Parky at the Pictures (DVD 18/4/2013)

First released in 1999, Below the Belt saw Laurie Colbert and Dominique Cardona switch to fiction after making their names with the documentaries Thank God I'm a Lesbian (1992) and My Feminism (1997). The action initially centres on 17 year-olds Nathalie Toriel and Cara Pifko, as they work out at a boxing gym. However, while it's clear that there is more to their playful sparring than meets the eye, the tale takes a twist when Pifko invites Toriel home and she discovers that mother Tanja Jacobs has a secret of her own. The ferocity of the stand-off between Pifko and Jacobs contrasts strongly with the teasing nature of the pugilism and anticipates the rows between Brooke Johnson and Maya Ritter in Colbert and Cardona's 2007 drama, Finn's Girl, in which a doctor struggles to raise her dead lover's teenage daughter while trying to prevent her abortion clinic from being closed down by protesters.

Violence of a less controlled find comes under the spotlight in Dani and Alice (2005), the debut short by Roberta Marie Munroe, who is perhaps best known for her handbook for aspiring movie-makers, How Not to Make a Short Film: Secrets from a Sundance Programmer. Chronicling the last five hours of a stormy relationship, the story opens with Yolonda Ross and Lisa Branch leaving a bar after an emotional night out. Having long put up with Branch's short fuse, Ross has enjoyed herself with fellow patrons Guinevere Turner and Linda Husser. But, as Branch drives them home, she demands an explanation for her lover's behaviour and the furious row that follows inevitably ends in tragedy.

What will shock many here is the brutality of the punishment Ross endures. But there is also a disturbing tenderness between the couple that chillingly conveys the fear that many abusers feel and suggests why battered partners can never quite bring themselves to leave. However, the mood is much lighter in Munroe's other contribution, Happy Birthday (2008), a rather misfiring romp that centres on the efforts of femmes Lisa Branch and Yolanda Ross to persuade respective butch girlfriends Julie Goldman and Deak Evgenikos to spice things up in the bedroom. All seems sweetness and light before the presents are unwrapped. But things soon start to unravel, especially as Goldman is keen to have a child, while Branch would rather experiment with a new sex toy.

The first British title in the selection is Abbe Robinson's splendid period piece, Private Life (2006). Making films since she was 15 and trained at the International Film School in Newport, Robinson followed her debut, The Piper (2005), with this charming tale set in the industrial north in 1952, which follows mill owner's daughter Lucy Liemann as she leaves work one Friday evening to take the train from Leeds to Manchester. There's a hint of David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945) about the station sequence. But there is no room here for the propriety displayed by Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, as Lieman has fallen for Jana Carpenter, the blonde mill hand she met at a smoky jazz club, and she has borrowed friend Toby Sawyer's suit so that they can join him and Andy Henderson at a special boys' night. However, while Liemann enjoys the thrill of dressing as Lauren Bacall, the police take a dim view of Sawyer sporting her ball gown when they raid the club.

Impeccably designed by Joanne Cook and atmospherically photographed by Heather Fenoughty, this admirably captures a time when homosexuality was still a criminal offence and following one's heart could ruin lives. Familiar faces from television, Liemann (Moving Wallpaper, Reggie Perrin and Rev) and Sawyer (Coronation Street and Hollyoaks) are superb, while American singer Carpenter copes admirably with a Yorkshire accent. But what most impresses here is Robinson's concentration on the enjoyment rather than the risk and the deft way in which she switches mood as the night wears on.

The other homegrown contribution is Fem (2007) by Inge ‘Campbell Ex' Blackman, who moved into features last year with Stud Life, in which the friendship between wedding photographers T'Nia Miller and Kyle Treslove is jeopardised when she falls for diva Robyn Kerr. Narrated by Peggy Smith and featuring her Split Britches partner Lois Weaver, this is a poet, but occasionally overwhelming tribute to femme lesbians that starts with Eve in the Garden of Eden and comes into the present day with such performance artists as Dyke Marilyn, Bird LaBird, Josephine Wilson and Lise Munroe (aka Killpussy). The prose is more than a little purple in places, but the subversive depiction of supposedly empowered women is provocative and potent.

Much more conventional, but every bit as combustible, Cassandra Nicolaou's Congratulations Daisy Graham (2007) is perhaps the standout of the entire collection. Seventy year-old Barbara Gordon should be excited, as having taught maths in her hometown for so many years, is having a school named in her honour. But she is not in the mood to celebrate, as partner Brenda Bazinet's Alzheimer's has become so advanced that she no longer recognises her and doctor Craig Eldridge has just given her some very bad news. As she searches for some bullets for her rifle, Gordon thinks back to when she (Michelle Nolden) and Bazinet (Mary Krohnert) fell in love as young girls and knew from their first kiss that they were destined to be together forever. However, even though she loves her as much as ever, Gordon knows that the time has come for them to part.

Beautifully played by the whole cast and lovingly photographed by Daniel Grant, this touching tale of enduring devotion finds a companion piece in Angela Cheng's Wicked Desire (2008), as innocent Texan tweenager Emma Angeline is suddenly forced to grow up when she heads home after playing with Thai neighbour Alex Siangpipop and stumbles in on sister Julia Weldon in bed with best friend Brittany Alexis Palmer. However, not only does Angeline realise that Weldon is a lesbian, but she also discovers that she has been registered at the local school as a boy. When mother Lane Burgess learns about the deception, she tears a strip off secretary Sydney Stone. But Weldon is not ashamed of what she has done and Angeline finds herself having to choose sides and make a decision about her own preferences.

