Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival 2008

As the gay outcast at an all-boys prep school, Timothy (oh-so-cute Tanner Cohen) is, of course, prone to daydreaming about the handsome rugby jock. But his are no ordinary flights of fancy; they're musical theater extravaganzas, complete with show-stopping songs, dazzling sets, and pirouetting rugby player chorus boys. So when the drama teacher invites Timothy to audition for A Midsummers' Night Dream, we know that theater is his destiny. With a voice like honey, he's cast as the mischievous Puck, and — in a delicious surprise — shares the stage with Jonathon, the aforementioned handsome jock (smoldering Nathaniel David Becker). But the rabidly anti-gay coach wants to shut down the production: some of the school's finest athletes have been cast in female roles, and what could be more hetero-threatening than that?! Aside from Timothy's "heteroflexible" but dyke-a-licious girl-pal Frankie, this small town is teeming with homophobes. Without giving too much away, let's just say that lovestruck Timothy really gets into character and turns everything upside down. - Fort Worth Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival (edited) Sponsored by Out Youth

XXY is a portrait of Alex, a 15-year-old coping with an extended puberty made more complicated by the presence of an extra chromosome and, according to her mother, a few extra parts. Born intersex, Alex has been brought up female. But now that her body is changing— and she’s faced with the prospect of “corrective” surgery that her father refused to allow when she was born – she’s beginning to wonder. Things come to a head when her mother surprises Alex with a visit from a plastic surgeon and his family, and Alex finds herself being pushed to make a choice she’s not sure she wants to make. Her attraction to the doctor’s teenage son Alvaro just makes things all the more confusing. Under first-time director Lucia Puenzo’s sensitive direction, Inés Flores brings Alex to the screen in an understated but powerful performance that will leave you thinking about the nature of gender and the choices we are forced to make. - Mark Page, Frameline32 (edited) Sponsored by Cine Las Americas