGA 1, Sunday at 8:30 p.m.) stars Sascha Backhaus as a rebellious German teenager who takes refuge with an ultra-macho skin-headed kick boxer (Simon Goerts) only to be eventually drawn to a hearty, free-spirited fire-eater (Jens Veith).

Richard Morris’ irresistible “Wallowitch & Ross” (Village, Monday at 7 p.m. and Tuesday at 2 p.m.) celebrates the lives and careers of the multi-talented John Wallowitch, a veteran songwriter and cabaret star, and his lover of more than 30 years, Bertram Ross, legendary dancer and choreographer, long Martha Graham’s partner and co-director of her company and now singing along with Wallowitch on the cabaret circuit. These men are the epitome of New York wit and sophistication, partners who did not meet until middle age, and artist-philosophers, of formidable talents.

Top Catalan director Ventura Pons’ “Amic/Amat” (“Beloved/Friend”) (DGA 1, Monday at 9:45 p.m.) is another of his intense melodramas, which this time centers on a brilliant middle-aged medieval scholar (Josep Maria Pou), an ungainly, paunchy, terminally ill gay man who makes it his final mission to get through to a highly intelligent but equally cynical student (David Selvas) who supports himself as a male hustler--and who has impregnated the daughter (Irene Montala) of the scholar’s best friend and fellow university professor (Mario Gas). Adapted by Josep M. Benet i Jornet from his own play, “Amic/Amat” is one more example of Pons’ ability to make the highly verbal compelling and cinematic.

Kutlug Ataman’s highly charged thriller “Lola and Bilidikid” (DGA 1, Tuesday at 7 p.m.) takes us into the shadowy world of Berlin’s gay Turkish emigres, who live lives of constant double-jeopardy from extreme homophobia within their own ethnic culture and from lethal German xenophobes who may also be homophobes. The pivotal figure is 17-year-old Murat (Baki Davrak), who is struggling with his own homosexuality when he at last meets the disowned older gay brother (Gandi Muklki) he never knew he had and who is a popular female impersonator known as Lola. This compelling film is at once a family tragedy and a work of remorseless suspense not without bleak humor.

“Blessed Are Those Who Thirst” (DGA 2, Tuesday at 9:30 p.m) is a dynamite 50-minute segment of a TV series based on the novels of Anne Holt, Norway’s former minister of justice, and starring Kjerstil Elvik as a tall, beautiful police detective who, with her partner (Lasse Kalsrud), is on the trail of a savage serial killer-rapist. By the time the show’s over the coolly professional policewoman has come out as a lesbian and introduced her partner to her lover.

Christopher Livingston’s “Hit and Runway” (DGA, Wednesday at 5 p.m.) is an inspired sleeper, at once hilarious and touching, of terrific crossover potential that features a likable Italian-American hunk (Matthew Parducci) who teams with a nebbishy, talented gay Jewish writer (Peter Jacobson) to try to write a script that will take him to Hollywood. What results is a volatile friendship between a straight man and a gay man that has tumultuous impact on their professional and personal lives. This comic gem is a calling card for all involved, and Parducci clearly has star potential. (323) 960-2330.

*

Ali Nassar’s “The Milky Way,” which concludes the Laemmle Theaters’ “World Cinema” series, screens Saturday and Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., and July 17 and 18 at 11 a.m. at the Monica 4-Plex, 1332 2nd St., Santa Monica. Setting his film in a Palestinian village in Galilee in 1964 during the last year of Israeli military rule, Nassar conveys with quiet power the devastating effects of external oppression on the internal lives of the citizens. The key figure is the village blacksmith (Muhammed Bakri), a craggily handsome intellectual and protector of a childlike middle-aged man (Suheil Haddad), traumatized when his hometown was wiped out in the 1948 war. Superbly acted and directed, “The Milky Way” builds tension with a steady power. Sunset 5: (323) 848-3500; Monica 4-Plex: (310) 394-9741.

*

Note: The American Cinematheque on Wednesday night at the Egyptian launched “Movie-Palace Memories: 75 Years of Columbia Pictures,” which will present 32 features, dozens of shorts and even a complete serial plus an array of guests through July 25. (323) 466-FILM.