(USA, 2013, 80 min)
Recovering from an ill-fated affair with a married man, Gabe finds solace in the relationship he maintains with his ex-wife and daughter. On the other side of town, Ernesto evades life at home with his current live-in ex-boyfriend by spending much of his spare time in the hospital with an ailing past love. Impervious to the monotony of their blue-collar world, they maintain an unwavering yearning for romance. Far from the gay centers of the world, director Yen Tan explores the complex and oft-forgotten lives of gay men in small-town America. The understated, contemplative nature of Ernesto and Gabe’s story is told from the perspective of an observer, allowing us—even if just for a moment—to understand what it means to be an outsider. The emotional isolation the two men have grown accustomed to is captured in a subtle, optimistic, poetic fashion while avoiding melodrama. In a refreshingly quiet film, Tan’s protagonists never try to run away from their relatively hollow surroundings, but opt to fill life’s deepest voids with their tenacious confidence. — TOBY BROOKS [Sundance Film Guide]
Director YEN TAN
Writers YEN TAN, DAVID LOWERY
Editor DON SWAYNOS
Cinematographer HUTCH
Sound ERIC FRIEND
Music CURTIS GLENN HEATH
"Deeply satisfying...offers fully realized characters and soft-pedals Lone Star stereotypes. Never pulling emotional strings, the pics unwavering understatement pays in a well-earned ending rich in possibility. "
– Dennis Harvey, Variety
"It's a movie of considered silences and deliberate pacing, superbly acted and surprising in its cumulative power."
– Scott Foundas, Village Voice
(USA, 1993, 106 min)
When THE WEDDING BANQUET premiered 20 years ago director Ang Lee was virtually unknown and who knew that he would go on in the ensuing decades to win two Academy Awards for Best Director (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN and LIFE OF PI). But another look at this well-crafted film gives us clues. In this warm-hearted comedy a gay New Yorker stages a marriage of convenience with a young woman in need of a green card to satisfy his traditional Taiwanese family, but the wedding becomes a major inconvenience when his parents fly in for the ceremony. The story centers on the farcical confusion that emerges from the deception.
An Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film gave Lee international prominence and marked the start of his highly successful directing career.
Director ANG LEE
Writers ANG LEE, NEIL PENG, JAMES SCHAMUS
Editor TIM SQUYRES
Cinematographer JONG LIN
Music MADER
