There is a treasure trove of films on offer for men who love men at Out Takes. Here’s a rundown on what you can see when the festival opens in Auckland tomorrow, and in Wellington on 31 May. Did you love Queer as Folk? Going Down in La-La Land Dir: Casper Andreas, USA, 2011, Blu-Ray, 107 mins Censor's rating: R18 - Contains drug use, sex scenes, offensive language Auckland: Saturday 26 May 8:30pm Auckland: Tuesday 29 May 6:30pm Wellington: Saturday 2 Jun 8:30pm Young, buff, and beautiful , Adam arrives from New York with dreams of becoming a star. He moves in with best friend Candy who, between auditions, spends her time at the gym, shopping, and looking for a wealthy man. Candy’s expecting her big break any day now—and has been for years. Adam soon realises the road to fame is long and tedious, as he finds himself struggling for money and stuck in insufferable temp jobs answering phones. He falls for Nick, a photographer with less-than-honourable intentions and a drug habit, and Nick hooks him up with an office job at a gay porn production company. Adam initially refuses to go in front of the camera – but bills won’t pay themselves and soon Adam gives in to his naked ambition… Circumstances snowball until he’s being pimped out by his boss as a high-class escort to famous men who need discretion with their booty calls. But when Adam falls in love with one of his clients, a closeted TV star, his dreams of serious acting—and true love—hang in the balance. “A young acting hopeful finds that things are tough in Tinseltown in this not exactly revelatory gay-themed drama” The Hollywood Reporter. “Polished, entertaining…well-crafted and diverting” – Variety Best Film – Barcelona gay and lesbian Film Festival The flick making waves around the world Harvest [Stadt Land Fluss] Dir: Benjamin Cantu, Germany, 2011, Blu-Ray, 84 mins, German with English subtitles Censor's rating: M Auckland: Sunday 27 May 7:45pm Wellington: Wednesday 6 Jun 8:30pm Direct from sold out screenings at festivals worldwide comes this story of romance blossoming between two apprentice farmers during harvest in rural Germany. Marko is an apprentice working in a large agricultural college south of Berlin. If he passes his final examinations he will be a fully-fledged farmer. He doesn’t have many friends outside the workplace and the other apprentices see him as a rather uncommunicative guy and something of a loner, mocking him for buying organic food and never drinking alcohol. However, when new apprentice Jacob joins them, Marko begins to come out of his shell. Against the day-to-day reality of breaking a sweat crop farming and cattle rearing, a tender gentle relationship develops between the two young men. Set on a large farm whose owners run a program for adolescents studying agriculture, only the two main characters are played by professional actors – everyone else in the film is a real member of the local community, actively involved in the real life farming college in which the story is set. This gives the film an honest, matter-of-fact feel as a fictional love story develops against a documentary backdrop. Superbly shot against the plain beauty of the German landscape, the Out Takes team say Harvest is one of the highlights of the festival. “A slight but sweet gay romance involving two apprentice farmers that thankfully avoids the most obvious clichés” – Variety. Like camp humour? Let My People Go! Dir: Mikael Buch, France, 2011, 35mm, 88 mins, French and Finnish with English subtitles Censor's rating: M - Contains violence, offensive language and sex scenes EVENT - Auckland: 'Auckland Opening Night' 24 May 7:00pm at Rialto Cinemas Newmarket EVENT - Wellington: 'Wellington Opening Night' 31 May 7:00pm at Paramount Theatre Auckland: Thursday 24 May 7:00pm Wellington: Thursday 31 May 7:00pm Gay Jewish Frenchman Ruben is the spoiled scion of a French dry cleaning empire who went to Finland for a graduate degree in comparative sauna cultures and wound up as a village postman in order to stay with hunky blond boyfriend Teemu. They live an almost fairy tale romance in a lakeside cabin and all is idyllic till one day, a few days before Passover, a registered mail delivery goes horribly awry. There follows a misunderstanding over a dead body and a stash of Euros that sees Teemu kick Ruben out. Ruben goes reeling back to Paris and his dysfunctional family just in time for the Jewish holiday. But he is soon reminded of the