The rose-colored glasses of memory always idealize one person from the past with whom everything could have been perfect – if it hadn’t gone so horribly wrong. Julie and Me explores a friendship and love that gets its second chance. Freshly single Juliet seeks out her childhood friend Julie with whom she hasn't spoken in fifteen years because of a misplaced kiss. Initially their relationship is strailed, but they try to reclaim their friendship, explore what went wrong and try to make sense of the chemistry and sexual tension boiling just below the surface. Cheeky and humorous animated vignettes keep this emotionally intense love story light. A modern romance, Julie and Me effectively looks at the underlying tensions in relationships and how those tensions can both enhance and destroy intimacy.

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Neither sensational nor sentimental, the remarkable Southern Comfort is a documentary about 52-year-old female-to-male transsexual Robert Eads who, dying of cervical and ovarian cancer, is neglected by doctors uncomfortable with treating him. “A hillbilly and proud of it,” Robert cuts a striking figure in his home in the Georgia black hills, where he falls deeply in love with male-to-female transsexual Lola Cola. Director Kate Davis functioned as a one-person crew in order to intimately capture this rare blend of humor, romance, and tragedy. Even though Southern Comfort (the title refers to a support group peopled by Eads and his transgender friends) is as much about generosity, courage, and tolerance as it is about a potentially discomfitting subject, the film sent shock waves through the Sundance Film Festival where it won the award for Best Documentary Film. As Eads tries to find help for his condition, his resolute kindness, dignity and compassion in the face of adversity help him build a community of friends and gives Southern Comfort its punch.

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Love/Juice is a passionate, strikingly beautiful film about female friendships in contemporary Tokyo. Kyoko and Chinatsu aren’t lovers, just roommates who eat, sleep, go clubbing, do dope, and brush their teeth together. Chinatsu is a lesbian photographer who is working on a visual diary. Kyoko, less mature, develops a crush on a taciturn boy who runs a local fish store and barely acknowledges her existence. When Chinatsu is dumped by her girlfriend, Kyoko tries to console her and the two almost make love. And suddenly, it’s make-or-break time for the girls’ relationship. Without hyped-up melodramatics of any kind, Shindo Kaze’s directorial debut is one of the freshest and most believable films about female friendship ever made.

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