The oldest, biggest, most important and press-friendly of the four markets we visit is the MIFED in Milan. In a total area of 12,000 square metres (over 129 150 square feet) at the trade fair there are almost 300 companies offering over 400 films from all kinds of genre imaginable, even if smaller porducers do moan about the high fees. More than one half of the companies fly in from the USA, together exhibiting "only" a third of the films. Compared to the reality of world-wide cinema these are modest figures for the international film industry. The most-often asked question in the industry in 1997 about the future of Hong Kong cinema can be answered optimistically: compared to the previous year, the number of companies from the former British colony has risen by 60% to 19, catapulting it to fourth place, behind Italy and Great Britain.

The agony of choice – having to decide between 28 films playing simultaneously! This was unfortunately aggravated when the last two showings were cancelled, reducing the yield to a round 30. The average number of films watched could, under market regulations, be several times higher, the auditoria taking on the characteristics of a roomful of telephones at a railway station: no one seemed to spend more than 15 minutes watching one film, but had in this time at least one telephone call. Anyone who feels robbed of such status symbols can, in contrast to festivals where such sadistic pieces of equipment are hunted down, borrow a mobile phone from the service centre. The nightmare conditions of any director were somewhat softened by the installation of Dolby Sound Systems in all the auditoria, the two biggest in digital sound. Still, many presentations had to struggle with the sound, an almost continuous, headache-inducing crackle accompanying too many films.
 

After Philadelphia became an Oscar and box-office success and ensured a steady stream of audiences to see gay films, the Western world considered whether a permanent change towards a more visible presence of lesbians and gays on film had occurred, or whether an ephemeral fashion for such films had just been discovered. Five years later the first results can be seen. Every big Hollywood film on gay themes has made money, from The Birdcage, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar to the current In & Out. And this, even though they were official or unofficial remakes of already successful films (Birds of a Feather or The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert), or, in the case of In & Out, lifted straight out of the aforementioned. Lesbians are still waiting, but well-meaning minor roles in films like The First Wives Club cannot stop them going for blockbuster status. The success of My Best Friend's Wedding led to further work for two actors – not the two stars Julia Roberts and Dermot Mulroney, but Roberts and the gay supporting character Robert Everett, who is to be, willingly, gay in the next three productions. There were French successes with French Twist and Pédale douce, British success with Priest, and in Germany, ever since Most Desired Man, every comedy has to have at least one gay character in a lead role to make money. The number of gay, and to a certain extent, lesbian, independant films, which actually appeal to an appropriate audience, has practically exploded, even if they are, sadly, seldom distributed abroad.

Supporting roles in other films have for the most part lost their comic or problematic flair and are built up purely in terms of time, especially in Martin (Hache) and illtown.

To the subject of content: the common-or-garden coming-out film has been finally laid to rest. While Hollywood's In & Out has yet to be released outside of the USA, word seems to have got around that there are enough philosophical emancipation films in the video library and on the box. Admittedly, in half of the MIFED films with lesbian and gay content the relevant characters are, at the beginning of the film, unaware of their sexuality, but the directors are now dealing with this differently. Only in one film, The Hanging Garden, is the reaction of the people close to the protagonist studied. But even this film blazes its own trail. The most casual, if intense, Hamam – The Turkish Bath can surprise its audience. Elles leaves open the question how lesbian the lesbian's love interest will make her life after the closing credits.
 

Not yet as a trend, but more a curious coincidence, in the French film elles, the lesbian, ex-junkie best friend of a hetera tries to take the hetera's daughter off drugs by admistering some herself, and in the Spanish-Argentinian film Martin (Hache) the gay, junkie best friend of a hetero tries the same thing with his son.

Official link: http://www.fmd.it/mifed/