EVENT: Out In Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival - For the second year in a row, Out In Africa is running three mini-festivals in 2012, with the third edition scheduled for  October 17 to 28 this year.

DATES: July 27 to August 5
VENUE:  Nu Metro V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, and Nu Metro Hyde Park, Johannesburg

Keep The Lights On, which won the 2012 Berlin Teddy Award For Best Feature, leads an impressive line-up for the second instalment of the 19th Out In Africa Gay And Lesbian Film Festival.

Directed by former Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Ira Sachs, Keep The Lights On is a New York love story about a sex-addict filmmaker and coke-head literary lawyer.

In the wickedly funny and multiple award-winning Cloudburst, Oscar-winners Olympia Dukakis  and Brenda Fricker star as an aging lesbian couple who take to the road.

Three (Drei), directed by Tom Twyker, is another highlight. An acclaimed director, Twyker is responsible for cult films like Run Lola Run, Perfume and The International.

He has  won seven international awards for Three (Drie), the deceptively simple story of a couple falling in love with the same man.

Kaboom, directed by Gregg Araki, won the first Queer Palme at Cannes International Film Festival for its contribution to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex issues. It’s a quirky, bizarre dark comedy that’s part David Lynch, part Glee, and all about sex.

Director Rikkie Beadle-Blair will attend the festival for the screening of Bashment, which explores the aftermath of a brutal gay bash attack at a reggae dance hall competition in London.

 Beadle-Blair is conducting film- making seminars at The Big Fish School of Digital Filmmaking in Cape Town and Joburg.

This year’s South African programme includes two docu-mentaries from the I Am Woman – Leap Of Faith series.

These screen together with Daniel McCauley’s Letting Go and Corné Koegelenberg’s Welkom By Die Schoemans, both local short films.

Another  must-see film is Ausente (Absent), an Argentinian suspense thriller about an older, straight man  who is sued by one of his students. It won the 2011 Berlinale Teddy Award.

From the director of the Noah’s Arc television series, The Skinny features the loves and losses of a group of black men and a lesbian who reunite in the Big Apple. Stud Life is a new British film that intertwines various love stories.

For more information, visit www.oia.co.za.