family melodrama – his sister is on the verge of divorce, his father has been having an affair for 20 years - that drove him to leave in the first place. Unhappy and bored in his Paris exile, Ruben visits the ‘Out of Egypt’ nightclub where an unexpected encounter with an aging pillar of the Jewish community sparks another series of misadventures. He is sure his life can’t get any more chaotic but, back in Finland, poor Teemu is heartbroken and decides he needs to follow Ruben to Paris and win him back… “A fairy-tale romance whose title acknowledges both a saturation in and longing to be free of Jewish cultural baggage, Mikael Buch's Let My People Go!cross-breeds cultures that are rarely paired onscreen” – The Hollywood Reporter. Keen on coming of age stories? North Sea, Texas [Noordzee Texas] Dir: Bavo Defurne, Belgium, 2011, Blu-Ray, 94 mins, Flemish with English subtitles Censor's rating: M - Contains sexual themes Auckland: Monday 4 Jun 7:30pm Wellington: Sunday 10 Jun 8:05pm Lonely adolescent Pim lives in a small town on the Belgian coast in the late 1960s and early 1970s. An introverted dreamer, he has grown accustomed to neglect from his selfish mother Yvette, a faded former beauty queen, and petty humiliation from her boyfriend, Etienne. Yvette still has a penchant for flirting with locals at the Texas bar and performing on the accordion that far overshadow her maternal instinct. Pim spends his days drawing and imagining a better life of princesses and heroes. He finds a second home with Yvette's co-worker Marcella, where he hero-worships her several-years-older son, motorcycle enthusiast Gino. With teenage years comes sexual awareness and he now dreams of Gino much more… But when Gino begins a relationship with a French girl, Pim feels confused and jealous – till Zoltan, a hunky itinerant carnival worker, comes to board at his house. Director Bavo DeFurne (Out Takes has screened his short films in the past – Campfire, Sailor) has captured the ecstasy of first love and the heartache of frustrated desire beautifully in his first feature film. Taking a risk casting age-appropriate newcomers, he has dedicated the film “to all the kids whose parents wouldn’t let them take part in the film”. “An understated film, strong on mood, a bit reminiscent of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey” - The Guardian. A penchant for Shakespeare, modernised? Private Romeo Dir: Alan Brown, USA, 2011, Digital, 98 mins Censor's rating: M - Contains adult themes Auckland: Sunday 3 Jun 8:00pm Wellington: Saturday 9 Jun 6:30pm This queer, all-male version of Romeo and Juliet brims with erotic tension and tender romance. Writer/director Alan Brown transfers the setting of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy of forbidden love from fair Verona to a high school military campus where a group of cadets from rival schools study the play. As classroom readings of the play bleed into real life, our man Juliet and his Romeo follow their hearts, oblivious to the sidelong glances and smirks of their fellow soldiers. Using the original text of Romeo and Juliet , YouTube videos, and lip-synced Indie rock music, this bold adaptation challenges common perceptions of masculinity, gay youth and the military. Instead of interfamily rivalry, the star-crossed lovers face institutional bullying and shifting allegiances in this suspenseful and sensual retelling. “As classroom readings of the play bleed into real life, the credulity gap that most of the actors must ford — delivering 16th-century dialogue while shaving, not to mention addressing the adorable Matt Doyle as Juliet — makes their beyond-high-school maturity a minor quibble. Especially when their performances are this good: smoothly injecting familiar speeches with cheeky humor and sly insinuation, the cast slides from past to present with impressive ease” - NY Times. Grand Jury Award – 2011 Los Angeles Outfest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Like it quick? Encounters Total running time: 82 mins Censor's rating: R18 - Contains explicit sex scenes and offensive language Wellington: Sunday 3 Jun 2:50pm Auckland: Sunday 3 Jun 4:30pm Chance meetings, brief encounters – these boys shorts range from sexually explicit to sweetly romantic. Young men hook up after meeting online in Mates and The Next One, lonely Swedish truck drivers break long distance journeys at rest stops Along the Road, and Joe risks his first S