Outfest announces award winners

Outfest, the Los Angeles gay and lesbian film festival, wraps up its 21st edition Monday, and over the weekend the festival announced the winners of its film competition. Michael Burke's The Mudge Boy, based on his acclaimed short film Fishbelly White, took top American Narrative Feature, while the French film Porn Theatre received honors as Best Foreign Film. Drag performers Jack Plotnick (a.k.a. Evie Harris), Clinton Leupp (Miss Coco Peru), and Jeffery Roberson (Varla Jean Merman) shared the Best Actor prize for the comedy Girls Will Be Girls. Latter Days, about the unlikely romance between a West Hollywood gym bunny and a Mormon missionary, was named Best First Feature by Outfest audience vote. Here is a complete list of Outfest winners: OUTstanding American Narrative Feature: The Mudge Boy OUTstanding International Narrative Feature: Porn Theatre OUTstanding Documentary Feature: The Opposite Sex, Rene's Story OUTstanding Screenwriting: Richard Day, Girls Will Be Girls OUTstanding Actor in a Feature Film: (tie) Jack Plotnick, Clinton Leupp, and Jeffery Roberson, Girls Will Be Girls OUTstanding Actress in a Feature Film: Olympia Dukakis, The Event Audience Awards: OUTstanding First Narrative Feature: Latter Days OUTstanding Narrative Feature: Goldfish Memory OUTstanding Documentary Feature: (tie) Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin and Laughing Matters OUTstanding Narrative Short Film: D.E.B.S. OUTstanding Documentary Short Film: Where the Girls Are OUTstanding Soundtrack: Radical Harmonies Special Programming Awards: Freedom Award: Remi Lange, Tarik El Hob (The Path of Love) Emerging Talent: Tracy Flannigan, Rise Above: The Tribe 8 Documentary Artistic Achievement: Pat O'Neill, The Decay of Fiction