Respectable parents refusing to accept their offspring's sexuality is hardly a new topic. But Cheng adroitly shifts the focus on to an adoring sibling, as she comes to understand that love comes in other forms than the idealised romance she reads about in penny dreadfuls. And gradual appreciation is also the theme of Guinevere Turner's Late (2008), which accompanies Suthi Picotte to her apartment and follows her around the room as she listens to messages on her answerphone. As Alison Kelly's camera picks out items in Page Buckner and Maxwell Crowe's cleverly decorated sets, it becomes clear why she failed to go to the birthday party of a girl she really liked and why she should not have kept ignoring her best friend's repeated pleas to call her. Slipping assuredly between gentle humour and poignant revelation, this is a fascinating meditation on the control people can exert through their phones.

Closing the slate is Suzanne Guacci's A Soft Place (2009), which follows Cycles (2008), her first collaboration with Michael Magnifico in being set in a launderette. But, instead of presenting a dawn-to-dusk account of the comings and goings, Guacci concentrates on an earnest conversation between Meredith Riordan and her married lover Margaret Donlin, who is torn between guilt at having succumbed to her lusts and cheated on her husband and fury at discovering a stain on her spouse's duvet cover. Cannily played, but quickly running short of ideas, this is the weakest entry and one is left wondering what the sassy Riordan could ever have seen in the neurotic Donlin.

Here Come the Girls 2: Gleeful Desire gets off to a stylish start with Pratibha Parmar's Wavelengths (1999). Born in Kenya, but resident in Britain since 1967, Parmar is one of the driving forces of New Queer Cinema in the UK and, since making her debut with the documentary short Emergence in 1986, has gone on to make such landmark films as Nina's Heavenly Delights (2006) and Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth (2012).

Scripted by Jaden Clark, this was Parmar's second fictional story after Memsahib Rita (1994) and it centres on Indra Ové's bid to get over heartache. Left with nothing but painful memories and an empty fish tank, Ové feels cruelly alone and bombarded by everybody else's conversations in the gay bars she has started haunting. But, then, she discovers cybersex and everything changes for the better - that is until she starts fretting that there is no such thing as emotionally safe sex. Complete with cameos from director Lisa Gornick, photography by Nan Goldin and tracks by Kylie Minogue (`Automatic Love') and Everything But the Girl (`Missing'), this is a stylish quest for intimacy that examines what women really want from a relationship, as it flits between dream, fantasy and reality.

Just as Wavelengths proved a career turning point, so did Jamie Babbit's Stuck (2001), as its triumph at the Sundance Film Festival reinforced the reputation forged with the 1999 feature But I'm a Cheerleader.  Strikingly photographed by M. David Mullen, it's a rather peculiar tale that follows ageing lesbians Jennie Ventriss and Jeanette Miller, as they bicker about the dessert to take to a bridge party and keep squabbling as they drive across Death Valley. However, their row causes them to run into Eden Sher, who is curiously dressed as a caterpillar and makes a miraculous transformation that restores the women's faith in life and each other. Those familiar with Babbit from the cheeky radical feminism comedy Itty Bitty Titty Committee (2007) or even from such thrillers as The Quiet (2005) and Breaking the Girls (2012) will be a bit perplexed by this rather laboured allegory. But it's oddly persuasive, if only because it departs from the romantic notions of so many shorts in this series.

Angela Robinson also took Sundance by storm with D.E.B.S. (2003), which proved such a hit on the festival circuit that Robinson was entrusted with a feature version the following year. Both a parody of and a homage to Charlie's Angels, this lively romp opens with narrator Phil Terrence explaining that there is a hidden component to the SAT tests to discover who is best equipped to fight, cheat, lie and kill. Those with the highest scores are invited by controller Darryl Theirse to join the top secret cadre Discipline, Energy, Beauty and Strength, which is also known as D.E.B.S.

The squad currently comprises leader Alexandra Breckenridge, French exchange student Shanti Lowry, the pugnacious Tammy Lynn Michaels and the prissy Jill Ritchie. However, Michaels is perplexed why their deadly enemy, Clare Kramer, keeps abducting Breckenridge with the help of her sidekick James Burkhammer. But what the others don't know is that Kramer and Breckenridge are secret lovers and they have to go through the charade that the latter is in peril each time they want to have sex.

This may not be the strongest premise for a short and Robinson struggled to open it out in the feature version. But the action is amusingly staged and the performances are admirably deadpan, with Ritchie forever fretting about her appearance, Lowry continuing to chain smoke in the trickiest circumstances and Michaels insisting they break down a door when she misinterprets the cries Breckenridge is making from within. Ultimately, only Ritchie would be retained for the feature, as Sara Foster (Breckenridge), Devon Aoki (Lowry), Meagan Good (Michaels) and Jordana Brewster (Kramer) were drafted in. But the short has brevity and wit on its side.

A new spin is also put on an old tale in Cherien Dabis's Memoirs of an Evil Stepmother (2004), which stars Glee's Jane Lynch as a daytime soap queen fearing that her time has passed when the phone stops ringing. However, worse follows when stepdaughter Shaina Fewell is snapped up by Hollywood agent Daniel Graves and becomes an overnight sensation on her old show. Desperate to reclaim her crown, Lynch undergoes plastic surgery. But when that fails to convince Glass that she still has what it takes, she hires hitman Jacob Vargas to eliminate the competition. Supposedly inspired by five true stories, this updating of Snow White to a Tinseltown obsessed with youth, beauty and silicone has its moments. But, while Lynch hams it up splendidly, the secondary characterisation is sketchy and, while the story rattles along, it is short on genuinely funny gags.

