Outfest 2011 film festival to open Thursday in Los Angeles
Many of the screenings that are part of this year's Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival hit political hot buttons.
By Susan King, Los Angeles Times
July 7, 2011
http://theenvelope.latimes.com/news/la-et-outfest-20110707,0,2656799.storyThe opening night film, "Gun Hill Road," screened at Sundance earlier this year and at the San Francisco LGBT festival, Frameline. Esai Morales, Judy Reyes and newcomer Harmony Santana star in this drama about a man who returns to his home in the Bronx after a three-year stint in prison to find that his teenage son has become a transgender woman. The drama, which opens theatrically Aug. 5, is the first feature from former actor Rashaad Ernesto Green.
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What is unique about "Gun Hill Road" is that Santana is in real life a transgender female. "I think it is one of the first times at least in American cinema we are actually getting to see a transgender main character played by a transgender person," said Green. "She was just at the beginning of her transition. She just started to take hormones. Since the character has to play both male and female in the film, I needed someone who was not physically developed just yet."
