Out and about: Gay film fete ranges wide

Sure, you can check out the deadly adventures of the stunning, devilishly feral lesbian vampire in

Vampire Diary

; or watch clips from the films of gay porn director Chi Chi LaRue (

Dragging Out Chi Chi LaRue: A Showcase of Smut

).

But this year's Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, now through July 22, also offers a look at the life and times of 11-year-old Scot, the title character in the sweet, family-friendly dramedy Breakfast With Scot, about an uptight gay couple raising a flamboyant, devil-may-care tween.

The 14th annual festival offers 144 shorts and features from around the world, most addressing serious issues of interest to the gay and lesbian community. There's Dolls, a tender coming-of-age story from the Czech Republic about gal pals on a road trip across Europe; Alondra, A Transsexual Diary, an intimate first-person video diary of a Venezuelan-born transsexual living in Barcelona; and Call Me Troy, a powerful documentary about activist Troy Perry, a preacher who fought for gay civil rights.

Need a break from the seriousness? The festival offers plenty of escapist flicks. There is a terrific collection of genre films, including the romantic thriller Bangkok Love Story; the disturbing crime melodrama NightDragon; and the grody zombie horror-comedy Otto; Or, Up With Dead People. To top it all off, there's always the ultimate paean to frivolity, Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild!.

Festival artistic director Ray Murray said traditionally gay film festivals had a "mandate [to] . . . educate the public in terms of gay rights and ideas of gayness."

Murray said this year's festival was no exception, but for a growing number of films, "the idea of gayness isn't as central as it was" a generation ago. Murray said virtually all of the features screened a decade and a half ago at the first festival were "coming-out stories." Things are far more diverse today. "Younger filmmakers are making films about so many things beyond" the notion of what it means to be gay.

"It's so much looser now," Murray said.

Some of the most interesting offerings this year delve into decidedly cross-cultural issues. They explore the conflicts faced by gay and lesbian characters who belong to ethnic or religious groups hostile to homosexuality.

The World Unseen, for example, is a lesbian love story set amid the racism and violence of early apartheid-era South Africa; The Secrets, from Israeli director Avi Nesher, is about the sexual awakening of an Orthodox Jewish woman; and Damion Dietz's Dog Tags, which is set squarely in the world of the Marine Corps, is about a young recruit who falls in love with another man.

When Kiran Met Karen, one of the festival's biggest advance-sales hits, having its world premiere Saturday night, looks at the conflict between the traditional Hindu values instilled in a young Indian woman and her emerging sexual identity.

"A lot of films today aren't just about characters coming out, but beyond that, how they struggle with their cultural and religious values," says the film's 32-year-old director, Manan Katohora.

Set in New York, Kiran is about a deeply conflicted Bollywood actress who falls for an American journalist who is very much her opposite: Karen is supremely comfortable and confident in her identity as an out lesbian.

Katohora said he was especially pleased that his film was coming out just weeks after India's first-ever gay pride march, which took place last month in New Delhi.

The documentaries black./womyn.:conversations with lesbians of African descent, U People, and Just as We Are similarly explore conflicts faced by gays and lesbians and their ethnic identities as African American (the first two films) or Latino.

The festival also offers some terrific documentaries about a rich array of artists. Derek, directed by Isaac Julien, takes a close look at the work of the groundbreaking and controversial British filmmaker Derek Jarman (Edward II, Caravaggio). Christina Clausen's The Universe of Keith Haring features clips and interviews with Jean Michel Basquiat, Yoko Ono and Madonna, who weigh in on the life and work of the great American pop art pioneer.

Meanwhile, the pioneering gay punk band Pansy Division is profiled in documentarian Michael Carmona's Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band. Founded in 1991 in San Francisco, Pansy launched Queercore, a subgenre of music that deconstructs traditional notions of what it means to be a rock star.

"No one in the rock world was out when we began - there was such a stigma around being gay and being a rocker," said Pansy's bassist and singer, Chris Freeman.

"We thought it was time we lived in a world with a gay rock band," said Freeman, who will bring Pansy to Philly for a live show following next Friday's screening of the Carmona film.

Freeman said he was disappointed that more openly gay bands didn't follow Pansy's lead.

"It hasn't hurt the career of anyone who has come out . . . [including] Rob Halford [of Judas Priest], Michael Stipe, and Morrissey," he said.

"There's no reason not to come out."