Dabis also wrote Little Black Boot (2004), but was forced to let Colette Burson direct as the sponsoring Power Up collective insisted on a division of labour. This time the fable being reworked was Cinderella, as Goth Carmen Plumb is given a hard time by stepmother Jane Lynch and sneering stepsisters Amanda McDonald and Sara Jean Barrett about her looks and attitude to life. Fortunately, as she wonders what to wear to the prom at her Los Angeles high school, she is visited by fairy god-brother Anthony Woods who spruces her up and lends her his father's orange Volkswagen, on the understanding that she has it back by midnight.

Such is the transformation that nobody recognises Plumb and she steals the heart of prom queen Dania Ramirez, as they dance the night away. However, as midnight chimes, Plumb has to beat a hasty retreat and the only clue Ramirez has to her identity is the little black boot she left behind. The happy ending is never in doubt, but Dabis again debunks the superficiality of outward appearances and, moreover, comes up with a few more killer lines for Lynch and her horrid offspring to hurl at Plumb, who more than holds her own against the glamorous Ramirez and it's a shame that she has not been seen on screen since her feature bow in Ken Kwapis's Sexual Life (2005).

High school also provides the setting for Leanna Creel's Prom-troversy (2005), a mockumentary chronicling the scandal that arises in Sherman Oaks, Ohio when Brianne Davis asks lesbian Heather Habecker to the dance in order to continue the family prom queen tradition. Principal Bruce Cronander expresses his surprise at the decision, while Jane Lynch leads a parents protest group and African-American activist J. Karen Thomas complains that lesbians should stop seeking special treatment, as they know nothing of real prejudice. Vacuous classmates Janna Bossier and Jessica Anne Osekowsky think it's icky, while Habecker's prim mother, Rebecca Klinger, is embarrassed and Davis's folks, Christopher Grove and Jordana Capra, think it will look good on her CV. The cameras follow the girls around in the run-up to the big night and they make the headlines and front covers across the state. But only shy videographer America Young remains interested in Habecker after they are turned away at the door and the fuss dies down.

Slickly assembled, but over in a flash, this is more an idea than a movie. By contrast, Ern Greenwell's Overnight Book (2008) is based on a true-life encounter that gives it a credibility to match its poignancy. Sitting in a diner in her anywhere provincial town, Lana Z. Porter is struggling with the book report on James Joyce she has to present the following day. As usual, Carolyn Purcell and her clique ignore her as they breeze in and draw attention to themselves. But Porter has been noticed by Cameron Oro, a writer back home from New York, who recognises her outsider status and not only offers to help her with her essay, but also, as they stroll through the empty streets discussing life, literature and everything in between, gives her the confidence to embrace her sexuality and stop fretting about the opinions of unworthy others.

Lightening the mood, Christine Chew demonstrates just how unsmoothly true love can run in Falling For Caroline (2009), which opens with Yanna Baizer and Denise Mader both reaching at the same time for the DVD of Sarah Waters's Fingersmith in Claire Duncan's rental store. Smitten at first sight, Baizer asks best friend Shannon Currie to help her make a good impression. But, even though they go to the pictures a couple of times, Mader always makes an excuse to leave as soon as the  show is over and Currie suggests they have a cosy night in with Waters's Tipping the Velvet. She also lends Baizer a bra that is guaranteed to cause the kind of wardrobe malfunction to get Mader's pulse racing. But even this fails to have the desired effect and, with Baizer beginning to over-analyse everything, Currie knows she will have to intervene to bring the lovebirds together.

Baizer is highly winning as the film buff whose mix of clumsiness and over-eagerness threatens to ruin her chances with the girl of her dreams. The Sarah Waters references are a bit swooning, but this is undemanding fun. Egyptian-Welsh director Sally El Hosaini's Henna Night (2009) requires a little more thought, however. Following her involvement as script editor on the Emmy-winning House of Saddam and her directorial debut with The Fifth Bowl (2005), this was El Hosaini's last short before she made her impressive feature bow with My Brother the Devil (2012).

The action takes place in a British-Arab household as Badria Timimi helps daughter Amber Rose Revah prepare for the henna party prior to her wedding. Meanwhile, her best friend, Beatriz Romilly, is preparing traditional dishes in the kitchen and Sam Goldie's camera lingers on the ingredients that are doubtless as symbolic as the pink petals that Romilly puts to her lips before tossing into the pan. Unaware of the irony, Timini jokes that the best way to a lover's heart is through their stomach. But her words come back to haunt her when Revah locks herself in the bathroom and it becomes clear that she and Romilly are much more than good friends. The drastic ending may surprise some. But this is a powerful insight into Islamic custom that comments acutely upon all forms of arranged marriage and forbidden love. The storyline isn't particularly innovative, but Revah and Romilly touchingly capture the passion, confusion and pain of their situation, while El Hosaini avoids melodrama and makes sensual use of Yahia Lababidi poem `I Saw My Face', as Revah opens the door to let Romilly inside.

Kicking off Here Come the Girls 3: Tissues and Issues is Lee Sung-eun's I Am Jin Young (2006), which charmingly charts South Korean 10 year-old Byun Min-kyoung's frustration at being stuck in a class with kids who are far too immature for her tastes. She cannot wait to grow up and get married. But, if she does, the chances must be high that she'll end up alone like mother Lee Min-a, who has just got divorced. Lee has gone back to college, where she meets a new friend and Byun is puzzled when this turns out to be sporty female Kim Young-sun. However, what proves most surprising is how much she likes Kim and she starts comparing her to all the males she knows (including an eager classmate with a crush) and reaches the conclusion that women are better off together because things always end badly when they marry men. But Lee isn't sure her daughter is ready to become a lesbian just yet.

