Casual in Istanbul

Alan Arkin , Jennifer Hudson , Forest Whitaker , Helen Mirren , Little Miss Sunshine , Departed and Martin Scorsese...

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Yesterday was the last day of !f Istanbul Film Festival. For us it was a total success!We saw 5 movies and all of them were perfect. The organization was great with all the parties , workshops and some screenings with the attendance of the directors of the movies. We had chance to meet Eytan Fox , Israeli director of Bubble and Yossi & Jagger.Well this is a looooong post but we're sure you are gonna enjoy it...

Director :		Eytan Fox
Screenplay :		Eytan Fox, Gal Uchovsky
Cinematography :		Yaron Scharf
Music :		Ivri Lider
Editing :		Yosef Grunfeld, Yaniv Raiz
Cast :		Ohad Knoller, Alon Friedman, Daniela Virtzer, Yousef ‘Joe’ Sweid, Miki Kam, Shredi Jabarin
Producer :		Ronen Ben Tal, Amir Feingold, Gal Uchovsky
Production Co.:		Uchovsky Fox

Bubble opens at a checkpoint on the Israeli-Palestinian border; this is where Noam and Ashraf meet for the first time. Noam is on reserve duty and Ashraf is on the other side, helping a woman forced to give birth at the roadside. The connection between the two is instant. Noam lives with roommates Lulu and Yali in downtown Tel Aviv's Sheinkin Street - a sexy, cosmopolitan urban landscape, a bubble of a neighborhood filled with hip Israeli lefties. When Ashraf enters Noam’s life, he is also welcomed in this bubble, he begins to live in their apartment and work at Yali’s trendy cafe, though without a permit. But of course, the animosity that belies Israelis and Palestinians is constantly in the background; the tender and erotic relationship between these two loveable and imperfect characters invariably harbors its pain and tension. Though well-meaning, Lulu and Noam’s involvement in a young anti-occupation group organizing a "Rave for Peace" seems flimsy as Ashraf has to flee back home to Nablus on short notice. Bubble constantly reminds the viewers that it will -it has to be- pricked eventually. The exquisite love scenes, the dreamy romance and the tenderness that envelops Ashraf and Noam only make it harder to anticipate the inescapable doom.

“Tel Aviv is a socially and culturally vibrant city. But Tel Aviv is a bubble, cut off from the harsh realities of the Middle East.” Eytan Fox (director)

Director :		Q. Allan Brocka
Screenplay :		Q. Allan Brocka, Philip Pierce
Cinematography :		Joshua Hess
Music :		Ryan Beveridge
Editing :		Phillip J. Bartell
Cast :		Derek Magyar, George Jonson, Patrick Bauchau, Darryl Stephens, Peyton Hinson, Jonathon Trent, Kyle Santler, Emily Brooke Hands, Matt Riedy
Producer :		Stephen Israel, Philip Pierce, Victor Simpkins
Production Co.:		Tla Releasing

Adapted from Matthew Rettenmund’s novel, Boy Culture is a sexy, funny and sharply written gay comedy. In his second feature film, Brocka introduces us to an unconventional gay family: 'X' is a high-priced 'hooker with an exclusive client list which consists of 12 rich men at any one time and never has sex with a guy unless it’s for cash. He is secretly falling in love with his beautiful flatmate Andrew, who is experimenting with his newly discovered gay sexuality while waiting for the right man. And Andrew thinks a hustler is not the right man. Then there's their young sexually voracious 17-year-old Joey, who has fallen hard for X. The sexual tension between three men is very intense. To complicate matters, X meets the 79-year-old loner, Gregory, a replacement for a client.

Boy Culture is a fun and sexy film that will get you hard and make you think.We've seen Brocka's Eating Out couple of years ago at Out Istanbul GLBT Film Festival and adored it. Here is another great one from him. It was sexy , intimate and hilarious.

