A personal, experimental testimony about her fight with ovarian cancer from celebrated lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer, A Horse is Not a Metaphor confronts ovarian cancer with visions of horseback riding and river swimming. Identifying herself as a "cancer thriver as well as survivor,” she here shares a densely layered work, personal and hopeful. (And with music by Meredith Monk.) Hammer writes: "Freedom is movement, freedom is ease; freedom is a horse galloping with mane and tail flying in the wind. Freedom is my eye and mind following the flow of expression through movement. Freedom is riding my horse on a trail exploring the unknown and seeing with fresh eyes as the world becomes new again. A Horse Is Not A Metaphor is about the power of living in the present to the fullest and with the greatest freedom." Hammer’s new work will screen with two earlier 16mm experimental shorts--Vital Signs (9min, 1991) and Sanctus (19min., 1990)--that intermingle found footage and texts with dazzling optical play to meditate on the body and medical practice, life and death. Friday, September 7, 5 p.m. FREE

In Jacques Nolet’s, Before I Forget, (Avant que j’oublie),an aging hustler is portrayed on how he copes with the insufficiencies and threatened indignities of his advancing years. In one of the season’s most critically acclaimed films, director and star Jacques Nolot unveils the most radical gay body you will see this year. In the final chapter of his ongoing filmic autobiography (the last installment, Porn Theatre, played here in 2002), he plays Pierre-- like Nolot, a former, and once dapper enough, gay gigolo--still trying to live off the once-lavish support of a former client. He contends with loneliness, writer’s block, the increasing complications of his HIV, and a kind of existential disregard, all of which he tries to mollify with smokes, drinks, commiseration with friends, and sex with hustlers. John Waters praises the film by calling it the “best feel bad gay movie ever made” and Dennis Lim of The New York Times wrote that it “trains an unflinching spotlight on a species that, to judge from the movies, might as well be extinct: the aging homosexual.” In the film’s exquisite regardez-moi final shot, Nolot shines that spotlight in an act of outrageous defiance, the boldest act of the Festival, one that taunts us as it challenges the history of gay cinema. Friday, September 12, 5 p.m.

The Milwaukee LGBT Film/Video Festival is one of the community's longest running film festivals celebrates its 21st anniversary with an international array of the finest and newest in films and videos by and about the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities. The screening-packed eleven days of features, documentaries, and shorts opens at the Oriental Theatre with the local premiere of Tom Gustafson's Were the World Mine.

20th Annual Institute on Aging Colloquium "Understanding Healthy Aging: Contributions from Midus"

Presentation by Dr. Rhonda J.V. Montgomery, Helen Bader Endowed Professor in Applied Gerontologgy, Helen Bader School of Social Welfare

Response by Maria Ledger, Assistant Director, Long Term Support, Director, Milwaukee County Family Care-Care Management Organization

Living Well Conference, a joint endeavor of the Southeastern Wisconsin Area Agency on Aging and Catholic Charities, is an annual gathering aimed at educating and energizing older adults to live fuller lives.

This one-day event is the only regional aging conference geared specifically to equip older adults residing in Southeastern Wisconsin with knowledge of critical issues and resources; to actively engage understanding of the balance of "health wholeness" throughout the aging process.

The format is interactive and informative, consisting of exceptional keynote presentations, dynamic breakout sessions, preventative health screenings, and comprehensive exhibitors.