Outfest Film Festival

THE GAY kiss was once considered radical, but nowadays it's going to take more than that to push boundaries. How about gay dead zombie sex? Most of the films shown at Outfest, the gay and lesbian film festival that's been ticking on for 26 years now, are traditional -- features with linear narrative structures and talking-head-style documentaries. The festival even has its fair share of, gasp, romantic comedies.

BORN out of frustration, it has evolved into a celebration: Outfest's Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival is turning 25 today. It is the city's oldest continuous film festival and one of the largest gay and lesbian film festivals in the world.

OUTFEST '07 will present more than 250 films, and a sampling of some of the more prominent titles is impressive. Among them, only Jonah Markowitz's "Shelter" is a classic coming-of-age tale. Set in San Pedro, it follows promising artist Zach (Trevor Wright, who makes the deepening conflicts achingly real).

THE battle for gay and lesbian equality has been fought at the ballot box, within the government and military, through the courts and on the streets. But arguably the most dramatic and divisive clashes are now unfolding inside churches -- and a group of independent filmmakers is taking notice.

Fusion, Outfest's program of films about LGBTQ people of color and the only festival of its kind, pulls in audiences like no other: Think queer theorists, questioning teenagers, the next generation's Vaginal Davis and, 5of course, your usual entertainment industry professionals. The diverse crowd is a reflection of what's on the screen.

Bookended by Orpheum Theatre screenings of "Puccini for Beginners" opening night July 6 and "20 Centimeters" on July 17, this year's Outfest film festival will be all over Los Angeles -- encompassing nine venues from downtown to Santa Monica.

OUTFEST: The 24th Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, which runs today through July 17 at nine venues, is easily the strongest edition yet, judging from a selection of films available for preview. Highlighted by two remarkable lesbian dramas -- "Gypo" and "Looking for Cheyenne" -- most of them use sexual orientation as a point of departure for a larger view of society and the world in which we live.

Outfest presents its fifth annual collection of gay and lesbian shorts tonight, and it is one of its strongest to date. Of the nine films in the program, seven were available for preview, and the standout is P.A. Weite's 16-minute "Katia's Husband's Fridge." In this warm and amusing vignette, Weite suggests that multicultural Paris can become a happy melting pot. Paco, a young man looking for a place to sleep, shows up at the apartment of a vivacious Brazilian actress named Denise.

Outfest, Los Angeles' annual gay and lesbian film festival, turns 23 this summer with a lineup of more than 200 films, beginning with the July 7 presentation of a special achievement award to director Gregg Araki, whose disturbing new film, "Mysterious Skin," opened in Los Angeles last week. Araki will receive his award at an opening night gala to be held at the Orpheum, the downtown movie palace that serves as the festival's launching pad.