There's more than a mere single handful of movies programmed for this year's , the 1986 drama about gay life in New York City during the emergence of the AIDS epidemic. Written and directed by Bill Sherwood, the movie starts Richard Ganoung and Steve Buscemi, the latter in his feature film debut. More importantly, the Wisconsin-born Ganoung lives in Madison and works as an actor in theaters around the city.
"This is a special event," says Hamel. Parting Glances is the first film selected for restoration by the Outfest Legacy Project, a collaborative effort between the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival and the UCLA Film & Television Archive preserve key LGBT films. That this film is the first speaks to its canonical status.
"Sometimes selecting a title for the festival is so obvious it's painful," says Hamel. "The bonus on top is that the lead is living here in Madison." That's not the only local connection with this film, though. A key figure in the restoration project was born in town, and now works at the Academy of Motion Picture of Arts and Sciences, which is headed by a UW-Madison graduate who is assists in acquiring restored prints for the Wisconsin festival.
"Sherwood prized honest, nuanced performances from Ganoung and the rest," wrote Kenneth Burns last fall in a report on the restoration of Parting Glances. "What's indelible about the characters is the warmth of their friendships and the breadth of their interests -- in art, music, writing, politics. They are gay people, yes, but gay people pursuing ordinary lives."
In terms of brand new films, the documentary What's Your Point, Honey? directed by Amy Sewell and Susan Toffler will be making its world premiere at the fest. It tells the story of an internship program named and COSMOgir!, that allowed college-aged women to work with high-profile mentors and organizations over the summer. One of the featured interns is Margot Presley, with portions of film shot around Madison and her home at Phoenix Co-op.
The winner of this year's Oscar winner for Best Feature Documentary, film was informed by the work of UW-Madison History Professor Alfred McCoy and his 2006 book about the Cold War origins of contemporary U.S. torture policy and practice.
Madison is also certainly an appropriate location for screening Terra Incognita: Mapping Stem Cell Research, given the city's reputation as a birthplace for this rapidly-advancing wing of biological science. This feature-length documentary tells the story of a Northwestern University neurologist who is spurred by his daughter's debilitating accident to begin researching embryonic stem cells as an avenue for treating spinal cord injury.
The story is previewed in a four-minute trailer for the documentary.
Another local connection for this film, meanwhile, is that both director/producer Maria Finitzo and associate producer Justine Nagan are alumni of the University of Wisconsin.
Two other Wisconsin-connected films were announced last Wednesday in a press release issued by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It noted the festival's origins, its subsequent decade on the screen, and its collaborations with various university departments, and revealed a pair of big name movies likely to fill plenty of seats.
The first of these is Chante Jawan Mallard. She was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison in 2003 for hitting Gregory Biggs with her car, and leaving him to die in her garage while still lodged in the windshield. Besides inspiring episodes of CSI and Law & Order, it was the basis of this movie, directed by UW-Madison alumnus
