Sorddin

In the New Sci­en­tist Newslet­ter a lit­tle while back (18 August 2001) there was an inter­est­ing lit­tle arti­cle about pass­words.
“The com­put­er pass­word has become a kind of 21st Cen­tu­ry Rorschach inkblot test.” states the arti­cle, giv­ing four cat­e­gories in which you fall, “Fam­i­ly”, “Fan”, “Fan­ta­sist” and “Cryp­tics”.
I have about 40 dif­fer­ent pass­words for var­i­ous sys­tems and web­sites. I have at least one that falls into each of the cat­e­gories, most fall into the “Fan” cat­e­go­ry.

Every­ones talk­ing about it, every­ones watch­ing it. Per­haps this is because there is noth­ing we can do except talk and watch, we can’t help the wound­ed, most of us don’t know any­one that might have been killed, or even know some­one that knows some­one, and yet there is a feel­ing, a need to be a part of fix­ing this.
It renews my faith in human­i­ty to see almost the whole world come togeth­er as one in sym­pa­thy of those that are suf­fer­ing, and in sup­port of the need to defend lib­er­ty.
It is going to be inter­est­ing to see what the US does about this, I mean if your going to piss off the biggest, most pow­er­ful mil­i­tary machine on the plan­et then you’ve got to expect some some form of retal­i­a­tion. My feel­ing is that Amer­i­ca will want to make sure it is seen to respond and respond in a big way.
I know that there is a way for true good to come of this tragedy, what I don’t know is if that will hap­pen.

Well, the final results are that out of the 10 ses­sions I sat in on 8 of them. I knew there’d be a fair bit of sad stuff (what with AIDS and the gen­er­al prej­u­dices expe­ri­enced by gay peo­ple) but there was also a fair share of touch­ing moments and a few thought pro­vok­ing bits and even the occa­sion­al ele­ment that has me now seri­ous­ly re-exam­in­ing my life.
Noth­ing got less than 3 out of 5 on my score cards and there were a few 5’s too.
It was just what I need­ed a good bit of stim­u­la­tion to keep the neu­rons fir­ing.
Now all I’ve got to do is fig­ure out what to do next…

‘SHOW ME YOUR PIC’
Dir: Rob­bie Bald­win, Aus­tralia, 2001, Beta SP, 26 mins
(full house)
score: 5 out of 5
Per­haps this one was a lit­tle to close to the mark, but I’ve got to say it was well done and to the best of my con­sid­er­able knowl­edge is was very accu­rate.
‘WEBCAM BOYS’
Dirs: RADD, USA, 2001, Beta SP, 60 mins
(full house)
score: 3 out of 5
I’m still not sure if this was a doco, or just a big ad for some voyeur sites… per­haps it was both. Either way it is kind of inter­est­ing being in the voyeuris­tic audi­ence watch­ing some exabisonits talk about their lives infront of the cam­era and on the net.
For more infor­ma­tion about queer­DOC 2001 or Queer Screen.

RAINMAKERS II: TINA MACHIDA IN ZIMBABWE
Dir: Rob­bie Hart, Cana­da, 2000, Beta SP, 26 mins
(50% full)
score: 4 out of 5
If you think that you’ve got prob­lems in your life its good to know you can rely on a doco fes­ti­val to show just how much worse it is for oth­er peo­ple. This is the sto­ry of the cur­rent strug­gle for equal­i­ty for gay and les­bian peo­ples of Zim­bab­we and serves as a reminder that the work is not yet fin­ished.
SCOUT’S HONOR
Dir: Tom Shep­ard, USA, 2001, 16mm, 57 mins
(50% full)
score: 5 out of 5
A touch­ing tale about a straight twelve year old who is try­ing get the Boy Scouts of Amer­i­ca to accept equal­ly and freely gay peo­ple.
One of the ele­ments of this sto­ry I found most fas­ci­nat­ing was of a man who had been kicked out of the Scouts 17 years ago and had been since then fight­ing. This is fas­ci­nat­ing because he has been in a posi­tion over the years to observe the change in the way the media report­ed his sto­ry, from orig­i­nal­ly sid­ing with the Scouts to more recent­ly con­demn­ing the Scouts… does this mean the world is actu­al­ly becom­ing a more tol­er­ant place?
For more infor­ma­tion about queer­DOC 2001 or Queer Screen.

