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When C. Jay Cox and I chatted last week about his latest movie "Kiss the Bride" which opens in LA and other selected markets today, I recalled the thunderous reception his last film, "Latter Days" received when it premiered at Outfest four years ago. Anyone there that night will never forget it - especially C. Jay.

"I can't dwell on it too often because it just feels like this stolen moment from someone else night," he said. "It was one of those incredible experiences that was so overwhekming that it was hard to imagine that it was actually happening to me."

"Bride" stars two leading men, James O'Shea and Philipp Karner, who are unknown but very good in a film that also stars Tori Spelling as a bride who about to marry a man whose high school best friend (and former lover) comes back to town to attend the wedding and stirs up old feelings,

"It was important to get a name like Tori," said C. Jay (pictured above). "In the landscape of independent film, it's so tough in sort of a crowded landscape of even a lot more gay films are being made. It's vital to get somebody who at least can give your film a bit more of a profile to help a movie stand out. I think it really helps to have a recognizable name. Tori was just perfect fort the role of Alex, the bubbly sensibility and absolutely loveable quality."

But Tori was pregnant during filming and her character was not. This led to various efforts to conceal her baby bump with strategically-placed pillows and other tricks. Says C. Jay: "There's a drinking game in which every time something appears in front of Alex's stomach, you have to take shot, You get wasted."

Of his leading men, the director says: "I feel we were really lucky to get Philipp and James because they were perfect for the roles. Philipp lends this polished cosmopolitan air of someone who has lived in the city and moves in that world and he comes back to a small town. I just feel like they were both an absolute find and also a thrill to work with. Both are great guys,...We shot for 18 days, it was areally a tight shoot. They developed this great chemistry."

One of my favorite character in the movie is the friend/co-worker of Philipp Karner's character played with great comic flair by Jane Cho who shows up every now and then: "We were going after Margaret Cho but she was in London and unavailable. In a way, I'm thrilled we were able to work with Jane, She brings this freshness and lights up every scene she's in."

If you want to see a superb movie this weekend, go see "Shelter." I've seen it about a dozen times since I was given a screener of it last summer and it gets better with each viewing and my admiration for the work of stars Trevor Wright and Brad Rowe and director-writer Jonah Markowitz.
While this has been labeled as "a gay surfing flick," surfing is really just a sexy backdrop for the story of Zach (Wright), a young man working a dead-end job and helping his needy sister care for her young son. When Zach becomes involved with the older brother of his best friend (Rowe), the relationship calls into question all of his assumptions about family, self-identity and the future.

I spoke with Jonah recently about his much buzzed-about directorial debut which debuts today (March 28) in LA at Sunset 5 and in 12 markets total: New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, San Diego, Palm Springs, Minneapolis, Portland and Ft. Lauderdale.

"I just can't wait to get it out and have the public see it outside the festival circuit," Jonah said. "It's just getting to see it in that environment, it will be kinda great to see how it does."

Jonah is confident that he has made a film that will move people: "It was always the goal to really make this movie about people and about their struggles. People who have seen it really love it, regardless if they are straight or gay.It's a question of getting them into the theater. I think it will be a word of mouth thing. It's a story that lots of different kind of people can relate to."

The surfing backdrop allowed for a lot of beach scenes: "That was part of making a gay film that we hoped would be different, making as film where they fell in love outside - not in a bar, nightclub or locker room. Outdoors and being active, breaking the mold of what we usually see."

In the end, Jonah hopes the movie entertains but also sends this message: "If you have love, you can create family. We've got the families we were born with and the families we create. They are just as valid, The movie's about these guys whio create a family together."

On the casting of Brad Rowe, already known to gay audiences from being the object of Sean Hays' obsession in "Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss" a decade ago: "It had nothing to do with 'Billy's.' He was really the right gfuy for the part, he understood where the character was at and he got along well with Trevor. I thought he could bring something real and beautiful to it. He understood the character was at a different point in his life than Trevor was."

On Trevor Wright's and Brad's love scenes: "Trevor is really talented. He and Brad and I kept it real loose, The initmate scenes, I asked if they knew what it was like to spend a day with somebody you love and what does that feel like to you? They are both straight and they were able to go off on that. I made a mixed tape for them and we just scheduled it: we had the first kiss, the fooling around then real full on."

