Cleveland International Film Festival features movies of interest to Gay Games fans

Among the films you'll find at the Cleveland International Film Festival are quite a few that could interest fans of the Gay Games, including:

Autumn Gold (Herbstgold)
An absolutely charming film that soars triumphantly above all the hackneyed sports movies you’ve ever seen. Five European athletes are training for the 2009 World Masters track and field championships in Finland. They stretch, lift weights, and jog around parks. They explain their dietary plans and reminisce about former wins and losses. Sound pretty ho-hum so far? It’s not. These athletes are all between 83 and 100 years old, and a more astonishing group you’ve never met. Jiri runs up five stories in a minute and then pauses to dole out some wisdom on life. Gabre, an Italian beauty in full make-up and jewelry, throws her discus with her sunglasses perched on her head scarf. Herbert is 90 and runs the 100m sprint. Shot-putter Ilse dances around her living room like she was 45 and not 85. Alfred, a Viennese discus thrower and a designer for 80 years, sketches a nude model at 100. Though they’ve been athletes all their lives — Gabre and Alfred even competed in the 1936 Olympics — their positive attitudes and refusal to slow down are keys to their vitality. Come on, shake a leg and get inspired. (In Czech, German, Italian, and English with subtitles)


A Marine Story
A solitary Marine crosses the dry California terrain on foot, her pack on her back. She’s heading home after leaving the service involuntarily. In A MARINE STORY Alex is a lean fighting machine and a top-notch career officer from a military family. But when her commanding officer heard that she harbored lesbian tendencies, she was let go. Alex is a victim of the nation’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy—repealed last December after 17 years and 13,500 discharges. Separated now from the institution that represents her whole world, Alex settles uneasily back into civilian life. She goes drinking in one of her old haunts, is taunted by some rednecks, and holds her own in a brawl. When Alex accosts some punks robbing a store, her training kicks in and she subdues them. One is a sullen young woman named Saffron who has been in trouble before. Now a judge gives her an ultimatum: jail or the military. When Saffron submits to being trained by Alex for boot camp, she gains a new identity—as one of the few and the proud.

We Were Here
They were there when all their friends were dying. They were the lovers, friends, co-workers, and counselors of the stricken, or even the stricken themselves. They survived the HIV/AIDS scourge of the 1980s, and they lived to tell about it. WE WERE HERE is a hugely affecting piece of filmmaking. Five individuals, all of whom lived in San Francisco prior to the epidemic, relate their harrowing experiences on the front lines. In the late 70s the city was a hotbed of sexual freedom and social experimentation. Soon, of course, mass tragedy struck. With thousands dying of the mysterious “gay plague,” the queer community huddled together to shelter and comfort their own. The interviewees’ stories are not only intensely personal, but also illuminate the much larger themes of that era: the political and sexual complexities, the terrible emotional toll, the role of women – particularly lesbians – in caring for and fighting for their gay brothers. Archival imagery conveys a sense of San Francisco in the pre-AIDS years and a very visceral sense of the horrors of the disease itself.