The opening of Indonesia's week-long gay film festival drew a flamboyant crowd in the capital Jakarta on Friday, with members of the audience dressed in colourful wigs, fish-net stockings and cupid wings. Homosexuality is not banned under Indonesian law, but remains taboo in a country where 85% of the 220 million people are Muslim. The Q! Film Festival (QFF), one of the largest gay film festivals in Asia, features about 80 films from countries including the Philippines, Thailand, Germany and Indonesia, and deals with topics such as sexual abuse and HIV/AIDS. The festival faced violent opposition in its early years. Members of a hardline Islamic group tried to storm theatres to stop screenings, but as the festival enters its sixth year, organizer John Badalu has no such fears. "The festival has provided some sort of impetus for the gay rights movement in Indonesia, and has enabled many issues to surface," Badalu said. The fall of former president Suharto in 1998 paved the way for greater freedom of speech, allowing topics such as politics and homosexuality to be more openly explored in the arts. "Arisan," a 2003 feature film about a routine get-together of upper-class Indonesian women, was the first Indonesian film with a gay theme, dealing with a woman in a troubled marriage who is attracted to a young gay executive. In a country where many homosexuals remain in the closet, the festival takes a sensitive look at the problems faced by an often marginalized community through films such as Hong Kong film-maker Wong Kar Wai's "Happy Together," which chronicles the slow deterioration of a gay relationship. Other international films that try to create awareness and break some myths about homosexuals include Oscar-winning director Pedro Almodovar's cult film "Bad Education," the story of a novice Spanish actor trying to sell a screenplay on his alleged childhood sexual abuse by a paedophile priest. "What I like about the QFF is that it is a subtle movement," said Firliana Purwanti, program officer for human rights and gender at HIVOS, a Dutch agency that helped fund the festival. "The community, by using the language of movies and keeping such a fluid structure, has enabled the rapid spread of gay rights." Ref: Reuters (m)