Reel Affirmations in DC announces 2015 film festival; two more gay short films

On Saturday, March 28, 2015, The DC Center  sponsored a reception for Reel Affirmations , Washington DC’s International LGBT Film festival, in a private condominium in the Adams-Morgan area of Washington DC.  The food was right out of a future sci-fi fantasy (maybe "Imajica").  

The “Fall” festival will take place Aug. 28-30 at the Tivoli Theater in Washington DC.  Reel Affirmations is seeking individual and corporate sponsorships ranging from “writer” ($1000) to “Executive producer” ($10000).  A major contact point is Kimberley Bush (email Kimberley at thedccenter). Kimbeley said that many films have been chosen already. 

To that news, I can add a couple of LGBT short films from YouTube now, from “Outlicious TV”.
  

Brian Pelletier  offers the 18-minute “Monster in the Closet” (2013), with Trevor Allen (Jackson, the street hustler) and David Boettcher (Gene, the right wing closeted married man with a family).

Yup, you got it.  Gene visits a male prostitute, apparently under legal age (according to what Gene says in the script) and just too “smooth”.  They have two rounds of play, the second one getting kinkier.  Gene says he wonders how something that feels so good could be sinful or evil.  But unfortunately there are weapons, like a Taser and pistol around. That’s an invitation to tragedy. The filmmaking style of Jorge Ameer comes to mind. 

      

Dominic Haxton directs the 13-minute “We Are Animals” (2013), set in the mid 1980s and showing what could have happened if the extreme right wing (represented by the ilk of psychologist Paul Cameron) had gotten its way during the early days of the AIDS epidemic, quarantining not only “AIDS patients” (before there was a test for HIV) but even “all gay men”.  Not only is there quarantine, but chemical and physical castration.  A young “straight” man but all too “attractive” works in a quarantine center and is about to perform the operation on a particularly aggressive (and attractive) prisoner.  Instead, they escape into chaos.  The “straight” man will get it, all right.  Daniel Landroche and Clint Napier star. The link is here. It's important to remember that in 1983, a very draconian anti-gay law was proposed in Texas, HR 2138, by a state representative from Amarillo, that would have prevented gays from working in occupations, and that would have strengthened the state sodomy law (2106) which was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas.  Furthermore, in California, a right wing attorney introduced an anti-gay bill legalizing vigilantism to a ballot, obviously unconstitutional, and the California courts have been asked to disallow its being voted on.  Here's the news story on KQED.
 
Just a note: In the US and other western countries (Canada, etc), film production companies do have to show that actors who appear in "adult"-themed films are actually 18 or older (Wiki source).