Editor

New Festival Director Basil Tsiokos today announced the opening and closing
night films for the 14th Annual NY Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, taking place
June 6 ­ June 16, 2002. Hosted by the New School's Tishman Auditorium and
New York University's Cantor Film Center, and Anthology Film Archives for the
closing weekend. The festival welcomes back Showtime as Presenting Sponsor for
the fifth consecutive year.

The Opening Night feature is a special sneak preview of Notorious C.H.O (USA,
2002), a performance film directed by Lorene Machado. Notorious C.H.O. features
the incomparable gay icon Margaret Cho in the comedy tour of the same name.
The film will debut theatrically in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco
on July 4th, 2002 before expanding to cities nationwide throughout the summer.

The closing night film, Chinese director Stanley Kwan's Lan Yu (Hong
Kong China, 2001) is a New York premiere. The film was critically acclaimed
at last year's Cannes and Toronto International Film Festivals as well as at
this year's Sundance Film Festival, and will be brought to theaters later this
year by Strand Releasing. Filmed secretly in mainland China, Lan Yu is
a love story following two men from different social stratospheres in Beijing
China over the course of nine years.

The full Festival program will be announced in the next week. The Festival
will once again co-present a number of films with The Human Rights Watch International
Film Festival and the New York International Latino Film Festival. Focus areas
in the 2002 New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival will include Asian Cinema,
Drag, Fathers and Mothers, 20 Years with AIDS and Conversion Films.

Since 1988, The New Festival has been a premier exhibition platform for filmmakers
as well as an opportunity for distributors to give New York's lesbian and gay
audiences a first look at their upcoming releases. The eleven-day festival showcases
a great number of World, US and New York premieres of documentary and dramatic
features and shorts. The New Festival's annual Filmmaker Awards, decided by
the audience and professional juries, will be presented at the Closing Night
Gala Screening. In addition, winners will be announced for The Vito Russo Award
for a promising New York-based film project and, for the fourth time, The Peter
S. Reed Achievement Award for an established body of work.