Q-Seattle Events: Tacky Tourist Clubs: $3 Bill Cinema presents Wild Tigers at Film Forum

Malcolm Stumpf plays 13-year old Logan in Wild Tigers. Photo by Allison Watkins

Three Dollar Bill's Cinema, producers of the annual Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, offer an off-festival presentation next week of a debut film by Cam Archer, Wild Tigers I Have Known. It will be shown at Northwest Film Forum (NWFF) Friday April 13 and runs through Thursday, April 19, with two showings each evening, at 7 pm and 9 pm. NWFF is at 1515 12th Ave [get directions] just south of the Capitol Hill police station.

From the NWFF press release:

Archer's explosive debut feature, executive-produced by Gus Van Sant and Scott Rudin, may be the millennium's first example of a neo-American Underground film: ferocious, passionate, somewhat taboo in its subject and likely to divide contemporary audiences.
A young boy and a loner, Logan develops a crush on an older boy, Rodeo, but must compete with the attention Rodeo gives his girlfriend. After school Logan spends time conversing suggestively on the phone, taking walks in a forest where mountain lions roam and hanging out with his only friend who, like him, knows that he's different. Made with a ragged inventiveness on a miniscule budget, WILD TIGERS is a fearless and original portrait of adolescent foolishness and heartache.

The indie film's slow-loading Flash site gives this rundown of the story:

Logan is a soft spoken and lonely 13 year old boy with a crush. Unlike his equally lonely friend Joey, who obsesses over the sexual exploits of the popular boys, Logan is fixated on the boys themselves, particularly Rodeo Walker.

Rodeo is the only one of the group of cool kids who shows any friendliness towards Logan, in other words, he doesn?t go out of his way to make Logan's life miserable.

As they strike up a mismatched friendship, Logan's infatuation with Rodeo inspires him to create a new persona named Leah. Leah and Rodeo grow close through whispered late night phone calls, and when Leah agrees to meet Rodeo face to face it is Logan who must finally prove that he can ask for what he so achingly wants.

Reviews of the film use words like "taboo" and "transgressive" since the story deals with adolescent sexuality and dreams. We suspect, nonetheless, that it will resonate with many viewers.