Consistently addressing the audience and figuring things out in amusing cutaways, this is a real find and it's disappointing to discover that Lee Sung-eun has yet to make another film since. Starting out with the 16mm trio of The Roadrunner (1997), The Hill and The Underdog (both 1998), Lee switched to digital for The Women Is the Enemy of Man (2005) and it would be a shame if her career ends here, as, on the evidence of this delight, she clearly has talent to spare.

Karla DiBenedetto has also fallen silent since releasing Trophy (2008), a rather slight, but undeniably stylish vignette that has teenager Shayla Beesley leave mom Stephanie Jones to visit trendy father James C. Burns and his young black fiancée in their new holiday home. But, although she intended giving her future stepmother short shrift, Beesley discovers that not only does Randa Walker sympathise with her situation, but that she is also incredibly sexy. This may sound like the outline for a porn video and Beesley and Walker are swimming in the lake and smooching in the shower within minutes of meeting. But the script is too knowing not to play up this angle and the same shrewdness extends to the insights into mid-life male insecurity and how divorce and remarriage impact on an older child.

On the flipside of this equation, Michelle Pollino explores the problems facing women returning to dating after a spell away in Looking For (2009), which sees fortysomething TJ Loughran enrol with the Last Resort Dating Agency. However, she soon discovers that owner Peter Patrikios has interpreted her questionnaire answers in a rather peculiar way. Consequently, the candidates that show up at her local coffee house, under the watchful eye of Patrikios's gormless assistant Adam Wahlberg, are far from ideal. She is about to give up, having survived encounters with wildlife enthusiast Suzanne H. Smart, cocky cougar-hunter Adam Joseph, trendy technology buff Renee McCartney, part-time bisexual home-maker Jill Whelan, bilingual cat lover Susan Moses, whip-cracking dominatrix Eileen Brady, clipped control freak Cricket Batz and the high-spirited, but short-sighted Sharon Gellar. But then fate takes her hand and finally lets her notice waitress Gina Allegro, who has been watching her calamitous dates with growing bemusement.

Briskly played, colourfully photographed by Jeff Schirmer and drolly costumed by Leonard Pollack, this invokes memories of The Wedded Bliss agency that Sidney James and Hattie Jacques run in Carry On Loving (1970), although some of the unsuitable dates more closely resemble the mismatches on the receiving end of Kristina Valada-Viars's harangues in the enchanting Molly's Girl (see below). After so much high camp, however, the onset of a budding love story feels a touch abrupt and the happy ever after is something of an anti-climax. But this is never less than fun.

The mood is considerably more sombre in Maria Breaux's Lucha (2009), which is set in El Salvador in 1982 and shows lovers Eloisa Ramos and Maria Carolina Morales A spending what may well be their last day together. Ronald Reagan has donated arms and funds to the Salvadorian regime to quash the insurrection that Ramos knows she cannot merely support from the sidelines. Thus, she spends some idyllic time walking by the sea, reminiscing about better times and making love to Morales before she goes into battle for a cause for which she is willing to die. Yet, while Breaux touches upon the brutality of the civil war, this is a very gentle picture, with Angela Hudson's editing being as measured as her camerawork in capturing the depth of feeling between the militant enraged by the destruction of her country and the pacifist saddened by the fact that her love isn't enough to keep her treasured companion safe.

A harrowing tale from South Africa is related by the Venezuelan director Ana Moreno in Mosa (2010). During a modelling session in London, Isaura Barbé-Brown thinks back to how photographer Jordan Page spotted her while she was waitressing. But she also recalls why she left her township after mother Marva Alexander tore up a crumpled snapshot of her lost lover and cousin Eric Kolelas took such a dim view of her friendship with workmate Diana Yekinni that he hired two thugs to rape her. However, instead of curing her, the assault made Barbé-Brown all the more defiantly proud of her sexuality and more determined than ever to escape so that she could finally be herself.

Audiences need to be alerted to the hideous practice of corrective rape and Moreno is currently seeking funding to expand this concept to feature length. But, while the message is powerfully conveyed, the storytelling feels rushed and the performances are stilted. Moreover, the use of jerky handheld footage during the rape scene may avoid the direct depiction of unspeakable violence, but it also seems clichéd and one hopes Moreno can come up with something more imaginative and impact in the longer version.

A betrayal of a different kind informs Swede Jenifer Malmqvist's Birthday (2010), as Åsa Göransson leaves lover Lotten Roos in bed to collect the present she has been making with the help of neighbour August Lindmark. He is also going to help the couple conceive a second child and daughter Liva Leijnse Elkjær is kept fully informed of the artificial insemination process they are planning to use. However, guilt prompts Roos to confess to already being pregnant after sleeping with Lindmark and Göransson is too stunned to celebrate as the village band arrives to play a jaunty tune. The tension is further heightened when Roos scoffs at the canoe that Göransson has built for her (because she needs a kayak) and Göransson exacts her revenge by telling the assembly about her partner's treachery. Left alone on the beach, Göransson gets drunk and floats out to sea in the canoe and Elkjær attempts to swim out to her. On arriving home, however, the couple patch up their differences after Göransson soaks Roos with the water in the washing tub.

