The 11th Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival opens July 7 with the world premiere of Ron Oliver's Third Man Out: A Donald Strachey Mystery, the Film Festival Media Office announced this week. Featured in the movie is gay porn superstar Matthew Rush in a "small, but pivotal (and naturally nude) role," said Andrew Preis, the festival's Director of Media Relations. The movie also screens on Saturday, July 9. Rush will make personal appearances at both screenings.
Rush is only one of a number of gay porn celebrities who will make appearances at the event in conjunction with movies shown as part of the Festival's "Gay Sexuality: Past and Present" program. Actors Brad Benton and Gabriel Knight, as well as producer Brett Drysdale, will be on hand for the big-screen world premiere of Wet Palms, the gay-porn soap opera that won GAYVN Awards for Best Screenplay and Best Sex Comedy this year. The version screened on July 8 and 13 will be Episodes 1-3 minus the hardcore sex scenes.
On July 9 and 12, legendary gay-adult filmmaker Toby Ross will introduce the world premiere screenings of his first non-adult film, Bowser Makes a Movie, a comedy about a young man who wants to make a gay adult film.
Appearing at the July 16 East Coast premiere of eXposed: The Making of a Legend, a "free-wheeling documentary by female gay-porn videographer mr. Pam about the making-of BuckleRoos," will be stars Dean Phoenix, Marcus Iron, and Owen Hawk, BuckleRoos co-directors John Rutherford and Jerry Douglas, and mr. Pam. Romantic comedy BuckleRoos is the most-honored film in GAYVN history, winning 11 awards at this year's ceremony.
Also part of the "Gay Sexuality: Past and Present" program are Cycles of Porn: Sex Life in L.A. Part 2 (July 10, 14), German filmmaker Jochen Hick's follow-up documentary about L.A.'s gay sex industry; Gay Sex in the '70s (July 10, 11), a "nostalgic, non-judgemental, and highly erotic landscape of New York City in the decade between the Stonewall riots and the onset of AIDS" by documentarian Joseph Lovett; and Jim Tushinski's That Man: Peter Berlin (July 10, 11), a documentary about "the Greta Garbo of gay porn," Peter Berlin. (Berlin, the gay sex symbol of the 1970s, made two high profile porn films, That Boy and Nights in Black Leather, and retired.) Tushinski will introduce his film at both its evening screenings.
In the past, the festival has shown major historic gay erotic films and documentaries, and presented some forums with top gay-porn directors, but this year's is the most concentrated focus. "Usually, it's one to three presentations, but this year there simply was a lot out there," Preis said.
The Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, which runs July 7-19, is produced by the Philadelphia Film Society. This year's festival boasts eight world premieres among the 160 gay/lesbian features, documentaries, and short films from 26 countries.
