The Film Festival Circuit Continues.

As Travis Mathews travels from Sundance to the Berlin International Film Festival, he looks back on the reception of Interior. Leather Bar.

“Festivals have their own interests and politics, so there’s lots of emails, lots of new personalities and lots of meetings. There’s something hilarious about it all because it doesn’t feel like real life.”

Pedro Almodóvar, by Michael Langan.

To celebrate LGBT History Month, 2013, Polari is publishing a daily series of LGBT Heroes, selected by the magazine’s team of writers and special contributors.

“What I feel when I watch Almodóvar’s movies, as I regularly do, is something akin to love. I’m in love with his films and they make me fall in love with life.”

Queer Spaces.

Michael Langan talks to Travis Mathews: a revealing exchange about how Mathews’ work operates in the space between categories.

“I like the in-between space because it leaves open the possibility of the unexpected while having some sort of map to refer to if it goes off the rails. I was voted “most unpredictable” in high school, so there you have it. .”

The Press and Audience Response.

Michael Langan talks to Travis Mathews from the 2013 Sundance Film Festival: first reactions to Interior. Leather Bar in the press and from the audience.

“I want all of those conversations and the dialogue that every filmmaker says they want to have.”

The Speed of Sundance.

Michael Langan talks to Travis Mathews from the 2013 Sundance Film Festival: the speed of Sundance, James Franco, and PR rage.

“Of course moving around town with James is a whole other circus. We had our last interview with MTV on Sunday and as we left, there were probably over 200 people desperate to get a shot of James; screaming, yelling, snapping.”

The Queer Creative Process.

Michael Langan talks to Travis Mathews from the 2013 Sundance Film Festival: on the creative process and being an outsider.

“The experience with Interior. Leather Bar – the experience of it happening so very quickly – didn’t allow time to worry or ruminate on choices. This was new to me and I was happy, and maybe surprised, to see that my gut instincts are right more often than not.”

Queer Cinema, Horror and Sex.

Michael Langan talks to Travis Mathews from the 2013 Sundance Film Festival about queer cinema, the horror movies that influenced him, and what it feels like to watch intimate gay sex in a crowded cinema.

“From a very early age it was all about preservation and escape and concealing how I felt. I started writing stories about escape, horror stories basically, about scream queens like Jamie Lee Curtis.”

2012 Retrospective

Michael Langan looks back at Cruising (1980), the film from which Travis Mathews and James Franco re-imagine lost footage in Interior. Leather Bar.

“The film plays not only on social fears of homosexuality but also on an individual, internalised fear of being queer, reflecting it all back to us in the killer’s mirrored shades that Steve also begins to wear.”

Tenderness, Intimacy and Sex.

In the first of Polari’s exclusive Sundance 2013 coverage, Michael Langan writes about the films of Travis Mathews and the film maker’s current collaboration with James Franco.

“On the Interior. Leather Bar website Travis has written, “… it’s the slippery way in which boundaries and definitions are in constant flux that really make it a queer film for me”, and it’s this kind of thought-provoking statement that puts his work at the vanguard of an exciting moment in new queer cinema.”

Bluecoat Chambers, Liverpool, L1 3BX • November 14, 2012

Habibi Problem by Cielaroque Dance Company tells the story of Iranian student Mehdi Kazemi. Homotopia Festival 2012.

“The Arabic word ‘Habibi’ is the male form of ‘darling’ or ‘my beloved.’ Cielaroque have devised a piece that, with its use of split screen filmed animation, is able to tell two stories at once – that of the escaped man and that of his imprisoned lover.”