64th Venice Film Festival Queer Lion

These are the films competing for the first Queer Lion according to european-films.net which seems is the one of the few places where you can find information about the Queer Lion award.

Official Selection
The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson, USA
Sleuth, Kenneth Branagh, UK/USA
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Andrew Dominik, USA
Nesuna Qualita Agli Eroi, Paolo Franchi, Italy, Switzerland and France
Bangbang Wo Aishe (Help Me Eros), Lee Kang Sheng, Taiwan
Sukiyaki Western Django, Miike Takashi, Japan
Il Dolce e L’Amaro, Andrea Porporati, Italy

Out of Competition (Venezia Notte)
Tiantang Kou (Blood Brothers), Alexi Tan, Taiwan, China and Hong Kong

Orizzonti Section
Searchers 2.0, Alex Cox, USA

22nd International Critic’s Week
24 Mesures, Jalil Lespert, France

Giornate Degli Autori
Freischwimmer (Head Under Water), Andreas Kleinert, Gemany
The Speed of Life (Superheroes), Ed Radtke, USA

I could not find any information in the festival official site and if you do a “queer lion” search in the site the result is 0 matches. Nevertheless seems the organization behind this award released the list of contenders on August 26.

Frankly is amazing that there is not even one movie with the lesbian interest label. This could give us a clue of the state of this genre section and how much the lesbian interest has to evolve just to catch the gay interest part of the genre.

On other related news there are quite a few sites that comment about this award and question the reason why behind, as they believe there is no need to give special awards to gay/lesbian movies. Have to say that I do agree as in a way there is no true reason to have a special award just for a certain type of content. But I also know that for practical reasons, the genre will not further develop unless they get some motivation that help good actors to become involved in this kind of projects without “damaging” their careers, as well as attract investors interested in provide the necessary funding to improve production values.

I believe that eventually this genre will evolve and become mainstream; whenever that happens, then for sure there will be no need to have special awards to stimulate the quality of this genre. But for the time being, I’m glad that prestigious festivals are providing an alternative way to improve the genre.

So, now I ask: What do you think?