Reel Affirmations: The Nation's LGBT Film Festival 2008

Dreamlike and sensually shot, The Lost Coast is a love letter to first love, youth, and the romantic allure of finally becoming an adult.

Twentysomethings Jasper, Mark and Lily have been friends since high school, when Mark and Jasper fooled around but never called it a relationship. Mark, now openly gay and reveling in his sexual allure, and Lily, still close, also dated in high school, and the three share a bond of shared experiences and awkward attempts to break away from their youthful past. Jasper, while obviously still touched by his feelings for Mark, is now engaged and the film unfolds through a series of emails he sends his fiancée describing the evening.

Insert a relatively new-to-the-trio prankster in the guise of Caleb and you have a slow fuse toward revelation.

Told almost entirely through Jasper's point of view, The Lost Coast is a strikingly internal film - the events that unfold are less important than the emotional reaction they evoke. The group wanders San Francisco on Halloween night, costumed and restless, in search of drugs, adventure, and sex. Bouncing from the Mission to the Castro, through Golden Gate Park and the Sunset District, and finally to the beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean, their travels are merely a way for Jasper and Mark to wrestle with their feelings for each other under the watchful eyes of Lily and Caleb.

One of the most arresting films of the festival, The Lost Coast is a calling card for greatness. Gabriel Fleming, who is quickly making his name as a filmmaker and editor, displays a Scorcese-like feel for dramatic tension, and infuses what could be a listless quest for meaning into a heart-rending epic of longing.

Awards: Jury Award, Best Feature: New Fest

Competition: SXSW and Queer Lion, Venice Film Festival