"Shelter" marks the first project to be produced by here! Networks' Independent Film Initiative and here! films presented the premier party last night at Eleven Nightclub in West Hollywood and on Sunday, here! films and N2N present The Shelter Sunset Soiree from 4-10 p.m. poolside at The Standard Hotel, West Hollywood. If you see "Shelter" opening weekend at Sunset 5, don't forget to bring your ticket stub for free admission to the soiree. For more info, go to www.thesmokingcocktail.com

Learn more about the movie at: HereTV.com/sheltermovie

Earlier posts: The Out In Hollywood Interview: "Shelter" star Brad Rowe...

Got the chance to talk to director Kimberly Peirce last week about her new movie "Stop-Loss" starring Ryan Phillippe (pictured with the director, above), Abbie Cornish, Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, at the movie's premiere.

It's her first film since 1999's "Boys Don't Cry." It's release date on Friday is especially timely with the Iraq war at the five-year milestone this month and the death toll of U.S. soldiers reaching at least 4,000 this week. Her movie is about the soldiers who are forced into additional tours of duty and the toll the war is taking on their lives back home.

Q. Why did you wait almost 10 years to do another film?
A. "I was looking for something that really moved me and broke my heart and spoke to me in the deepest possible way. "Boys" was a dream come true, it is something that I will think about my entire life - it was about gender, sexuality, my friends, myself, my family. Once you have an experience that satisfying, that's what you want to put your whole life towards. When 9-11 happened and I saw the towers fall - I had been living there 13 years - and my country went to war, I knew I needed to make a movie about the soldiers: who they were, why they were signing up, what their experience in combat was and upon coming home. Not long after that, my baby brother signed up so we were a military family. We had a gandfather fight in WWII and we were deep in it. I can't think of anything that I would be prouder to have made in these last couple of years. I was just so excited to be able to talk to the real soldiers. I love to do things that I both have a sense of, but that I come to understand better and I now understand our soldiers and the experiences they've had fighting, what comraderie means to them and what it means for them to come home and I want everybody to understand that. It's the most important issue I see facing our country."

Q. How do you think the movie will be received?
A. "I've been to 22 cities in America and people are loving the movie and I think the reason is, look at the cast: it's all young guys who are totally reflective of real soldiers - they studied with real Iraq vets, they studied with Marines - they're just a young group of good looking charismatic guys. They're a lot like the American soldiers that I interviewed."

Q. How was it working with Ryan Phillippe?
A. "Ryan was fantastic. He came in, he had that gorgeous deep voice, he's got that cleft chin. He's just that all-American boy. In addition to being good looking, he;s also just incredibly mature and incredibly sensitive. He's a great father and I think he brings that into the role because he's the brother of the guys but he's also really the father of the guys. That's really what the movie's about - the comraderie between soldiers when they're over there in combat. All that matters is keeping alive the soldier to your left, the soldier to your right and bringing them home."

Out director Adam Shankman is no stranger to box office success with such hits as "Cheaper by the Dozen 2," "The Pacifier," and "Bringing Down the House" on his resume as well as the highly-regarded "A Walk to Remember" starring Mandy Moore.
But Adam really knocked it out of the park with "Hairspray," one of the highest-grossing musicals of all time. He directed a cast that included newcomer Nikki Blonsky and other young stars including Zac Efron and Amanda Bynes and such screen vets as John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken and Queen Latifah.
We had a chat at this week's Hollywood Film Festival Awards.
Greg: There's aleady been a "Hairspray" movie and a stage musical. Was it daunting for you to take the musical movie on?
Adam: "I went for it. I felt like this was my assignment. John Waters told me to make this one my own. And so I just went to the material and decided to go for it. If I had any doubts, the movie couldn't have been made. It had to be, 'This is how I see it. This is how I want it. This is what it's gonna be.'
Greg: There were some who were critical of the casting of Travolta as Edna, that they wanted to see a real drag queen play it like Divine did in the original movie.
Adam: It's ridiculous. He's the greatest. The role is always played by a man and John is the greatest movie musical star of our generation. It's literally like perfect casting. I don't think audiences would have responded to the character if it had been a real drag queen. I think that's embracing the other material and we already got that. We did that one already."
Greg: Well, what do you do for an encore? What's next?
Adam: I'm doing an Adam Sandler movie called "Bedtime Stories." That's a big [2008] holiday movie, a lot of CG and kids. It's very sweet. So I'm just starting that and as a producer, I have 'Step Up 2 the Streets' out in January and a movie called 'Seventeen" with Zac Efron that we start shooting on Dec. 3."

