Transgendered journey

The long-running gay and lesbian film festival continues this weekend with a gala benefit and screenings Saturday at the new Honolulu Design Center's Cupola Theatre.

18th Annual Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival Place: Friday at the Doris Duke Theatre, Honolulu Academy of Arts, and Saturday and Sunday at the Cupola Theatre, Honolulu Design Center Tickets: $10 general and $8 Honolulu Gay & Lesbian Cultural Foundation Call: 381-1952 or online at HGLCF.org Schedule At the Doris Duke Theatre, Honolulu Academy of Arts Friday » 4 p.m. -- "The Year of Paper" with short "We Belong" (free public screening) » 6 p.m. -- "A Four Letter Word" » 8 p.m. -- "Nina's Heavenly Delights" with short "Finding Llorona" » 10 p.m. -- "The Sex Movie" At the Cupola Theatre, Honolulu Design Center Saturday » Noon -- "Red Without Blue" with short "Trannymal" » 2 p.m. -- Girlz Shortz program » 4 p.m. -- "Kate Clinton: 25th Anniversary" with short "The Quitter" » 5:45 p.m. -- "Laughing Matters ... The Men" » 8:30 p.m. -- Keynote speaker Kim Coco Iwamoto » 9 p.m. -- "Alexis Arquette: She's My Brother" with shorts "Out Running" and "Oh Mary!" Sunday » Noon -- "The Believers" (free public screening) » 2 p.m. -- Boyz Shortz program » 4 p.m. -- "Saint of 9/11" » 6 p.m. -- "Coffee Date" » 8 p.m. -- "Fat Girls" » 10 p.m. -- Best of the Fest special screening (TBA)

Pupus, drinks, entertainment and invited guests will be present that night, highlighted by a keynote address by Board of Education member Kim Coco Iwamoto, known as the nation's highest elected office holder who is transgendered.

Her speech will proceed the screening of a documentary of another high-profile transgendered person, "Alexis Arquette: She's My Brother."

Premiered last month at the Tribeca Film Festival (co-founded by Robert De Niro), it's a fascinating look at a member of the famous Arquette acting family (including siblings Rosanna, Patricia and David) who takes a sobering life journey in her transformation from a biological male to female.

Most of the moviegoing public remembers her turn as a Boy George-type singer crooning "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" in Adam Sandler's "The Wedding Singer." Through the years, she's done the occasional minor TV and movie role, but it was mostly in the guise of a drag queen. But in changing into a woman through plastic surgery (Arquette rejects hormonal treatment due to health concerns), she faces a greater and more challenging role that she's ever played in front of the camera.

In the documentary, her friends and acquaintances constantly are skeptical about the sincerity of her decision, thinking that it may be a hoax just to generate media attention in a city where publicity, good and bad, is everything. (After all, this is someone who recently appeared on VH1's "The Surreal Life.") But Arquette is dead serious in her life-changing decision, one that forces her to reevaluate her relationship with her brothers and sisters, as well as reexploring what she'll do creatively for the remainder of her life.

What starts off as a video diary -- complete with archival family and therapy session footage -- becomes more of a private affair that becomes tougher for Arquette to continue documenting to its obvious conclusion. While that may be unsatisfactory to some viewers, it's a realistic decision that acknowledges the complex turn her life is now taking. Just the image itself doesn't tell the whole story.