第19回 東京国際レズビアン＆ゲイ映画祭


The 2010 Tokyo Gay and Lesbian Film Festival gets underway today with the world premiere screening at Wald 9 in Shinuku, at 6.30pm, of Evgeny Afineevsky’s Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!

The Festival is in two overlapping stages, with the first dozen or so films being shown between today and July 19 at the Wald 9 cinema complex in Shinjuku, and the remaining films (plus many of those screened at Wald 9) being shown between July 15 and 19 at Spiral Hall in Minami Aoyama (pic below)



Many of the films are short films and come from directors in ten different countries:

USA
Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay!, dir. Evgeny Afineevsky
A Single Man, dir. Tom Ford
The Four-Faced Liar, dir. Jacob Chase
Hollywood, je t'aime, dir. Jason Bushman
I'm Just Anneke, dir. Jonathan Skurnik (USA/Canada)
And Then Came Lola, dir. Ellen Seidler & Megan Siler
Revelations, dir. Tom Gustafson
Girl Talk, dir. Jennifer Smith

Canada
Peking Turkey, dir. Michael Mew
The Golden Pin, dir. Cuong Ngo
No Bikini, dir. Claudia Morgado Escanilla

Hong Kong
Miao Miao, dir. Cheng Hsiao-Tse

Sweden
Regretters, dir. Marcus Lindeen
A Little Tiger, dir. Anna Carin Andersson
Birthday, dir. Jenifer Malmqvist

New Zealand
The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls, dir. Leanne Pooley
Teddy, dir. Christopher Banks

Australia
evelyn everyone, dir. Kylie Plunkett

Japan
Secret, dir. Takeshi Matsuura
La forêt de Rachel D'Amour, dir. Rachel D'Amour
Mariko Rose the Spook, dir. Devi Kobayashi
A Tea-Grown Flower, dir. Yoko Yusa
Koiseyo Otomoe, dir. Yoshitomi X Saii
Friends?, dir. Manabu Oda
Cloudy Then Fair, dir. Marie Sakamoto

Diavolo, dir. Meiko Amano
Jellyfish Boy, dir. Sho Kataoka

China
Spring Fever, dir. Lou Ye

Peru
Undertow, dir. Javier Fuentes-Leon
South Korea
Just Friends?, dir. Kim-Jho Gwang-soo

Pre-paid tickets are cheaper than the regular movie price: 1,400 yen per showing at Wald 9, and 1,300 yen at Spiral (or 4,800 yen for 4 movies, or 13,000 yen for a Spiral pass)

Media partners of the Festival include Furukawa Shobou, publishers of gay manga, the chic, cutting edge Tokyo Wrestling: Tough Girls Lifestyle website known, amongst other things, for its kick ass parties, and gay magazine publisher, Tera Publications Inc.

Check out the 2010 Tokyo Gay and Lesbian Film Festival website for more details.

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ゼネラルステッカー


I was wandering through Shinjuku 2-chome tonight, Tokyo's main gay area, and happened in on a shop there.

Just inside the doorway there was a board covered with mostly irreverent little stickers, only about an inch wide by 2 inches high, and this one in particular caught my eye.

Clearly it is a parody of the Nike logo, but replacing the last "e" with a "u" turns it into the Japanese word niku (肉）or "meat," which, in Japanese gay parlance - just as in English-speaking gay parlance - refers to the cock.

Turning Nike's "Just do it" into "Just nine inch" isn't terrible witty, but elaborates on the theme, I guess. The most subtle element, no doubt, is the little nick out of the tip of the line that sweeps up under the "Niku," helping the imagination out that little bit extra!

This sticker, and the many others there, is produced by a specialist sticker company in Tokyo's Ota ward called General Sticker. You can see the General Sticker website here - and, from there, their online shop.

Remember that anything you might want from Japan but can't order directly from overseas can be ordered via GoodsFromJapan.

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ゲイの栗鼠と月に住む猫のおはなし

ef Gallery presents a new film by Dutch artist Johan Peter (J.P.) Hol
"Gay Squirrel and the Tail/Tale of the Cat on the Moon!"



OPENING RECEPTION/ FILM PREMIERE
19:00 - 21:00 Thursday 15 October 2009

The film, telling the tale of a quest for one's attributes, is set in a closet that contains the universe.
For the first time Hol investigates his own sexuality. Part of the installation is a three-dimensional 3.5 m high Gay Squirrel (Gallery ef) & a 2.8m high Tailless Cat (studio J).
Additionally there will be a series of hand painted posters and action figures of the film characters.



Interview with J.P. Hol

EXHIBITION

Friday 16 October-Sunday 8 November 2009

The film (12 mins) runs alternately in English and Japanese versions.
12:00 - 21:00 (19:00 on the final day) closed on Tuesdays, entrance free

Gallery ef
Gallery ef 2-19-18 Kaminarimon, Taito-ku, Tokyo 111-0034
tel +81-(0)3-3841-0442 fax +81-(0)3-3841-9079

Co-host venue studio J, Osaka

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東京ゲイプライド2009




Today was the 2009 Tokyo Gay Pride, what should be the annual highlight of gay Tokyo. It was much, much better than last year - simply because it happened, whereas last year it didn't. However, it was a pale specter of Tokyo Gay Pride from the year before, 2007.