Something of a mini Bergman hommage, this may be a bit busy and a touch trite in its resolution. But the acting is polished, Ita Zbroniec-Zajt's photography is crisp and Malmqvist always seems in control of her material. The same can't quite be said for the debuting Nina Reyes Rosenberg, whose teenpic Organism (2010) starts intriguingly and then struggles to pick up the pieces after a fast-forwarding caption shatters the tentative romance developing between Latina princess Samantha Greiff and Asian goth Ji Young.

Having spotted Greiff gossiping with her bitchy clique in their high-school washroom, Young boasts of seducing her to her punk gang. But, within a few weeks, the pair are barely speaking and Young has to rush after the elusive Greiff to ask what is going on. Amidst flashbacks to their hesitant courtship and their coy discussions about physical attraction, we discern that Greiff isn't convinced she's a lesbian and has been seeing boys behind Young's back. But, as they lie alone together in the playground, and Greiff has a disturbing menstrual dream, they appear to become an item again.

In their only roles to date, Young and Greiff make a quaint couple, while cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra and production designer Yu Li make effective use of the reds in a vibrant colour scheme. Rosenberg's script is also witty, with the joke about the nun porn the girls watch standing out. But the action becomes increasingly confusing and the precise meaning of Greiff's bloody nightmare is lost in the fragments.

There isn't time for such ambiguity in East Berliner Christoph Scheermann's Fresh Air Therapy (2010), which is barely long enough to be a sketch, let alone a short film. However, it works well enough, as haughty diva Heike Schroetter and her prissy lover Barbara Harnisch bicker at opposite ends of therapist Christoph Reiche's couch until a powercut causes him to leave the room. Left alone, the women calm down and are talking more rationally when Harnisch suddenly breaks wind. They get the giggles and are cuddling affectionately when Schroetter follows suit. The lights go back on and Reiche returns to ask if he can open a window. But, as the credits roll, we learn that the outage might not have been an accident after all.

With Schroetter trying to butter up Reiche to gain an advantage and Harnish flicking through the endless notes on her clipboard, this is drolly played. But it is slight in the extreme, especially in comparison with Gianna Sobol's Public Relations (2010), which bristles with subplots and off the wall characters. At its heart are Sienna Farall and Summer Bishil, who are in constant phone contact through their respective bosses Wendi McLendon-Covey and Paul Taviani. However, they have never met and are excited at the prospect of finally seeing each other when McLendon-Covey decides to switch coasts and head to La-La-land.

She accepts Taviani's hospitality until she can find lodgings, but quickly comes to tire of his social-climbing wife, Jessica Tuck, spoilt daughter Corina Boettger and podgy son Connor Byrnes. Meanwhile, Farall and Bishil have bumped into each other in a cupcake shop and gone out for a drink. However, Bishil, who has just dumped mailboy Jayson Blair, is surprised to discover that Farall is gay and only agrees to stay in the lesbian bar with great reluctance. But a little alcohol and a good dance work wonders and she doesn't feel as guilty as she has expected when she wakes up beside Farall next morning. Moreover, her new-found identity gives her the confidence to quit her detested job and she runs off with Farall leaving McLendon-Covey and Tuck to organise themselves.

Confidently capturing the vapidity of the Hollywood myth, this rounds off a solid selection and one hopes that HCTG 4 isn't too far away. In the meantime, a number of lesbian-themed features have also been released on disc recently and the pick is undoubtedly Scott T. Thompson's Molly's Girl. Some may question the validity of a lesbian picture written and directed by a man, but if Sally El Hosaini can make My Brother the Devil, then why not? However, getting the audience thinking and talking is all part of the rationale of this astute feature, which blends a ditzy comedy of errors with political satire and coming out melodrama to challenge preconceptions about conformity, political duty, ethical activism and same-sex marriage.

Fresh from another disastrous night's speed dating, Des Moines twentysomething Kristina Valada-Viars repairs to a nearby bar for a consoling drink. Dressing very much according to her own taste and never short of a word about her attainments, Valada-Viars is actually deeply insecure and often peeks at herself in a handheld mirror almost as though to check she is still there. As she sits alone, she cannot help eavesdropping on a conversation between Emily Schweitz and Stephanie Brown, which results in the latter breaking off their relationship because she is no longer willing to play second fiddle to Schweitz's bid to persuade senator Robert Finiccoli to support her same-sex marriage campaign.

Sidling over, Valada-Viars introduces herself and, true to compulsive fibber form, pretends to be a lesbian. Much to the tipsy Schweitz's astonishment, she invites her back to her apartment and they spend the night together. However, on sobering up, she cannot get the garrulous stranger out fast enough next morning and is appalled when she shows up at her office and piques the interest of her co-workers Andre Davis and Courtney Conlin. Schweitz threatens Valada-Viars with a restraining order, but changes her tune when she discovers that she is Finiccoli's daughter and accepts her invitation to spend the weekend, as her new fiancée, in the family home for her father's birthday.

Desperate to see the deception will play out, Davis tags along with Schweitz and Valada-Viars and is peeved at being mistaken for an African-American artisan. However, Finiccoli's aide, Justin Marxen, recognises him and the senator warns Schweitz not to spoil the party by talking shop. His wife, Ellen Dolan, and her waspish assistant Laura Carlson, are more forthright in expressing their distaste at what they suspect is a charade and Schweitz quickly comes to feel sorry for Valada-Viars, who has virtually been ostracised for failing to live up to the standards set by her older sister, Sondra Ward, who is engaged to hunky student Nick Renkoski.

