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NewFest, New York's LGBT Film Festival, Launches 25th Season

NewFest, New York's annual LGBT film festival kicks off its 25th season tonight with a screening of Stacie Passon’s Concussion, about a lesbian who turns to prostitution after a head injury.

A quarter-century is a long time—an eternity by gay standards—and NewFest has seen a great deal of change, both in the culture and in its own offerings. Once upon a time, queer film festivals were vital touchstones—rare opportunities for gay people to see themselves reflected on the big screen. These indie gems were never going to pop up at the cineplex (or local Blockbuster for that matter), so we had to get 'em while they were hot.

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Then came DVDs, Vimeo, and a million other outlets for original creative content. And little by little, gay movies, or at least gay storylines, started cropping up in films getting theatrical distribution. (Not a lot, but at least a trickle.)

Many gay film festivals, NewFest in particular, suffered economically as moviegoers options increased. And queer filmmakers, once relegated to these queer-cinema showcases, can now skip them in favor of Toronto, Sundance or Tribeca. (Case in point: Abdellatif Kechiche’s lesbian-themed Blue Is the Warmest Color, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, isn't showing at NewFest—it's playing next month at the New York Film Festival.)

This year NewFest is only showing 15 feature films and four drama across six days. The offerings are good, but a shadow of their previous breadth.

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So what can NewFest offer that you can't already get from NetFlix? Sex, according to the New York Times: "If there’s a theme to the 25th annual NewFest... it is that gay liberation is fundamentally about sex," veteran reviewer Stephen Holden writes, "This year the number of festival selections that include explicit sex is a provocative reminder that even in these relatively liberated times, for many people — gay as well as straight — homosexual behavior and gender fluidity are still synonymous with the Other."

Among those "provocative" films on view at Lincoln Center are “Interior. Leather Bar.,” Travis Mathews and James Franco's graphic exploration of the infamous glaysploitation thriller Cruising; Cory James Krueckeberg's Getting Go, which sees a filmmaker fall for his go-go boy subject; and Chris Mason Johnson’s Test, in which a young dancer tries to balance a new relationship with his panic about AIDS in the early days of the epidemic.

Sure, these and other festival highlights—including Yen Tan's melancholy drama Pit Stop, Stephen Lacant’s amour fou, Free Fall, and Marta Cunningham's documentary Valentine Road (about the murder of gay teen Lawrence King by a classmate)will probably wind up on DVD or video-on-demand. But there's still something magical about seeing them at a gay film festival. About being able to ask questions of the  filmmakers, actors and producers who brought these stories to life. About seeing quirky shorts that will never wind up on YouTube.

And, yes, about seeing gay sex acted out, larger than life, on a movie screen.

Getting Go: The Go Doc Project

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