It's not often that a handsome movie star isn't the best looking man on the set. But that will be the case when Tom Cruise teams with Bryan Singer for an untitled thriller for Cruise's United Artists studio. Singer directed the first two "X-Men" movies and last summer's "Superman Returns." He is openly gay and about as handsome as they come. He is probably a hotter commodity right now in the movie business right now than Cruise himself after Tom's spate of bad publicity and strange behavior.
But I have a feeling that Cruise is poised to be the comeback kid with some good roles that have him being more than a superhero in an action film like "Minority Report" or "MI:3." Cruise is a good actor who has been nominated for three Academy Awards for "Magnolia," "Jerry Maguire" and "Born on the 4th of July." He is currently is co-starring with acting icons Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in his next movie "Lions for Lambs" to be followed by the project with Singer. The untitled movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter, is based on actual events and depicts an attempt to assassinate Adoilf Hitler at the height of World War II. Cruise had not intended to star in the film but during meetings, Singer became intrigued with the idea of Cruise as the film's central character and offered him the role.
Production is set to begin this summer and is not expected to interfere with the "Superman" sequel Singer is preparing.

Marc Malkin, who has a terrific Planet Gossip site on E!Online, has been running parts of a conversation he had with John Waters this week. What jumped out at me was the openly gay Waters reaction to Isaiah Washington going to some kind of rehab to get treatment for the homophobic remarks he made about co-star T.R. Knight. Waters says he wants to know what kind of rehab is it that Washington claims to have gone to for help.
"It's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard," he says. "Is there a racism rehab, too? Can the KKK people go there? Only in L.A.!"
Marc chatted with Waters in his Chateau Marmont hotel suite just a couple of days before the premiere of his new court TV show"'Til Death Do Us Part."
Waters first gained fame by shocking moviegoers with his outrageously funny—and dirty—"Pink Flamingos" and went on to make "Hairspray" and "Cry-Baby" among others.
"I look through my cable guide and, each month, at least four or five of my movies are on TV," he says. "Pink Flamingos is on the Sundance channel, which in many places is regular cable. It's not even like On Demand. So, many families will sit there together and up comes a singing a--hole!"
Inthe 1980s movie "Hairspray," the role of Edna Turnblad was played by cross-dressing Divine. It was then played by Harvey Fierstein in the Broadway production and will be played by John Travolta in the new movie musical version due out this summer.
"It's great," Waters says. "I'm about to be a grandfather. It's the third generation."
What would Divine think of Travolta taking on her part?
"He would snatch the part right from John's cold, dead fingers," Waters says. "But Divine would be 60 now. In my last movie [A Dirty Shame], he would have been Big Ethel—the grandmother!" 

I interviewed director Maria Maggenti for the current issue of LA's Frontiers Magazine. If you live in LA, I encourage you to pick up a copy and check out that and other articles in the magazine which has been greatly improved over the past year under editor Alex Cho.
Since many of you are not in LA, I've done and cut-and-paste of the article for you to enjoy:

Sexual Revolution
Men? Women? Both? With Puccini for Beginners writer-director Maria Maggenti, it’s all fair game
BY GREG HERNANDEZ