2009 Tokyo Gay Pride took place in the Kyogijo event space across from Yoyogi Park. The weather held out, there were quite a few booths - including even one from Goldman Sachs - there was a feel of excitement, however mellow, and some wackily turned out people.



Still, to be honest, if I didn't go there with the aim of blogging it, I wouldn't have missed much. There was a stage presentation that, for the hour or so I was there, at least, involved no song or dance, but a large panel discussion - yawn. Attendance was scarce, and the hundreds of people needed to give momentum to the atmosphere in a space that big just weren't there. It was a matter of killing time wandering around stalls, and almost desperately looking for any friends.





Perhaps most disappointing of all was the absence of a parade this year. There's nothing like a parade to give a gay pride event the edge it needs from exposure out on the streets to the big, bad world. This year it was a generally meek, camera-shy gathering of well meaning gay folks that if it wasn't for the few brave ones featured in the photos here would have been entirely forgettable.



Loins girded for Tokyo Gay Pride 2010 - Gambarimasho! (i.e., "Let's go for it!")

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ゲイ　日本語

Like gay scenes anywhere, the Japanese gay scene has its own lingo. Let's look at a few of the most common phrases heard amongst Japanese gay guys.

gei pronounced "gay". An easy start to the lesson.

kotchi = family: The word kochi or, with a lingering lilt on the "ch," kotchi ("cot chee") literally, and quite simply, means "here" or "on this side". It's not too big a stretch of the imagination to interpret it as "someone of the same group as myself," or, in English gay parlance, "family".
"Ano hito wa kotchi kana?" "That person's family, isn't he?"

okama = fag, poof: the noun kama means pot, as in a large pot used for cooking stews in, originally over an open fire - more like "cauldron," perhaps. Add an honorific "o" to the front of it, and you have the Japanese word for "fag" or "poof" - etymology unknown.

nonke = straight: the roots of the word are obscure, but nonke simply means "straight".

tachi = top: the verb tatsu means "to stand". Tachi is the noun derived from that verb, i.e. "something that stands," or "a top".

ukemi = bottom: the verb ukeru means to "take, , receive, accept," thus uke (receiving) mi (body, party) means "one who receives," or, a bottom.

neko = bottom: neko literally means "cat". It has exactly the same meaning as ukemi, but in a slangier way.

riba = versatile. riba ("ree-ba") represents the first two syllables of the English word "reversible".

chinchin, mara = penis. chinchin is a kid's word for penis, and mara is a more hardcore "grown-up" word for it. You'll hear both, the choice of words depending on the setting.

dekachin, dekamara = huge cock: dekkai (from which deka is derived) is an adjective meaning "huge". chin is an abbreviation of chinchin (see above), and mara is just mara (see above).

kintama = balls, testicles. Literally "golden" (kin) "balls" (tama). Get it?

Last week's Japanese lesson - Animals

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新宿　二丁目　らあめん屋


Shinjuku Ni-Chome (i.e. the “Shinjuku No.2 District”) is home to the main Tokyo gay and lesbian scene.

Weekdays in Ni-Chome are by no means empty, but are pretty quiet compared with weekends. But on any day of the week, it is a nighttime scene, meaning that there are also a lot of restaurants and small eateries in the area who rely on hungry gay boys’ and girls’ nighttime appetites for a lot of their business.

There is the Uoya-Itcho Japanese-style izakaya in the BYGS Building, and several ethnic restaurants, including Chinese and Indian. The 24-hour MOS Burger store across Shinjuku-dori Avenue is a popular late night hangout for the gay party crowd, and features particularly gay-friendly staff.

However, one of the most photogenic is the raamen store, also on Shinjuku-dori Avenue featured in the above photo, with its cute ceramic rendition of the main meat ingredient in this particular store’s noodles: a porky pig.

No good drinking to excess on an empty stomach - and certainly no excuse to do so in Shinjuku Ni-Chome.

Read more about gay Shinjuku Ni-Chome here.






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おネエMANS

O-né Mans is a program that airs every Tuesday on Nippon Television Network at 7pm. “A convergence of charismatic characters from every walk of life, all of whom employ camp language with consummate skill” is how the program is introduced on the station’s website.

O-né in Japanese means “big sister”. In Japanese gay parlance, “o-né” means “camp queen”. And O-né Mans is a program featuring 9 camp queens from “all walks of life” camping it up for the TV audience.

“Men, but not men, more feminine than women” is the next line in the website’s introductory blurb. “These are the charismatic genii of the ultra-future,” gushes the next.