Last Sunday we were at Beyoglu all day. We saw two movies in !f Istanbul and had a great day:)

Director :		Alexis Dos Santos
Screenplay :		Alexis Dos Santos
Cinematography :		Natasha Braier
Music :		Violent Femmes
Editing :		Alexis Dos Santos, Ida Bregninge, Leonardo Brzezicki
Cast :		Nahuel Viale, Florencia Braier, Héctor Diaz, Inés Efron, Verónica Llinás
Producer :		Alexis Dos Santos, Isabel Coxiet, Soledad Gatti-Pascual
Production Co.:		The Bureau Film Company

Alexis dos Santos’ makes a striking debut with ‘Glue’, an honest and skillful examination of the awkwardness, obsession with sex and homoeroticism of coming-of-age. The film’s mood is perhaps best captured in its tagline: ‘An Adolescent Story in the Middle of Nowhere’. “Nowhere” is in fact in Patagonia, where a hot and dusty summer provides a vibrant backdrop for the coming-of-age tale of three youngsters: Lucas, his best friend Nacho and their female friend Andrea. Lucas is the thinker amongst the trio; he asks those essential questions of adolescent angst in a sparsely used voice over narration. He has all summer to seek his answers -rehearsing with his rock band, riding his bike, sniffing glue and watching porn, all the while imagining how to push the boundaries of the unexplored “medio de la nada” that is adolescence: Neither a kid nor an adult. Winner of the youth jury prize at Rotterdam, Glue heralds the arrival of an exciting new talent; Dos Santos masterfully employs Super 8 to poignantly capture that teenage sense of desire and anarchy, aided by a stellar soundtrack by the Violent Femmes (who loved the film so much they gave their music pro bono).

Most amazingly, the entire film is improvised. Dos Santos held a Q&A afterward and said that he wrote virtually no dialog at all. There was a 17-page script basically outlining the action. But the three lead actors improvised from start to finish.Glue is something like Larry Clark in Spanish. But sweet and non-judgmental and BETTER. It will leave you with a smile on your face.

 

Director :		Auraeus Solito
Screenplay :		Michiko Yamamoto
Cinematography :		Nap Jamir
Music :		Pepe Smith
Editing :		Clang Sison, Kanakan Balintagos, JD Domingo
Cast :		Nathan Lopez, Soliman Cruz, Neil Ryan Sese, Ping Medina, Bodjie Pasca
Producer :		A Unitel Pictures / Unico Entertainment, Release A ufo Pictures Production
Production Co.:		UFO Pictures

Twelve-year-old Maximo is out and proud – dressed in girlie way, lipsticked and hips a-swaying, he looks after his widowed father and two brothers, who lead a life of petty crime in a Manila slum. They accept ‘Maxi’, as he is affectionately known, and his feminine identity, allowing him to cook, clean and sew for them. But when Maximo is helped one day by a new neighbor, Victor, his life takes a sudden turn; he falls in love with the good-looking rookie cop. Problems emerge however when policeman Victor sets out to jail Maxi's father and his boys, and to making an honest man of Maxi himself. A beautifully captured adolescent love story, shot digitally on a miniscule budget, the film doesn’t shy from violence and poverty either. It creates a fully believable, and lovable, portrait of an urban tribe, buoyed by the bold and bubbling performance of Nathan Lopez as Maxi that has made Blossoming an audience favorite across the world. 

Chacun Sa Nuit (2006)

Director :		Pascal Arnold, Jean Marc Barr
Screenplay :		Pascal Arnold
Cinematography :		Jean Marc Barr
Music :		Irina Decermic
Editing :		Chantal Hymans
Cast :		Lizzie Brocheré, Arthur Dupont, Piere Perrier, Nicolas Nollet, Jean–Christophe Bouvet, Guillaume Bachè, Valerie Mairesse
Producer :		Pascal Arnold, Jean Marcbarr, Karina Grandjean
Production Co.:		Toloda

In Chacun Sa Nuit, we see the world through the eyes of Lucie (Lizzie Brocheré). She is mostly surrounded by four handsome young men and a reticent voyeur in the background. We soon realize that Lucie is not the object of everyone’s desires and dreams here; it is Pierre(Arthur Dupont), her brother and her lover —the man she occasionally has sex with, and as we are to find out soon enough, the man she is somehow infatuated with.