Maria Maggenti hasn’t lost her flair for romance.
The writer-director of the queer classic The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love has had to wait more than a decade to have her second movie completed and released. But the long wait is over now that Puccini for Beginners is opening in theaters Feb. 2.
Puccini—which takes place in Manhattan and stars Elizabeth Reaser, Gretchen Mol, and Justin Kirk—is a sophisticated screwball sex comedy revolving around Allegra (Reaser), a woman with a fluid sexuality who is struggling to make a commitment.
“I have a lot of affection for the characters, but they are crazily self-absorbed,� the 44-year-old Maggenti says. “The movie is a rather romantic portrayal of the world. It’s about what happens when a woman ends up seeing two people at the same time who are ex-lovers. I take the position that my movie is about an ideal world in which your sexuality is OK. Nothing bad will happen to you if [a gay man] sleeps with women and a lesbian sleeps with a man.�
Maggenti knows a thing or two about that fluidity, since she has been in relationships with women and is now currently involved with a man. As a result, the filmmaker has been put in the position of having to debate over whether someone can be truly bisexual.
“I know from personal experience that to cross boundaries, whoever you are, can be very threatening to the people around you,� she says. “In the movie I try and honor that, and also make fun of it. Years ago I did defend myself. But the world has changed around me. Things are far less rigid than when I came out in the mid-’80s. If I am at all successful, what I hope to accomplish with Puccini is a distillation of those conversations that have existed, and take them on with affection and humor.�
The movie was shot in a mere 18 days on a budget of less than $1 million. Kirk and Mol signed on immediately after getting the script, but up until a week before filming was set to begin, Maggenti still did not have a leading lady.
But the problem was solved at the eleventh hour when Reaser was brought in to audition for the key role of Allegra, a writer who is involved with both Kirk’s and Mol’s characters.
“The part is really difficult,� Maggenti explains. “It had to be someone who had to be an intellectual, but she also has to be emotional and visceral and be funny. She has a lot to deal with. It was definitely a hard part to cast. Elizabeth turned out to be perfect.�
The film’s box-office chances could be improved by the good fortune of its cast members since Puccini wrapped. Reaser has since gone on to star in the TNT series Saved opposite Tom Everett Scott, while Kirk is now in his second season of the Showtime series Weeds—a show that recently earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination.
“For me, the preproduction casting was sheer hell and I was thrown into self-doubt,� Maggenti admits. “Then we got into production and it all fell together.�
Even though it’s been 12 years between feature film releases for Maggenti, she has hardly been idle. She’s found steady work in episodic television, including three years spent writing for the CBS crime drama Without a Trace. But she’d love to have the opportunity to make more of her own movies and take them on the film festival circuit.
“I’m the gregarious type and I’ll go anywhere where the light shines in my direction for a few minutes,� she says. “One of the great things about making a movie is that you get to interact and meet other filmmakers and see other people’s films. I am more seasoned now and I don’t take things as personally, and am more relaxed than I was the first time around.�
Prior to the 1995 release of Two Girls, Maggenti cut her teeth directing the documentary Doctors, Liars and Women as well as the short films The Love Monster, Waiting for War, Name Day, and La Donna è mobile. She also wrote the screenplay for the 1999 romantic comedy The Love Letter that starred Kate Capshaw, Tom Selleck, and Ellen DeGeneres, among others.
It’s now been a year since Puccini had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. It then went on to be the opening-night selection at last summer’s Outfest in Los Angeles, among other stops along the way. Now its creator is eagerly awaiting the public’s reaction to her labor of love.
“This is always the weirdest time for a filmmaker,� Maggenti says. “You make a movie then you have a long downtime and feel like ‘Now what?’�

I had such a long and busy day Saturday between the DGA Awards at night and the DGA directors symposium in the morning. But it was the kinda day well-spent because you get to meet brilliant and talented people and celebrate their work. One such person, and a real highlight for me, was talking to Paris Barclay who was honored with the 2007 Robert B. Aldrich Award for his service to the guild. He was the only high-profile person who called for the firing of Isaiah Washington after his use of gay slurs.
We didn't talk about Washington on this night. Here is some of my red carpet chat with the immensely talented Barclay who has won a slew of awards as a director of various television shows (NYPD Blue, Law & Order, CSI, The West Wing, Dirt, Cold Case, House) and has accomplished it all as an out and proud gay man.
GREG: Has being an openly gay director made it harder or easier for you?
PARIS: It used to be harder, now it's gotten easier. It was harder when I cared about what people thought of me. Now I figure, everybody got to know I'm gay and if they don't want to work with me, they won't call and if they do want to work with me they will call and if they don't care they will call. So I'll end up with the best people and the best company and that's exactly what's happened.
GREG: With your proven track record, does it matter less anyway?
PARIS: It seems to matter less. I seem to get more chick things which I like because they figure a gay person can deal with the chicks better. [laughs]. I'm also just working with people who I love like ["West Wing" Producer] John Wells who gave me my first job in television. I've done five shows with him because he's totally not about that. He's all about the talent and if everyone was like him in Hollywood, it would be a very different place."
GREG: Do you want to see more actors come out?
PARIS: Oh boy, do I ever. I think it would help us all if more actors came out. I'm not gonna name names, but there is a very big star I'm thinking of right now, if he were [out] it would change the whole face of what people believe is a gay person. It would have an enormous impact and I hope he will come to that conclusion without Perez Hilton helping him along."