Although younger sibling Kiera Morrill admires Valada-Viars for doing things her own way, she is too dependent upon her parents to rebel. The same goes for former classmate Rachel Storey, who is happy to see Valada-Viars when they bump into each other in town, but prevented from chatting for long by her chauvinist boyfriend, Patrick Bardwell, who has let himself go since he was the school Adonis. Popping into a bar, Valada-Viars gets the neighbours talking by fawning over Schweitz. However, she gets a dressing down from Doland, who asks why she always has to be so difficult and asks her to wear something less distinctive for the party.

Stung by her hostility, Schweitz becomes convinced that she knows Ward from somewhere and sends a phone snapshot to Brown to see if she can place her face. Meanwhile, Finoccoli is delighted when Valada-Viars sings him a special birthday son on her guitar. But his evening is ruined when journalist Matt Eastvold arrives asking for an urgent word. He has discovered that Ward's engagement is a sham because she has a longtime girlfriend in New York and Brown sends Schweitz a picture of them canoodling together. She denies the accusation and storms off with the doltish Renkoski, leaving Dolan seething, Finoccoli undecided on how to cast his vote and Valada-Viars confused about how all this effects her.

Back in Des Moines, Schweitz apologises for putting her in an awkward position and reassures her that she is most definitely straight. She hurries off to patch things off with Brown, while Valada-Viars hits the speed dating scene again with a new-found confidence behind her tall stories.

Despite the narrative focus shifting from Valada-Viars to Schweitz about a third of the way in and the tone switching from kooky romcom to domestic dramedy, this is a consistently intelligent, amusing and affecting saga that makes its socio-political points without tub-thumping and exposes the dysfunction within a well-heeled conservative family without condescension or judgement. Things are allowed to drift a little in the run-up to the soirée and the intrusion of the reporter who cannot hold the presses seems a tad sensationalist. But the performances are splendid, with Dolan hissing out her small-minded prejudice and Schweitz managing to retain the audience's sympathy, in spite of the self-serving and exploitative nature of her ruse. However, the undoubted star is Kristina Valada-Viars, whose vitality and verbosity is matched by a vulnerability that leaves one hoping that the prolific Thompson has a sequel somewhere up his sleeve.

Also male-directed, but less assuredly so, is Michael Baumgarten's The Guest House, which marks the longtime producer's feature debut after a slew of shorts. Where Thompson clearly has an ear for dialogue and an affinity for his characters, Baumgarten seems content to fill air time until the next set-piece. Consequently, the action is stuffed with lengthy montages of LA landmarks and chastely softcore couplings that do little to explain why two seemingly straight women would suddenly discover their true selves and fall recklessly in love over the course of a weekend. It doesn't help that the stars are more photogenic than dramatically accomplished. But it's the clumsiness of the dialogue and the manner in which the predictable plot pieces clunk into place that makes this so resistible.

Returning home from a night on the town, 18 year-old goth Ruth Reynolds is furious with boyfriend Jake Parker for dumping her because they will inevitably drift apart when they go to college. She casually steals his phone as he leaves and tosses it into the backyard with disdain. Inside the family guest house, she gets a rollicking from dad Tom McCafferty, who can't understand where his all-American cheerleading daughter has gone since the death of her mother. He announces that he is going away for a few days and that she is grounded because he needs someone to welcome a new employee, who will be staying with them until they find a place of their own.

Aspiring songwriter Reynolds resents the fact that her father wants her to follow in his footsteps and go to business school and she is pleased when new recruit Madeline Merritt arrives and takes her side. Leaving Merritt to settle in, Reynolds goes to her room and begins watching porn and makes such a noise that the listening Merritt is bashfully intrigued. Consequently, following a sightseeing and shopping trip, the pair fall into each others arms and are only briefly interrupted in their love-making when Parker comes looking for his phone and catches them together in the hot tub.

Naturally, McCafferty is no more amused by the turn of events. But he has a surprise of his own, as he had only hired Merritt after sleeping with her and Reynolds understandably feels betrayed. However, she forgives and forgets when Merritt dyes her hair blonde and says she knows who she wants to spend her life with and they wander off into a presumably happy ever after.

There's something distinctly unpleasant about the `twist' in this otherwise humdrum tale, especially as McCafferty takes such chauvinist pleasure in divulging it. Merritt also deserves censure, however, as she knows all along that she had bedded her new lover's father and it seems unfeasible that such a fact would not leak out when they ask him to accept their lesbian liaison. But, quite apart from the implausibilities in the plot, this is awkwardly acted and cumbersomely directed, as though Baumgarten only really had enough material for a short, but was determined to make the leap into features. Let's hope he does better next time.

Another stranger in town finds romance in Douglas Aaron Johnston's Bumblef*ck, USA, which was co-written by its Dutch star, Cat Smits, in tribute to the director's nephew Matthew, who committed suicide at the age of 24 shortly after coming out. Having spent time with the gay and lesbian community in his Iowa hometown, Johnston recorded several interviews and he includes them here as extracts from the documentary that Smits is trying to make after she arrives Stateside from Amsterdam to get to know the place where a close friend had taken his own life a few months earlier.

Carrying little more than a camcorder and a laptop, Smits finds a room with lonely nobody John Watkins and mooches around the unnamed town soaking up the atmosphere and getting to know its people. Seemingly oblivious to the fact that Watkins is misreading her flirtatious friendliness, Smits also forges a bond with Ryan Gourley, who tends the lawns at the nearby cemetery, and waitress-cum-artist Heidi M. Sallows, a tattooed lesbian who is cautious about getting too deeply involved with someone who doesn't seem to know who she is, let alone what she wants from life.

