BROTHERHOOD: A Gay Neo-Nazi Film

A couple of weeks ago, the 4th International Rome Film Festival awarded its top prize to Denmark's Brotherhood (Broderskab), an astonishing film debut by Danish/Italian filmmaker Nicolo Donato (read the reviews from Variety and ScreenDaily). It's a story about two members of a violent neo-Nazi organization targeting the existence of Muslims in Denmark who, much to their surprise, fall in love with each other. Sweet! We've definitely seen gay neo-Nazis in action at ImageOut before, courtesy of Bruce LaBruce. But Brotherhood seems to be a cut above anything we've screened from that genre. How exciting!

As I've mentioned many times before, programming for the next ImageOut lineup begins as soon as the program guide for the current year goes to the printer in August. Yes, it's that early, as crazy as that sounds. So I'm all about noting down any films that I should be on the look out for. But this may very well be a title that could be picked up for mainstream distribution, or definitely end up in arthouse and indie cinemas. If not, then I hope it is something we can consider for ImageOut 18.

But wait ... it's from Denmark! Notice that we rarely have Danish movies in our film offerings? Festival participation of most films from Denmark is usually arranged through the Danish Film Institute and they are a snob when it comes to screening their films at "smaller" film festivals including ImageOut. For a few years now, the DFI claims that they go by a short exclusive (read prestigious ... in their minds, at least) list of film festivals that they are willing to work with. I could not even get screeners from those folks! So I've always been very resourceful when it comes to seeing Danish films just so I know whether I should be upset about missing a great title or what. Anyway, here's hoping that whatever happens, Brotherhood gets picked up by a US distributor for ImageOut to even stand a chance.

~MG