‘This American Lesbian Life’
To mark national Pride Month, Out! For Reel, the Valley LGBTQ cultural events organization, returns this weekend to Northampton’s Academy of Music with a festival featuring several short films that examine common, day-to-day experiences — dating, friendships, parenting, aging — from the perspective of women loving other women.
“This American Lesbian Life: Uplifting Stories in Short Films” begins at 7 p.m. at the Academy on Saturday, June 22, following a social hour at the theater from 6 to 7 p.m.
Jaime Michaels, who founded Out! For Reel in 2008, brought the lesbian film fest back to Northampton in 2018 after a hiatus of several years, and the group also sponsored a showing of the Kenyan film “Rafiki,” about a love affair between two Kenyan women, at the Academy last month.
Michaels says Saturday’s film fest, which offers five movies ranging from 7 to 58 minutes, aims to combat the prejudice lesbians continue to face by moving “beyond the conventional coming-out storyline and show[ing] lesbians living life in a variety of real and relatable circumstances.”
Take “Heather has Four Moms,” for instance, in which teenage Heather decides to lose her virginity for her 15th birthday. First, though, Mom’s wife must convince Mom, and Mom’s ex, and Mom’s ex’s partner that it’s time for Heather to have “the talk” — but which Mom is actually ready to help Heather make the big decision?
As publicity notes put it, “It’s a mother-daughter story. Times four.”
And “Dykes, Camera, Action!” looks at the history of lesbian cinema, with interviews and film clips dating back to the 1970s and the birth of lesbian activism, up to the films of today. Directed by Caroline Berler, this 2018 documentary is also the longest selection in Saturday’s festival, clocking in at 58 minutes.
Tickets for “This American Lesbian Life” are $11 in advance and $12 at the door; $7 for students with a valid ID. To purchase online, visit aomtheatre.com.
Can art help solve one of the world’s
most intractable problems?
That’s a question that playwright, actor and theater educator Jessica Litwak asks in “The Wall,” a one-woman production she brings to the Northampton Community Arts Trust building at 33 Hawley Street on Friday, June 21 and Saturday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m.
In the play, produced by the Valley theater ensemble Serious Play, the New-York-based Litwak uses humor, puppets, poetry and a number of different voices to examine the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in part from her perspective as a Jewish woman who has made numerous visits to, and has worked in, several Palestinian communities and refugee camps in the West Bank.
Litwak, who has taught puppet making and theater to Palestinian youth, says she’s deeply saddened — and angered — by the conditions many of those children and their parents live under. “The Occupation of Palestine is a human rights crisis,” she says. But she also says her play is not designed to point fingers: rather it’s designed to encourage the use of art to try and push for political and social change.
“If we as an international community keep working together by using theatre as a weapon of peace and justice, if theatre people everywhere can be conduits for the message of liberation through action, there is a chance that justice will be served,” Litwak writes in an essay about her work.
Advance tickets for “The Wall” are $22 for general admission, $20 for students and seniors; all tickets at the door are $25. To order online, visit thewall.brownpapertickets.com.
— Steve Pfarrer