Sadly, Johnston also seems uncertain what he is trying to achieve here. At no point does he make it clear why Smits is so intent on finding out what happened to her friend and this lack of emotional context sometimes leaves the entire fictional element looking trite and contrived. Moreover, he tends to idealise Smits's relationship with Sallows, even though he clearly wants her to seem sexually uninhibited amongst the buttoned-up Mid-Westerners.

Yet Smits occasionally comes across as callous as she does whatever she wants without always considering the impact that her actions will have on others. That said, a one-night stand with Gourley doesn't excuse Watkins's clumsily unpleasant attempt to assault her when she resists his advances. But nothing that occurs in the fictional sequences can match the power and poignancy of some of the incidents described in the testimonials about being gay in a fiercely conservative environment and viewers may frequently finds themselves wishing that Johnston had found a more suitable format for presenting them. 

Having left 18 years between her debut, Claire of the Moon (1992), and her sophomore feature Elena Undone (2010), Nicole Conn allowed only a two-year gap before returning with A Perfect Ending. However, there is a slight feeling that this bittersweet drama has been a little rushed, as the dialogue is far too expository, while some of the flashbacks have a clumsiness that belies Conn's experience and expertise. Nevertheless, this is a typically well-told tale that is admirably acted by a screen veteran and a relative newcomer, whose rapport eases the scenario over the more melodramatic aspects of the denouement.

Barbara Niven suddenly finds herself at a loose end. Children Kerry Knuppe, Michael Adam Hamilton and Bryan Jackson have flown the nest and she is left with the realisation that she no longer has anything in common with husband John Heard. Moreover, she also fears that she has fallen out of love with him and confides her secret to lesbian friends Mary Wells and Imelda Corcoran, along with the fact that she has never had an orgasm. Appalled, Wells suggests that she hires an escort, as women are much more attuned to each other's physical and emotional needs than men. And Niven surprises herself by agreeing to let Wells set her up with one of madam friend Morgan Fairchild's more experienced ladies.

However, a mix-up means that instead of middle-aged Rebecca Staab, Niven opens her hotel door to the much younger and conspicuously statuesque Jessica Clark. Realising that her client is both inexperienced and anxious, Clark allows her to get used to the idea of sleeping with her and puts no pressure on her when Niven loses her nerve. But she cannot get Clark out of her head and arranges two or three more rendezvous and begins to wonder what is wrong with her when they all end with her backing off as Clark suggests taking things to the next level.

During the course of their conversations, Niven becomes fascinated with Clark's pointillist painting style and the notion that sometimes you can be too close to a situation to see it clearly. She applies this logic to her relationships with her husband and daughter and eventually realises that it isn't sexual satisfaction she wants from Clark, but love. But, even though Niven eventually feels comfortable enough to let Clark seduce her, she knows they each need to come to terms with traumas and tragedies in their past before they can start to contemplate a future.

There's no escaping the fact that the ending borders on the soap operatic. But Conn is a thoughtful film-maker and she leavens the more intense scenes with lighter episodes featuring the sassy Staab, the quirky Cathy De Buono and the charmingly matched Wells and Corcoran. She also gives Morgan Fairchild the offbeat trait of dressing Barbie dolls to reflect the personalities of her girls. The dependable John Heard does what he can of the thankless role of the complacent spouse, but Niven and Clark (who is best known for playing Lilith in True Blood) make the most of characters who are not defined by their social status, age, race or sexuality, but by the discoveries they make in each other's company.

It's not just women trapped in mid-life crises who come to question their identity and their decisions, as British director Robert Crombie reveals in Sappho (2008), a drama set in the 1920s that bears a passing resemblance to both Ernest Hemingway's posthumous novel, The Garden of Eden, and Randal Kleiser's screen melodrama, Summer Lovers (1982), in which college graduates Peter Gallagher and Daryl Hannah holiday on a Greek island and develop a mutual fascination with French archaeologist Valérie Quennessen. Lustrously photographed by Bagir Rafiyev and boasting attractive costumes by Tatyana Novikova and an affecting score by Maro Theodorakis, this caused quite a sensation in Ukraine, the home country of producer Artur Novikov, as crowds flocked to see a film that had been roundly denounced by the authorities for its decadent ways. However, this lacks the sophistication and the polish to have a similar impact here.

American newlyweds Todd Soley and Avalon Barrie arrive on the island of Lesbos in 1926 at the start of their honeymoon. He is an aspiring artist and hopes to have time during their stay to paint the landscape and refine his technique. However, Barrie is scornful of his talent and quickly gets bored watching him sketch and daub and sets off to explore on her own. She makes the acquaintance of Lyudmila Shiryaeva, who is accompanying her émigré Russian father, Bogdan Stupka, on an archaeological dig. Amused that Barrie knows nothing of the poet after whom she has been named, Shiryaeva introduces her to the works of Sappho and they quickly become lovers. But the strain of keeping her trysts a secret from Soley proves too much for Barrie and her behaviour becomes increasingly erratic. Moreover, when Soley and Shiryaeva finally meet, they are instantly besotted with each other and eventually return to the States together after Barrie takes her own life.

