The community turned out for Outfest’s raucous seventh annual Outies awards at the John Anson Ford Theater Sunday night as Sandhi Simcha Dubowski’s doc on gay Orthodox Jews, “Trembling Before G-d,” received the grand jury award for docu feature and Michael Cuesta’s coming-of-age drama “L.I.E.” took the prize for American narrative feature.
Honoring a wide spectrum of gay cinema, the ceremony capped The 19th Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. A total of seven jury prizes and five audience awards were presented.
Related Stories
“While the Emmys will give an award to ‘Queer as Folk,’ at Outfest the queer are the folk,” host Bruce Vilanch said. “It’s important to celebrate the gay community and the gay culture. It’s more than just what you may see on a few television shows.”
Popular on Variety
Multiple winners
“L.I.E.’s” Paul Franklin Dano tied for acting honors with Kett Turton from “Gypsy 83.”
Two other films won multiple Outies: Harriet Dodge and Silas Flipper’s butch noir buddy film, “By Hook or by Crook,” garnered the grand jury award for outstanding screenwriting and the audience award for outstanding narrative feature (tied with Cheryl Dunye’s “Stranger Inside”); and Lisa Udelson’s Tupperware Lady doc, “Lifetime Guarantee: Phranc’s Adventures in Plastic,” won audience awards for outstanding documentary feature and soundtrack.
Other winners included: “Princesa,” by Henrique Goldman, grand jury award for international narrative feature; Courtney Love, grand jury award for actress in a feature film for “Julie Johnson”; African doc shorts “Dark and Lovely, Soft and Free” and “A Normal Daughter: The Life and Times of Kewpie of District Six,” special mentions.
Also winning: “Meeting (Entrevue),” audience award for narrative short film; “De Colores,” audience award for docu short; “Treading Water” helmer Lauren Himmel, emerging talent award; “Our Lady of the Assassins” d.p. Rodrigo Lalinde, special programming committee award for outstanding artistic achievement; and WWII drama “The Dunes of Overveen” screenwriting competish winners Rich Burns and David Mixner.
The awards ceremony was followed by the Los Angeles premiere of Susan Seidelman’s “Gaudi Afternoon.”
Outfest 2001 featured 231 films from 23 countries.