Spent about three hours today listening to some top-flight directors like Martin Scorsese, Bill Condon and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu talking about their craft...
...You know, just another day at the office...
Ha! It was a very special day at the office where I spent the morning at the Directors Guild of America theater in West Hollywood for the 16th annual symposium of the nominees for the DGA Awards which take place tonight. Thought I'd write a little bit about it for you all before I get into my tux and head on over to Century City for the gala event. My friend James is here from out of town and rented a red convertible something so at least we'll get there in style.
I wanted to share a little bit of what Bill Condon said about the casting process for "Dreamgirls": "Effie is 90 percent of casting that movie. On-stage it had a legendary performance from Jennifer Holiday and, of course, she still thinks she should be in the movie. But, it's 25 years later. I went to New York and auditioned [Jennifer Hudson] and you are working with someone who hasn't acted before. It was a real old-fashionjed Hollywood screen test."
Condon said he "felt a real spark and I felt excited by her" but that didn't come through in the test so he kept on looking at the 12 other girls who screen tested. But, he eventually went back to Hudson and the rest is Hollywood history. She has gone on to deliver one of the most stunning movie debuts since Barbra Streisand in "Funny Girl" and Bette Midler in "The Rose." Hudson is the front-runner for the best supporting actress Oscar and has already won the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards aming a slew of other honors.
"If you didn't have an Effie to anchor this," said the openly-gay Condon, "then you'd be dead in the water."
"Getting Beyonce to play Deena was a surprise because we thought all those girls would be unknown.
So we are in the elevator on our way into the theater and bumped into Fred Savage! You may know him as Kevin from "wonder Years" but he is now in his early 30s and a respected television director. He is nominated for a DGA award tonight in the children's programming category. I've interviewed him three different times for three different publications when he was playing a gay man on the sadly short-lived - but wonderful - ABC comedy "Crumbs."
"It never really got a chance to catch on," he told me this morning.
Then less than a minute later, I bump into Paris Barclay, the respected television director ("CSI," "Dirt") who is receiving an honorary DGA award tonight. Parclay, who is openly gay, was the highest-ranking Hollywood type to call Isaiah Washington out on his use of the homophobic slurs refering to T.R. Knight. Barclay said Washington should be fired and he stands by the opinion. Maybe he'll have more to say about it tonight.
Stay tuned!

Gay director Francoise Ozon ("Water Drop on Burning Rocks," "8 Women" and "Under the Sand" has been tapped to premiere his film "Angel" as the closing night film at next week’s Berlin Film Festival. The film stars Charlotte Rampling as an author who climbs to the upper echelons of British society The delicious Rampling and the superhot Ozon have previously worked together on "Sand" as well as "Swimming Pool."
I don't see my paper sending me to Berlin to interview Ozon but I do hope to meet him sometime down the film festival road.
Berlin is the first major European film festival of 2007, its program blends major Hollywood names with productions large and small from around the world. It runs Feb. 8-18. The 22 movies competing for the top Golden Bear award include De Niro's "The Good Shepherd," starring Matt Damon as an agent in the early days of the CIA, and Soderbergh's "The Good German," with George Clooney as an American journalist lured into a murder mystery in post-World War II Berlin.