Although Yalta in the Crimea does a decent job of standing in for Lesbos, the performances of the leading trio are often as inanimate as the landscape. They are not helped by the tin ear dialogue or the stiltedness of the direction. But Barrie makes an entirely resistible tragic heroine, with her contempt for Soley and his talent making one wonder why she married him in the first place. In her defence, the scenario struggles to suggest her psychological fragility, while Crombie seems more intent on lingering on her and Shiryaeva's bodies than he is on exploring their minds. Thus, a conclusion that should have been desperately sad is merely melodramatic.

Similar problems threaten to beset Malu de Martino's So Hard to Forget (2010), an adaptation of a novel by Myriam Campello that centres on another character on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Distraught after splitting with her longtime lover, 35 year-old English literature professor Ana Paula Arósio is tormented by every sight and sound in what had been a happy home for 10 years. Yet she cannot help watching old movies of happier times and, thus, accepts the suggestion of gay actor friend Murilo Rosa that she needs to move and settles into his new beach-side house in Rio de Janeiro along with pregnant tenant Natália Lage, who was recently dumped by her boyfriend.

As Arósio had helped Rosa recover from the loss of his own partner, she trusts him implicitly. But she is more wary of Lage and student Bianca Comparato, who seems to have developed a crush on her. However, she is more tempted when Lage's artist cousin, Arieta Correia, comes to stay and seems to possess the secret to unlocking the vivacious personality that Arósio has suppressed since her loss. But, even though she allows herself one night of passion, Arósio knows she is not yet ready to take a bigger step and explains to Correia in a moving letter that she has to let her go to spare her an unenviable life of comparisons.

Treating grief and love with a sensitivity that is dismayingly rare in modern cinema, De Martino succeeds in conveying a character's inner life without resort to melodramatics. Using flashbacks to compare Arósio's past ebullience with what is essentially a widow's dowdiness, De Martino also reveals the extent to which psychological pain can have a physical impact. She may overdo the allusions to Emily Brontë and Virginia Woolf, but she more subtly exploits Arósio's intellectual tendency to internalise and analyse by emphasising Rosa's quietly courageous optimism, Lage's feisty independence and culinarily gifted Correia's ability to feed her body and her soul.

French debutant Sophie Laloy's Highly Strung (2009) is a also more than a little generic. But while this semi-autobiographical saga often feels like a cross between The Page Turner and Single White Female, there are enough shrewd insights into the creative temperament to give this an edge over the average lesbian chic chiller.

Arriving in Lyon from the country to attend the city's prestigious conservatoire, aspiring concert pianist Judith Davis moves in with Isild Le Besco, whom she has hardly seen since childhood. However, the initial easiness between them gives way to a sexual frisson, as Le Besco begins prying into Davis's private life and even catches her masturbating at the keyboard. But Davis quickly comes to regret sleeping with her increasingly possessive flatmate and flees to romance equally ambitious classmate, Johan Libéreau. However, it's never exactly certain who is stalking whom, especially after Davis moves back in with Le Besco after falling behind in her lessons and messing up an audition for a local radio broadcast.

With Marc Tevanian's camera prowling the often shadowy apartment or searching Davis and Le Besco's faces for the slightest hint of a telltale emotion, this is more a power game than a romance. But it also has its sensual, as well as its suspenseful moments, especially as Laloy (who started out as a sound engineer) makes teasing use of ambient noises to add a note of disconcertion to the melodious strains of Schumann, Ravel, Chopin and Bach.

Finally, Rolla Selbak offers a knowing variation on the way in which tradition, identity and sexuality are viewed by Muslim Americans in Three Veils. While not perhaps the most dramatically innovative, this is still a solidly made study of how peer and parental pressure make it difficult for second generation migrants to integrate into a host society, while also retaining a connection with the defining traits from home.

Mercedes Masöhn is the daughter of restaurant owner Erick Avari and his fussily prim wife Salwar Shaker. They have arranged for her to marry handsome Sammy Sheik, but something is missing as they go on dates and best friend Sheetal Sheth heartily disapproves of the match. However, it's only when Masöhn develops feelings for Garen Boyajian - a waiter at Avari's place whose sister, Angela Zahra, had invited Masöhn to a home study session - that she begins having doubts herself. But, when Sheik rapes her, she is too ashamed to tell anybody

Meanwhile, Zahra has fallen hopelessly for Sheth, who feels rejected by Masöhn and has a drinking problem brought on by her efforts to hide booze from her father, Christopher Maleki. He has never recovered from the loss of his wife (Anne Bedian), who had never been able to forgive herself for entrusting the young Sheth (Andria Carpenter) to an uncle whose generosity masked his paedophilia. Now something of a wild child, Sheth keeps calling Zahra to collect her from bars and they spend a chaste night together in the college library where Zahra works to supplement her grant.

Unlike the bohemian Boyajian, Zahra is very devout and prays regularly and reads the Qu'ran before going to sleep. However, she resents mother Madline Tabar's constant criticism and, when Masöhn refuses to defy Shaker and go on her hen party, Zahra offers to accompany Sheth on a journey into the decadent unknown. She thinks she has blown her chances when she snatches a car park kiss, but they get to spend a night together before Sheth runs away to San Francisco with some African-American friends.

Presenting the interweaving action from each subject's voiced-over perspective and repeating incidents as they occur in each vignette, this is an involving, if hardly revelatory picture. The leads are fine, although Syrian TV star Zahra makes the best impression as the unprepossessing mouse who falls for the troubled sex kitten. But too many of the secondary characters are ciphers, with Sheik particularly being allowed to ham it up like a villain from a silent melodrama. The finale is also rushed and contrived. Yet, even though it only ever deals with highly contentious issues in the most superficial manner, this somehow remains eminently watchable.