But read a little further on, and you will find that “all walks of life” refers to the worlds of fashion, webmastership, hairdesign, showbiz, flower design, gym training, nursing, and cooking. God forbid that anyone deemed to bear authority in Japan, such as lawyers, priests, politicians, doctors, bankers, accountants, etc. should get a look in. And God further forbid that the camp cast be let loose on TV audiences by anyone but a “normal,” i.e. straight, MC.

In a sense, gay men could be said to be empowered by O-né Mans, attested to by their “charisma” alone keeping the program afloat. But in another sense, the program is a statement of how gay men are straitjacketed in what heterosexual Japan believes gay ought to mean. These are not men who love men – they are genderless freaks: “men but not men, more feminine than women”. Being gay is not about sexuality – it is about “employing camp language with consummate skill,” the implication being that if you are not a camp queen with the gift of the gab, you cannot properly call yourself gay. And while gay men are depicted as being in “all walks of life,” as noted above, they are notably absent from the walks of life where decisions are made about people’s fate.

Check out the O-né Mans website (Japanese only.)


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国際　ゲイ　ホームページ



I met the guys behind JguyUSguy, Japan’s most popular site for gay foreigners living in Japan, foreigners into Japanese guys, and Japanese guys into foreigners, back in the late 90s. I was trying to get a club night started in Osaka – where I lived at the time – called Traffik, and contacted JguyUSguy by mail about promoting it.

It was a modest success, and I ran it – as the main DJ - three times. But club owner fees and the difficulty of doing a club night pretty much singlehanded put paid to it before too long. Fun while it lasted though.

Anyway, I contacted the site for support. JguyUSguy is such an institution in gay Japan that I was surprised and flattered to get mail back from one of the two webmasters – the US guy – not only offering the full support of JguyUSguy for Traffik, but about getting together sometime. Since that time we have been good friends, and, thanks to his introduction, I now have translation work that forms a large part of my income.

As highly polished and professional in nature as it is, JguyUSguy is, surprisingly, not the webmaster’s bread and butter, but a (Herculean) labor of (true) love. It has been fairy godmother to no end of international liaisons, and a valuable and necessary forum of cross cultural dialog. I say “necessary”, because of anywhere, Japan must be a place where Western ways of doing things can be so out of place, in spite of its Western-style living accouterments, that English-speaking guys really need a place where they can hook up to question, probe, get feedback, get advice, impart opinions – and plain howl.

About a year ago the webmaster introduced a membership system whereby parts of the site are accessible only to those who sign up for a modest annual fee. I know how much time he puts into the site – how much time he has put into the site over the years – for no tangible return but the satisfaction of knowing that the magic that brought him and his man together can be, and is being, transmitted to others.

If you have any interest in Japanese guys, whether you live in Japan or not, I would urge to surf JguyUSguy - if you haven’t already yet - and see the wealth of community resources on offer, and just feel the warmth – the heat, even. Enjoy!

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アラマス・カフェ

Shinjuku Ni-Chome, one stop east of Shinjuku Station on the Marunouchi subway line, is Tokyo's gay nexus.

The latest news from Ni-Chome is the advent of the Alamas Cafe, a "DJ cafe" on the main drag of the district, Naka-dori Avenue. It is affiliated with the gay club, Arch, also in Shinjuku Ni-Chome.




As the subtitle suggests, it has a DJ booth fully visible from the street (at the right of the photo [see left]).

The Alamas is subtley lit, restfully decorated, and, compared with Advocates just a couple of blocks away, has a nice chilled vibe. It opened just last month: in July 2008.

I was there this evening - a little early for things to be jumping yet, and, being summer, perhaps a little too hot.

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ゴルデン



"Fired up, deep down, solid GOLDEN" - while Tokyo's main gay/lesbian event, the Tokyo Gay Lesbian Parade, won't be taking place this year, Tokyo won't be left without a chance for gay men and wimmin and their friends to get together and celebrate.

A brand new club night, Golden, is being planned for Saturday, July 26. Golden is taking place at the noted club/event space Super Deluxe in Tokyo's Nishi Azabu district, a minute's walk west of Roppongi Hills, on Roppongi-dori.



We asked, David Stormer, one of the Tokyo pair organizing the event, what it was all about. "The music" was the reply, "partying, and letting your hair down to great music, whoever you are". The four DJs are an international bunch, from the UK, the US, New Zealand, and Japan.

What they are going to be spinning is equally diverse with DJ Frazzle, heading the list, giving as his genre "party as f##k!", DJ CheekyMoo playing "electric lash", DJ Tripbeetle playing "house", and Tokyo's own DJ Tsubasa playing "indies/electro indies".

Entertainment is planned, prizes, etc.

So get set for it, Tokyo! Saturday 26th is going to be a mid-summer scorcher in more ways than just the weather.

GOLDEN, Saturday, July 26 at SuperDeluxe, 3,500 yen (1 drink with flyer).
Inquiries: goldennite@gmail.com
All welcome.

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