"Wedding Wars," the romantic comedy about gay marraige debuting on A&E Monday night, has been getting a whole lot of publicity because it stars two of the hottest prime-time docs on television: John Stamos ("ER") and Eric Dane ("Grey's Anatomy.) Stamos plays a gay man who works as an event planner and is asked to plan his brother's wedding to the daughter of a conservative governor. When the governor comes out against same-sex marriage, Stamos' character goes on a very public strike.
I chatted with the movie's accomplished director, Jim Fall ("Trick," "The Lizzie McGuire Movie" and TV's "Grosse Pointe"), last week about the movie and his stars.
"The movie really should be in theaters, it was written to be," he says. "But luckily A&E had the smarts to snap it up and make it because I'm not sure it would ever get made as a theatrical film. But the timing is really great on every level, just politically to our two lead actors being so popular (laughs). We shot this back in May and Eric had just done one episode of "Grey's Anatomy" and John hadn't started "ER" yet."
Fall, who turns 44 this week, made a name for himself with the 1999 gay indie classic "Trick" which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. He believes that the movie works on a pure entertainment level but also sends some important messages.
"I hope it just humanizes the issue of equal rights," he says. "It's a movie about equal rights but first and foremost, I wanted it to be entertaining, I wanted it to be funny and I wanted it to be heartfelt. I think the way to win anyone over, if they are going to be won over, is through humor and humanity. That's why I think this movie was so perfectly conceived is because it's a comedy first and it's entertaining and if you just walk away with that, that's great. If you come away thinking, 'Yeah, maybe everyone does deserve equal rights' even better."
The production had even more meaning for Fall as he and his husband, Juan King, got married on the set of the movie last spring, in Canada, where same-gender marraige is legal. "John Stamos and Bonnie and Sean and Mark and the rest of the cast came to our reception at the one bar in Halifax and it was really fun."
Said King: "I was the wedding planner!"

I'm a few days late on this but wanted to post on Bryan Singer signing to direct and produce a sequel to last summer's "Superman Returns." Singer is the openly gay director who helmed the first two "X-Men" movies. Daily Variety reported this week that the movie is being targeted for a summer 2009 release. Warner Bros. has an option on star Brandon Routh but no cast has been announced, script written or budget set.
"Superman Returns" had a hefty production budget of $209 million, not counting the estimated $40 million in development costs as well as marketing and publicity costs.
But the film did manage to revive a franchise that last flew in the early 1980s with the late Christopher Reeve in the title role. "Superman Returns" just crossed the $200 million mark in domestic box office receipts last week and made an additional $190 million in foreign grosses.

Had a nice conversation with filmmaker Carlos Portugal this morning. His movie "East Side Story" will screen Friday night as the only gay-themed film that is part of the Los Angeles International Latino Film Festival. Portugal, a gay Latino man who executive produced some Spanish-language comedies that aired on Telemundo, wrote and directed this romantic comedy.
Explains Portugal: "It is a comedy that pushes buttons.Ii'm an openly gay man and I point out what I think is wrong with the gay culture and the Latino culture; the Latino men who are on the downlow and also the racism and homophobia in the Latino culture. I also show how racist and closed-minded gays can be at tinmes, certain white gays only want to be around other certain white gays."
The movie tells the story of Diego Campos who is tired of living in East Los Angeles and being on the “down low� with the ultra-macho Pablo Morales. Things heat up when Diego is outed and Pablo decides to take cover by dating Bianca Campos, Diego’s young Aunt. Meanwhile, Diego turns his affections to Wesley, an openly gay Anglo, who along with Jonathan, his jealous boyfriend, have bought the house next door.
"I wanted to tell a story that came from the heart, about relationships and family and falling in love and falling out of love.It's a very sweet romantic comedy about coming out and coming home."

The movie, which was filmed in 21 days in Los Angeles, was made on a shoestring budget with a cast of unknown actors. Portugal says he "called in all my favors" to get the movie made. Fortunately, he had made lots of contacts and friends during his 10 years in the entertainment business.
"Everyone said yes and showed up," he says. "They donated their time, helped with catering, you name it. It was a labor of love. You hear a lot of horror stories about first time movies but we all worked together well and had so much fun together."
Portugal, 38, is of Cujban descent and grew up in Miami. But he has lived in Los Angeles for the last 20 years. The movie isn't exactly autobiograhical but there are similarities to his own life.
"The story is an original story but I was raised by my grandma as the characterin the film was, been on the downlow with Latino guys and had a white boyfriend as he does. You have twice the hurdles of someone who is just a white gay man. It can be a lot more dramatic but I also think it can be a lot more funny."

The movie has also been accepted at the International film festivals in San Francisco and San Diego and was the audience favorite at the Philadelpia Gay Film Festival. There is heavy distribution interest but a deal has not yet been sealed.
"East Side Story" screens 9:30 p.m. at the Egyptian Theater, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Tickets can be purchased at www. latinofilm.org or at ticketweb .com