The celluloid closet

Since the inception of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Film Festival at the St James Cinema a few years ago, some of the most powerful movies dealing with this complex subject have been documentaries. Three years ago the festival featured...

Since the inception of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Film Festival at the St James Cinema a few years ago, some of the most powerful movies dealing with this complex subject have been documentaries. Three years ago the festival featured a doc about how difficult it is to be gay in an Orthodox Jewish environment in Trembling Before God. But if Orthodox Jews thought they had it tough, their problems pale into insignificance beside those of gay muslims.

This year's GLBT Film Festival includes a documentary entitled Dangerous Living: Coming Out In The Developing World. This concentrates on the problems facing gay people in the southern hemisphere and has as its centrepiece the shocking tale of the 52 men on Cairo's Queen Boat discothèque, who were imprisoned for crimes of debauchery. That explosive event focused attention to the lives and trials of gay people coming out in the developing world and the film chronicles those events. It is directed by John Scagliotti and will be the final movie to be shown in the festival at St James this evening.

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