Reel Affirmations: The Nation's LGBT Film Festival 2008

Featuring a complex, all-encompassing look at two young gay men, both with physical disabilities, living in Romania, Chip & Ovi presents a tender, plaintive look into the lives of an orphaned couple dealing with both the struggles of their relationship and of poverty. Each with his own compelling circumstance and interests, Chip & Ovi offers the audience the spectacular realization of just what unspectacular minutiae Chip and Ovi must bravely face, without complaint, on a daily basis.

Perfect for a D.C. audience with its behind the scenes peek at the political machine, Choose Connor follows an idealistic, politically minded 15-year-old Owen (Alex D. Linz) who, after he wonkily grills a politician's transportation plan, is asked to come aboard Senator Lawrence Connor's (Steven Weber of Brothers and Sisters) election team as Youth Campaign Spokesperson. He soon develops a friendship with the senator's artistic nephew, Caleb a self-confident, physically beautiful outcast who doesn't attend school, makes elaborate puppets and has a seemingly unusual relationship with his uncle. Uncertain and willing to please, Owen soon finds himself in murkier and murkier ethical waters, all while living in a dream world of influencing policy, hobnobbing with politicos and campaigning for the Senator. Naturally, Owen promptly discovers he is in over his head far more than he expected or wanted, becoming peripherally aware of some dirty dealings happening just under his nose. Delving deeper into the political and personal life of Connor, he learns about the politician's dangerous tendencies and finds himself engaged in the darker side of politics as the film daringly explores moral and social taboos. Deeply polarizing, Choose Connor is an astonishing film - even more so when one learns that the director, Luke Eberl, and his team of three co-producers, were all in their early 20s while making the film. Eberl recently won an American Independents Award at the Philadelphia International Film Festival for Choose Connor, and has begun work on his next film. View the Trailer

Determined to act on his loneliness and frustration, an artist creates his own soulmate.

After teaching many generations of children in her beloved small town, 70 year old Daisy is slated for a lifetime award. Amidst the glory, though, all that concerns her is her own recent diagnosis, and her partner’s longstanding medical struggles.

A Brazilian cowboy’s story of life, friendship, and finding yourself.

It's only fitting that Isaac Julien and Tilda Swinton would collaborate on a documentary about pioneering queer filmmaker Derek Jarman - Swinton as his great friend and frequent leading lady and Julien as a gay Brit who, like Jarman, started out in the world of fine arts and later made films. Both contributors eschew the predictable route of the biographical documentary, creating an iconoclastic tribute to this boundary-breaking director. Rather than simply discuss what it was like to work with him, Swinton (who also produced Derek) reads a letter in voiceover, highlighting his talents and mourning the state of today's filmmaking. Julien uses her remarks as punctuation to a linear chronology of Jarman's life narrated by the man himself, primarily from a lengthy 1990 interview and clips from his films. Jarman recalls pivotal cinematic experiences - including The Wizard of Oz, La Dolce Vita and Scorpio Rising -and reminisces about his school days, his parents' marriage, first sexual experiences and the various people he met at the Slade art school (including David Hockney). Brief discussions of his own work ensue, accentuated by clips from Sebastiane, The Tempest, Caravaggio and others, culminating with his last film, Blue, made as he was dying of AIDS. The result is a loving, concise documentary that stands not only as an edifying elegy and tribute to Jarman and his work, but also a cri de coeur for a time when queer cinema insisted on being defiantly outside of the mainstream.

Two guys hook up and try to understand the meaning of their shared experience.

An unexpected find, while preparing for a yard sale, forces a mother to come to terms with her teenage son’s sexuality.