A documentary on the life of actor
George Takei is among the LGBT films to premiere at next month's
Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
Director Jennifer Kroot's To Be
Takei takes a look at Takei's journey from spending part of his
childhood in a World War II internment camp to manning the helm of
the Starship Enterprise. After publicly coming out gay in 2005,
Takei married his partner Brad Altman in California and went on to
become an LGBT rights advocate.
Also premiering at the 10-day film
festival is Love is Strange, which features John Lithgow and
Alfred Molina as a gay couple.
When Ben (played by Lithgow) and George
(Molina) get married in Manhattan after 39 years together, Ben loses
his job as a longtime choir director for a co-ed Catholic school.
Friends and family come together to help the couple get back on their
feet.
The film is directed by Ira Sachs.
“The consequences of this marriage is
one of the men loses his job, and that sets off the rest of the
events of the film,” Sachs
told Variety.
Other LGBT selections include The
Case Against 8, a
behind-the-scenes documentary on the case to overturn California's
gay marriage ban; My Prairie Home,
an emotional documentary/musical on the life of Canadian transgender
singer Rae Spoon; Dunktown's Finest,
three young Native Americans – including a transsexual – come of
age on an Indian reservation; and The Foxy Merkins,
a prostitute buddy comedy featuring two lesbians. (A trailer for
Dunktown's Finest is
embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)
The 2014 Sundance Film Festival opens
January 16.