West Hollywood, California (April 29, 2010) - Go see SEEFEST. The South East European Film Festival has some amazing offerings this year, and no, WeHo gents, I’m not talking Bel Ami boys. 
WeHo News. |
This cinema collection comes from an assortment of festival member country filmmakers as disparate as Bulgaria, Turkey, Hungary, Romania, Greece, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Macedonia, Croatia and Serbia. Whew!
Festival highlight would have to be Hungarian entry Secret Years, a poignant and resonant telling of the often bittersweet, always triumphant liberation of much of the lesbian population of Hungary.
The film encapsulates the travails, discoveries and eventual freedom of these brave and courageous women who describe in vivid detail the difficulties of life in a repressive communist nation.
It seems salvation for some in the repressed climate came from a Berlin-Budapest cultural exchange and exposure to western media and the American Gay Liberation movement.
One lesbian relates how she never even heard of homosexuality until she saw a Time Magazine cover with “A scrawny man wearing a t-shirt that said ‘I am a Gay American.’”
Other subjects tell of their visits to Berlin and subsequently from Berliners to see a new way of life, and yet others describe visits to the Emke Café in the 60’s-70’s and the Egyetem Café in the 80’s as the only seemingly safe refuge.
WeHo News. |
As an interesting note, the power of the press is related in the form of personal ads, using secret codes to connect lesbians and gay men, i.e. pen pal searches and “soul mate” seekers.
Lesbians were also reduced to searching criminal records to see where other “deviants” would meet. Essentially, much of the procedure echoed American closeted life, but decades later.
Secret Years also references the seminal Hungarian 1982 film Another Way Károly Makk’s telling of the nascent sexual liberation movement and subsequent Soviet response of 1956. The film’s influence was enormous.
Heartbreaking footage in Secret Years includes videotape of those who marched for Pride while riot police held back angry mobs throwing cobblestones and bottles and bricks as the newly empowered LGBT community showed strength in numbers and commitment. Bravery, indeed.
Director Mariá Takács’ Secret Years is required viewing for those in the worldwide LGBT community and for those outside gay life who wish to understand the difficulty of being yourself in a place and time where differences are not always celebrated. This is the U.S. premiere of this engrossing documentary.
More fascinating films round out the roster including the world premiere of Max Freeman’s Apostol Karamitev, the eponymous theatrical genius that shaped the destiny of the arts in Bulgaria.
This often culturally neglected part of the world shines in film after film. Take some time this weekend to discover them.
April 29th - May 2nd: sss.seefilmla.org
Goethe Institut Los Angeles 5750 Wilshire Blvd., Ste 100, Los Angeles
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