Wilby Wonderful (2005)

Over the course of 24 hours, the residents of the tiny island town of Wilby, Nova Scotia, Canada try to maintain business as usual in the face of very unusual business. A scandal threatens to tear the town apart. Details are scarce, but there are rumors about two central characters in the film. Gay video store owner Dan Jarvis (James Allodi) repeatedly attempts to take his own life, but is constantly interrupted by hunky gay Duck MacDonald (Callum Keith Rennie), the town handyman who is attracted to Dan. The opening scene for the film shows Duck preventing Dan from suicide on a bridge. Real estate agent Carol French (Sandra Oh) prepares for the town festival while her relationship with her cop husband Buddy (Paul Gross) deteriorates. Mayor Brent Fisher (Maury Chaykin) wants to turn Wilby Watch, a gay cruising area, into a golf course. Wilby Watch is about to explode on Wilby when the local paper prepares to print the names of gays caught in an illicit same-sex rendezvous. Closeted Dan is on the list of names to be revealed, and he would rather do away with himself than deal with the shame.

This film doesn't explain exactly what happened, but instead drops hints along the way. “Islanders” are less tolerant then “mainlanders", two words heavily thrown about in the film. It's a funny dark comedy, filled with moments of gravity, with great acting and ensemble chemistry. The film succeeds by asking questions not only about the potential of small-town gay life, but about the difficulty of changing entrenched attitudes, values and behaviour in oneself and in others. Duck sums everything up by saying to Emily Anderson (Ellen Page) about her mother: "She wants to love and be loved, just like all of us". As if to acknowledge the concessions that must be made, this independent film ends not with a kiss but with a tentative embrace. Michael Timmins composed the original music, and Daniel MacIvor wrote the screenplay and directed.

Forbidden Letters (1976)

Larry (Robert Adams) is a cute, young, and innocent gay man whose lover Richard (Richard Locke) is in prison. Richard writes to Larry about the emptiness of prison life. As we hear Richard's letters, we see him jerking off behind bars. Larry writes to Richard, but his true feelings are written in letters that he cannot send because they will endanger his lover. The non-linear narrative of "Forbidden Letters", which skips back and forth in time, is told with these letters. They tell how Richard changed his life, causing him to discover the joy and pain of love with an older father-figure. Larry lives in San Francisco, just a stone's throw away from Alcatraz Prison where Richard is incarcerated, and he walks the streets in search of pick-ups. Two of his tricks, where Larry is a top, include Willie Bjorn in a tin-walled room and John Gustavson in a hippie pad. We see them walking through Land's End, hugging, kissing, and having sex.

The opening sequences are filmed in black-and-white, appropriate for the jail scenes and the metaphor of separation. Although the sex scenes are explicit, this is more of a love story than a porn film. It's a timeless display of the human condition, loss, fulfillment, and the search for and discovery of real love. There is a heavy reliance on voice-over narration, with some original corny-sounding folk songs. The music score is by Jeffrey Olmstead. Arthur J. Bressan Jr. wrote the screenplay and directed. Parts of the movie were actually filmed in Alcatraz. Jeffrey Olmstead composed the original music, and Arthur J. Bressan Jr. wrote the screenplay and directed. This film is no longer available.