Malcolm Ingram’s heartwarming documentary takes us to those spaces in America where small-town gays and lesbians find each other, and where their lives can be celebrated rather than hidden. Setting his focus on two bars in rural Mississippi, Ingram paints a portrait of gay life often overlooked by urban-centered gay culture. It’s a reassuring portrait, offering glimpses of beautiful, brave people coming together to love themselves and each other with grit, determination and high style.

In a time when America disappointingly shows the same old jaundiced face to its gay citizens, small-town gay bars serve as social centers and supportive environments. Not that such bars escape controversy, persecution or even disaster; Ingram astutely observes the forces that led to the closure of one bar, and traces the tragic torture-and-murder saga of one patron, teenager Scotty Weaver. However, just as plentiful and forceful are the portraits of people who return to the bars again and again, where partying and hooking up share the stage with a sense of defiance and self-determination. Winner of the Best Documentary Award at the 2006 Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

San Francisco filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt opens the program with I Just Wanted to Be Somebody, a meditation on Southern beauty queen turned anti-LGBT lobbyist Anita Bryant.

—SHANNON KELLEY