SUGAR

MGLFF's monthly screening for September is the Florida premiere of the new Canadian film Sugar, directed by John Palmer and with a screenplay co-written by yours truly, Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival manager Jaie Laplante. By special arrangement, I am proud to bring this film to screen for South Florida audiences in a ONE-NIGHT ONLY theatrical screening!

Mixing inspiration from My Own Private Idaho and Trainspotting, Sugar tells the provocative and bizarrely funny coming-out story of 18-year-old Cliff (Andre Noble), a bored middle-class teenager from the suburbs of Toronto who forms an unlikely alliance with Butch (Brendan Fehr from TV's "Roswell"), an uncommonly handsome bisexual downtown street hustler with a drug habit beyond hardcore!

Cliff brings Butch home to meet his beautifully complex mother Madge (Marnie McPhail) and wise-beyond-her-years, ADD-suffering 10-year-old sister Cookie (Haylee Wanstall), and Butch in turn takes Cliff through his world: young-boy-fetishist Stanley (the great Canadian character actor Maury Chaykin), the hustlers' pregnant den mother (Sarah Polley), assorted rent boys, trannies, tricks and drugs, drugs, drugs.

The performances of the entire cast are ferocious, particularly the leads Andre Noble (a promising young Canadian actor who tragically died in a freak accident in Canada just a few short weeks ago) and teen idol Brendan Fehr,taking a very brave career risk.

After the screening, join screenwriter/MGLFF manager Jaie Laplante at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel to chat or ask questions about the film or just enjoy an apres-cinema cocktail at Edison Farrow's SoBe Social Club Martini Tuesday Party. The Ritz-Carlton is located at 1 Lincoln Road, just stroll all the way down Lincoln Road after the movie.

Tickets for this special presentation are $12 for non-members and $10 for current MGLFF members (maximum 1 discounted ticket per BASIC MEMBER, 2 discounted tickets per SUPPORTER or STAR level, and maximum 4 discounted tickets per PRODUCER'S CIRCLE member) available by phone only at 305-534-9924). General admission ($12) tickets are available on-line at Ticket Web or by calling 305-534-9924.

Sugar world-premiered at the Toronto Gay & Lesbian Film Festival earlier this summer, where it won the Best Fiction Feature Film prize, and has gone on to sold-out screenings at the New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Philadelphia Gay & Lesbian Film Festivals.

"Sugar succeeds because it challenges its audience to connect with its material without holding us by the hand... What makes this tactic successful is the feverish, dreamlike quality of the film that brings to life the fragmented vignettes and messy memories represented."
  - Jon Davies, Xtra magazine.