Margaret Murray knows a thing or two about film. The TIGLFF Program Director has made a career out of finding the best films available and holds the distinction of being a returning programmer to the festival.
Murray was executive director of TIGLFF from 2001-2003 and now lives in Washington D.C., where she works as the executive director of Reel Affirmations: The Nation’s LGBT Film Festival.
Murray, a native of St. Petersburg, says she has kept her strong ties to the Tampa Bay arts community and that she’s excited to bring nearly 80 films to Tampa Oct. 8-18. We asked her to provide us, in her own words, a quick sampling of her favorite picks for TIGLFF’s 20th Anniversary event. A full schedule is available at TIGLFF.com and in the festival’s official program guide, which is available at theaters and area LGBT businesses.
Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement
5 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 10,
Tampa Theatre
Honestly, this documentary makes me want to rent a truck with a screen on the back of it and drive it to every church and GOP gathering I can find. This film follows the lives of longtime partners Edie and Thea.
Through archival photos and film footage, filmgoers see the women’s life unfold before them—all the way up to the magical moment when they become legal spouses in Canada after 40 years together. I recommend this because everyone will leave the theatre a changed person. The real message behind Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement is “love happens.”
Love of Siam
7:30 p.m., Monday, Oct. 12
Tampa Theatre
Ostensibly about two boys and their love for each other, the film is really about family. Love of Siam is a film that has a hint of magical realism that many 
Asian films feature. Two best friends are torn apart when the sister of one goes missing on a camping trip. His closely-knit family is devastated, and they move away. Years later the boys reconnect and the entire film ceases to be about repressed gay love in Thailand and becomes about a love so compassionate and mature in its essence that every adult should watch this film and ask themselves “Would I do this for the person I love?” This film is sweeping Southeast Asia like a gay teen Titanic.
St. Trinian’s
9 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 14
Tampa Theatre
Colin Firth, Rupert Everett (in and out of drag) Rusell Brand—and a bunch of other BBC familiar faces, appear in silly, big-budget romp through sight gags, class warfare and social satire. The plot is full-on caper—the girls at the school, understandably aghast at the prospect of losing their drink swilling faculty, plan to steal a priceless painting and sell it on the black market in order to save the school from the reform-minded Education Minister, played stiffly by Colin Firth. Russell Brand is absolutely hilarous as a ne’er-do-well criminal type who sells the schoolgirls homemade vodka, and the list goes on and on. There is never a dull moment.
Her Name Was Steven
[no trailer available]
9:15 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 14,
Muvico Baywalk
We’ve all read about it, heard about it and talked about it. People in Tampa Bay lived it right along with her. But this CNN-produced documentary about former Largo City Manager Susan Stanton’s transition to womanhood delves into some places that the media frenzy missed: Susan’s relationship with her son and his “stand by your mom” attitude, the struggle to remain focused on salvaging a career, and the unwelcome push into spokesperson for a movement.
I Can’t Think Straight
7 p.m., Friday, Oct. 16
Tampa Theatre
Yes, the ladies are drop-dead gorgeous—and yes, they have sex—and that’s enough reason to see this. But what puts this film over the top for me is the elephant in the room that just won’t shut up—the politics of the Middle East. There have been a number of really great films that tackle this subject, such as Promises and City of Borders. But I Can’t Think Straight is the only one that puts lesbians at the front of the story, and it’s amazing.
Patrik, Age 1.5
9 p.m., Friday, Oct. 16
Tampa Theatre
Two men, one a gay pediatrician and the other a hunky layabout, go through all the hoops of adoption, only to find out that it probably won’t happen. In all actuality, the red tape of gay adoption is a third character in the film. But what denies them suddenly provides them with a bouncing bundle of angst who turns out not be a cuddly baby, but due to a typo in the form of a misplaced decimal point, a 15-year-old homophobic brat and petty thief. We all know what happens in the end, but getting there is much more fun than a film should be allowed to be.
Prodigal Sons
[no trailer available]
1 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 18
Tampa Theatre
This documentary will twist you into a million different emotional positions. Two brothers, very popular in high school, have taken completely different paths. Kimberly Reed, the director, returns home for a high school reunion, eager to reintroduce herself as a transgender woman. Jealousy and acceptance affect both of the siblings through a myriad of revelations and the film is much more about sibling rivalry than gender reassignment.
Fig Trees
3 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 18
Tampa Theatre
Okay, if you only watch one AIDS opera starring an albino squirrel and a Viking this year, make it Fig Trees. I watched it in the middle of the afternoon one day and I thought I was hallucinating. It was only after I watched the entire film that I could tear myself away to read about it. And knowing that it was based on a Gertrude Stein opera only made me love it more. Fig Trees is Matthew Barney meets Michael Moore—audacious, in your face funny, yet beautiful and lyrical.
