Drown

Manufacturer: Strand Releasing

Gay provocateur Bruce La Bruce, director of the controversial No Skin off My Ass (1990), returns to similar turf with this tongue-in-cheek appropriation of neo-Nazi skinheads as queer icons. Essentially a series of homosexual couplings, the film reaches its culmination when a gang of skinheads break into the mansion of a wealthy gay businessman, overpower him, and abuse his black lover. Later, the tables are turned and the skinheads endure their own debasement. This film was screened at the 2000 Rotterdam Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

Manufacturer: Ariztical Entertainment

German with English subtitles. "Silent Youth" is a poetic coming-out story that unfolds when two boys bump into each other on the streets of Berlin, unaware that a casual sequence of events will change their lives drastically. After a brief exchange, Marlo can't resist his immediate attraction to Kirill and starts following him through the city. Soon they begin to amiably wander together, and a strange and subtle relationship begins to brew between them, becoming more confusing the more Kirill exposes about himself. "Silent Youth" centers on those oft-forgotten moments when falling in love, from the first approach to awkwardly sitting across from each other not knowing what to say.

Manufacturer: Canteen Outlaws

Porn superstar François Sagat makes his mainstream acting debut in this new film from director Christophe Honoré (Ma Mère, Love Songs). Sagat stars as Emmanuel, a gay hustler living in France with his lover Omar. After a quarrel between the two, Emmanuel is left brokenhearted to fend for himself as Omar makes his way to New York City. The film separately follows the two men, as their lives diverge, discovering how their heartbreak gives way to fresh outlooks and exciting new sexual encounters.

Manufacturer: Passion River Model: 28931283

Codebreaker tells the remarkable and tragic story of one of the 20th century's most important people. Alan Turing set in motion the computer age and his World War II codebreaking helped turn the tide of the Second World War. Instead of receiving accolades, Turing faced terrible persecution. In 1952, the British Government forced him to undergo chemical castration as punishment for his homosexuality. In despair, Turing committed suicide. He was only 41 years old. Documentary elements seamlessly interconnect with drama scenes in Codebreaker to offer a three dimensional picture of Turing, his accomplishments, his tragic end, and his lasting legacy.

Manufacturer: Strand Releasing

Stanley Kwan, one of Hong Kong's few openly gay filmmakers, directed this drama that blends a same-sex love story into a tableau of China's tumultuous recent history. In 1988, Lan Yu (Liu Ye) is a college student from rural China who has just arrived in Beijing, where he intends to pursue his studies -- and where he begins to acknowledge his sexual leanings. While visiting a gay bar, Lan Yu meets Handong (Hu Jan), a successful businessman whose father is an important Communist Party official. Handong finds Lan Yu attractive and they begin an affair, but while this marks Lan Yu's first significant relationship with another man, Handong thinks little of it and soon takes up with another handsome student. Lan Yu is crushed by Handong's infidelity and breaks off their relationship, but several months later, Handong discovers Lan Yu is one of the students demonstrating against the Communist leadership in Tiananmen Square. Worried after the student massacre by Chinese troops, Handong tracks down Lan Yu and discovers he survived the attack. Lan Yu and Handong soon pick up their relationship where they left off, but Handong is afraid that if his sexual orientation becomes public knowledge, it will ruin his business, so he breaks off with Lan Yu and marries a woman in a failed bid to become more "respectable." Lan Yu is based on a Chinese erotic novel known as Beijing Story, which circulated on the Internet with authorship credited to "Beijing Comrade." ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Manufacturer: Canteen Outlaws

I'm a Porn Star follows the lives of guys in the neighborhood who are likely a lot more famous than you - at least on the Internet. There are an estimated 370 million pornographic websites online. Porn is now a thirteen BILLION dollar business. So who's doing all this moonlighting? Turns out - probably some people you know. Eye-opening, informative and very sexy...

Manufacturer: Criterion Brand: Image Entertainment

A gay Portland, Ore., skid-row storekeeper eyes a teen-age Mexican illegal alien. Directed by Gus Van Sant. The first thing that strikes you about Mala Noche is the raw, beautiful cinematography--a high-contrast black-and-white that captures the gutters of Portland, OR, like the setting of a long-lost film noir. Next, you'll be struck that the narrator, a convenience clerk named Walt (Tim Streeter), rhapsodizes about his love for a young Mexican hustler named Johnny (Doug Cooeyate) without guilt or fear--perhaps reflecting the rare occasion of a movie by an openly gay filmmaker (Gus Van Sant, making his feature film debut) based on an openly gay autobiographical story (by Portland poet Walt Curtis). Though the movie doesn't have much of a plot--basically, Walt alternately tries to woo Johnny and his friend Roberto Pepper (Ray Monge), gaining little more than a suspicious, combative friendship and some fervid but isolated sex--but the rough but engaging flavor of the storytelling gives the movie momentum and a rich charm. The Criterion edition features two splendid extras: First, a low-key, unpretentious interview with Van Sant (who notes that the movie had the spontaneous and low-tech spirit of the Dogme 95 movement, though made several years earlier); and a ramshackle, pugnacious documentary by Portland-born animator Bill Plympton (I Married a Strange Person!) about Walt Curtis, who proclaims himself a "jerk-off poet therapist." If there is a Portland aesthetic, this compila...