‘SOUTHERN COMFORT’
Dir: Kate Davis, USA, 2000, Beta SP, 90 mins
(50% full)
score: 5 out of 5
This is one of those films that is just amaz­ing, the hard­ship and strug­gle that each of the char­ac­ters has had to go through in their lives is heart wrench­ing and in the mid­dle of sad­ness their is love.
This is a touch­ing film and I don’t think I can actu­al­ly describe why, just see it if you get a chance.
For more infor­ma­tion about queer­DOC 2001 or Queer Screen.

‘HOW DO I LOOK?’
Queer film and its audi­ences
A pan­el dis­cus­sion.
I did­n’t sit in on this ses­sion, choos­ing instead the self­ish option of get­ting some food.
For more infor­ma­tion about queer­DOC 2001 or Queer Screen.

‘WHITE PEOPLE’S BUSINESS’
Dirs: Diana Dacic and Melis­sa See­len­mey­er, Aus­tralia, 2001, Beta SP, 26 mins
(75% full)
score: 4 out of 5
The pre­miere screen­ing of an inter­est­ing film about non-indige­nous involve­ment in the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion move­ment that among oth­er things asks “Now that we’ve walked across the Har­bour Bridge, what do we do?”
‘A FIELD GUIDE TO WESTERN WILDFLOWERS’
Dir: Wayne Yung, Cana­da, 2000, Beta SP, 6 mins
(75% full)
score: 4 out of 5
A 6 minute kiss of 63 men, with flow­ers, go fig­ure. Cute, charm­ing and fas­ci­nat­ing.
‘DIFFERENT SHADES OF PINK’
Dir: Alexan­der Ku, Aus­tralia, 2001, Beta SP, 45 mins
(75% full)
score: 3 out of 5
The pre­miere screen­ing of a local doco about mixed rela­tion­ships. This film starts well but I think it got a lit­tle tired about half way through.
For more infor­ma­tion about queer­DOC 2001 or Queer Screen.

‘NEED AND WANT’
Dirs: Mic­ki Pok­lar and Daniela Cro­cetti, USA, 2000, Beta SP, 35 mins
and
‘LESBIANS GO MAD ON LESBOS’
Dirs: Ker­ry McGib­bin and Gabi Kent, UK, 2000, Beta SP, 54 mins
I did­n’t see either of these. There are two rea­sons for this, you can choose which one you want to believe. Per­son­al­ly it was a bit of both.
1) I was a bit to docoed out and need­ed some time to breathe and think.
2) The room packed full of dykes wait­ing to go in scared me.
Either way it would have been nice to have some­one spe­cial to hold my hand that night.
For more infor­ma­tion about queer­DOC 2001 or Queer Screen.

Aging Queers and Teenage Fears
‘ABOUT VIVIEN’
Dir: Kathy Sport, Aus­tralia, 2000, 16mm, 14 mins
(full house)
score: 5 out of 5
An amaz­ing sto­ry about Vivien, a cross-dress­ing man (or maybe he was trans­gen­der, I’m not sure) in the 1950s and the things he had to deal with to live his cho­sen life.
‘OPENING CLOSET X’
Dirs: Max Kel­ly & Diana Pol­ish, USA, 1998, video, 17 mins
(full house)
score: ?
Damn, in all the con­fu­sion I’ve com­plete­ly for­got­ten which one this one was… maybe I’ll remem­ber lat­er and be able to put some­thing more inter­est­ing here.
‘GAY AND GRAY IN NEW YORK CITY’
Dirs: Nicholas Ches­la, Cindy Crea­ger and Julie Eng­lan­der, USA, 1999, video, 22 mins
(full house)
score: 5 out of 5
With the out and proud gay com­mu­ni­ty only real­ly now grey­ing the issue of what hap­pens to old­er gay peo­ple needs to be addressed because despite what the dance bun­nys might think gay peo­ple don’t just dis­ap­pear after 35.
‘YOUTH OUTLOUD!’
Dirs: Becky Burklee and Kathy Hines, USA, 2000, Beta SP, 46 mins
(full house)
score: 5 out of 5
This one hit a few raw nerves. As the only place I’ve ever been per­son­al­ly been a vic­tim of hate crimes was school, the sto­ries these kids told about their expe­ri­ences were much more per­son­al.
This film stirred up a bunch of reac­tions, guilt, fear, sor­row, grief.
Some of the sto­ries were far worse than any­thing I’d ever expe­ri­enced and I found myself guilty feel­ing glad that noth­ing that bad hap­pened to me and at the same time seri­ous­ly pissed off that it hap­pens to any­one at all.
For more infor­ma­tion about queer­DOC 2001 or Queer Screen.