UWM Union Theater
7pm
For the Bible Tells Me So
(Daniel Karslake, USA, video, 97 min., 2007)
Community Co-Sponsor: Parents, Family & Friends of Lesbians and Gays – Milwaukee (PFLAG)
Community Co-Presenters: Lesbian Alliance , Milwaukee Metropolitan Community Church , Plymouth Church , Welcoming Congregation Subcommittee of the Social Justice Committee Unitarian Church North (Mequon)
Winner - Audience Award, 2007 Seattle International Film Festival
Winner - HBO Audience Award & Best Documentary - Princetown International Film Fesatival
Winner - Audience Award & Best Documentary - 2007 Outfest
Is the chasm separating gays and lesbians and Christianity too wide to cross? Karslake's provocative, emotionally charged documentary brilliantly reconciles homosexuality and scripture, and in the process reveals that Church-sanctioned anti-gay bias is based almost solely upon a significant (and often malicious) misinterpretation of the Bible. Through the experiences of five conventional, emphatically Christian, American families—including those of former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson—we discover how insightful people of faith handle the realization that their child is gay or lesbian. Informed by such respected voices as Bishop Desmond Tutu, Harvard's Peter Gomes, Orthodox Rabbi Steve Greenberg and Reverend Jimmy Creech, For the Bible Tells Me So offers healing, clarity and understanding to anyone caught in the crosshairs of religion and sexual identity.
For the Bible Tells Me So will also screen at the 5th Annual Milwaukee International Film Festival which runs September 20 – 30. See http://www.milwaukeefilmfest.org for show times.
9pm
Colma: The Musical
(Richard Wong, USA, video , 100 min., 2006)
Community Co-Presenters: Boulevard Theatre, Men's Voices Milwaukee & Wisconsin Cream City Chorus
A very funny musical— yes, musical—about the longing to leave a small town and the ache of doing so.
Three best friends, Rodel, Billy, and Maribel, just out of high school and restless with unarticulated aspirations, wonder how much longer they can endure living in Colma, California, a burg just south of San Francisco dense, mostly, with cemeteries. Surely something bigger, better, can happen elsewhere? Billy is a self-identified thespian whose reflex for self-centeredness might just allow him to make it. Rodel is constantly scribbling notes on paper—possibly poetic fragments yet to become a coherent whole; similarly, he's not yet out to his father either. And Maribel, well, she's just fine with Colma, and only impatient to find the next party. Together they whine, plan and stumble towards the future—and they sing! With catchy and very witty pop songs by scriptwriter/star H.P. Mendoza (Rodel) and a spirited and talented cast, Colma is irresistibly and accessibly musical. Wong transcends the film's let's-put-on-a-show dime store aesthetic with editing brio and consistent inventiveness, evoking a landscape familiar to anyone who grew up somewhere outside of their dreams, where small town boundaries are ready scapegoats for hindered growth. Colma: The Musical winningly depicts these aspirations and aches. You'll be singing along.
shown with:
I Hate Musicals (Stewart Schill, USA , video, 20 min., 2006)
A man who hates musicals is cursed to sing them.