Pierre is everyone’s special; he is at the center of many people’s worlds -- often sexually, always emotionally. Then one day, Pierre disappears, leaving the others yearning for him. Following Pierre’s disappearance, we begin to learn about his life.

Lucie follows his footsteps, in agony and alone. As we live with Lucie, Pierre and their other insperable friends in flashbacks, we begin to learn of their intermingled dependencies and humiliations, and to explore the unsettling limits of these young adults’ erotic identities and physical desires.

We behold sexuality, and its ways of inspiring as well as defeating us. Like Larry Clark’s Bully, Chacun Sa Nuit and its unexpected ending was based on a real-life tale of youthful desires gone wrong. The actual events occurred in provincial France a few years ago.

This was the first film we saw on !f Istanbul this year. Wow!What a great one for the opening!This may sound like a sweet love story with some nice looking people , believe us it's not. Chacun Sa Nuit is a great combination of a sweet love story , a coming-of-age drama plus it is essentially a mystery. And it works. And as if that wasn't enough, it features no less than five of the most gorgeous people imaginable, four guys and a girl. If we were the casting directors we couldn't have done better.

We were so moved by this film , so we highly recommend it to all of you guys. Watch the trailer!

We like to thank everyone who has voted for us in Lone Star Verve's  1st Annual Verve Weblog Awards.Casual in Istanbul won the Best GLBT Photo Blog and Best GLBT African/Middle Eastern Blog Awards.You guys are the best and we're really grateful for your votes.It's really good to know someone's out there , appreciating the things we've done! Also a big thank to our dear friend Lewis Adrian who is responsible for all this. And finally congratulations to our dear friends ; OhLaLa , Popbytes , Shades of Gray , R*yan , Aussielicious , Closet Conundrums , Completely Naked , A Cause des Garçons and all other winners...

World AIDS Day 2006

Spice Up Your Life!

UK based actor, singer and dancer Paul Spicer is hailed by this month's DNA magazine as "the next big British phenomenon." With talent and looks in equal measure, it's easy to see why. He is definitely one of the hottest boys we've ever seen. He already has a string of West End credits to his name, as well as the music video to Uniting Nations' infuriatingly catchy dance track Out of Touch, in which he played strip poker.

He will next take to the stage in Christmas in New York at the Lyric Theatre in London, which is the latest instalment in the critically acclaimed Notes from New York series of shows he co-founded. He's also performing in the international tour of the smash hit ABBA musical Mamma Mia and so may well be visiting a city near you. We do hope he comes in our direction to spice up our lives ;)

For further details about Paul and his upcoming projects, visit www.paulspiceronline.com

 

It's a black&white video that contains moving and still images...and it's possible to say that you will see everybody you can imagine in it...just imagine ; Bono , Justin Timberlake , Johnny Depp , Kate Moss , Iggy Pop , Chris Martin , Amy Lee , Dixie Chicks , Anthony Kiedis , Keith Richards , Patty Smith , Jay-Z , Sharon Stone and many more celebrities in the same video!

2006 GLBT Verve Weblog Awards

THANK YOU , THANK YOU , THANK YOU...again!Casual in Istanbul is nominated in 4 different categories for Lone Star Verve's 1st Annual GLBT Verve Weblog Awards 2006.Now , you have to go to Lone Star Verve , copy the categories and finalists and paste into your email. Place an "X" by your favorite blog in each category. Send your email to lonestar@sbcglobal.net Simple isn't it? Here is a little tip for making it easier ;)

7 Nominations total from 2 different Gay Blog Awards! We already began to write our "thank you" speech...THINK CASUAL , VOTE FOR US;)