Fridae

Filmmaker Sun Koh gathered six other directors to collaborate on an ambitious film experiment called Lucky 7. Not surprisingly, the film has some strong LGBT themes because four of the seven filmmakers are gay.

Fridae speaks to 26-year-old Nino Susanto, an aspiring environmental engineer and festival director of the Q! Film Festival in Jogjakarta, Indonesia about the event and youth activism.

The preliminary findings from the Feb 2007 Sydney Gay Community Periodic Survey, and a report predicting HIV infection rates in Australia affirm that NSW has maintained, and may even see a reduction in HIV infection rates. How does NSW continue to buck the global trend? Justin Ellis finds out.

A mother recently wrote to papers to complain that her 17-year-old son was given a gift of a condom when he bought a cake from a bakery. A recent survey in Singapore found that about 1 in 5 didn't know that a condom could protect one against HIV while about a third believed that HIV could be transmitted through a mosquito bite or by kissing. Alex Au wonders why is it so hard to talk about sex?

Eve Ensler's classic The Vagina Monologues returns to Hong Kong March 25 - 29 with its first ever Cantonese performance, as part of the V-Day Reclaiming Peace campaign. Elaine Chan speaks to director/actor Danielle Spencer about the challenges of coming up with Cantonese slang words to mean the vagina and how she hopes for the play to make it easier for people to talk about the vagina as well as sexual and domestic violence.

Choi Hyun-sook hopes to become South Korea's first openly gay legislator. Although her historic candidacy is another sign of Korea's changing attitudes about homosexuality, the social climate for the country's lesbians still presents many challenges. Matt Kelley reports from Seoul.

Taiwan will go to the polls this Saturday to elect a successor to Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party who has held office since 2000. Last month, same-sex marriage came up during a televised debate between KMT's Ma Ying-Jeou of and DPP's Frank Hsieh.

Fridae first reported that part of director Cynthia Wade's speech made during the acceptance of her Oscar award was snipped when it was shown on Singapore TV... Alex Au attempts to decipher what's allowed and what's not based on replies by the broadcasting authority and broadcaster.

She's French. The Brand is American. The inspiration is well, so Asian. M.A.C cosmetics re-ignites fashion's love for Art in a new collaboration with contemporary artist Fafi. The result: a series with definite must haves for even the casual beauty collector. Find out more as Shah. catches up with the French artist in Singapore.

Changing the world might take more than 5,000 euros. But it's a start for Beijing-based lesbian group Common Language, the prize winner of the Mama Cash awards.