Just over a week ago, I squeezed in a last-second event before hopping my flight to Vegas—and I'm so gIad I gambled with my time. Gary and Larry Lane, an adorable pair of twins I'd corresponded with forever and ever online, are traveling the international filmfest circuit with their feature Hollywood to Dollywood, and it was finally alighting in New York City at the Quad.

Oh, brothers! The Lanes are forging a path in film.

Hollywood to Dollywood follows the Lanes as they board an RV and trek from L.A. to Dolly Parton's theme park Dollywood in Tennessee, accompanied by one boyfriend (no, they do not share him), one camera and one gigantic script they'd co-written with a juicy part for Dolly. Their mission is to hand the script to their idol personally, so they make sure to get advice from mutual friends/their quirky network of supporters, including Leslie Jordan, Sordid Lives star Beth Grant, Chad Allen (who wound up co-producing) and Oscar-winning scribe Dustin Lance Black (who says of their screenplay that he's "seen worse, believe it or not").

Chad, the Lanes & the filmfesters

Chad with National AIDS Memorial Grove Tribute director Andrew Ehrenfeld

Chad with True Colors director Kenny Yanga

Where is Globe when you NEED gossip to be started???

I arrived for the screening to find a mob of people associated with other films at the International Film Festival Manhattan jockeying to get pictures with the cherub-faced Lanes and with former closeted teen heartthrob Allen, who's now happily out (having been outed by the tabloids years ago).

Double your pleasure, double your fun

Chad's Downtown: A Street Tale (2004) was also playing

The boys (they're in their thirties but have a youthful energy that seems to be preserving them) were bouncing off the walls and gave me some great answers during our video chat (I asked why people are obsessed with twins and they immediately went there) and Allen had some interesting insights into the genesis of the film as well as into what it had been like to be a gay kid who was being painted as an ideal boyfriend in the teen 'zines.

After some introductory remarks, we watched a series of shorts including an atrocious vignette with a twist ending, an artsy dance tribute to a generation felled by AIDS and a documentary by Kenny Yanga called True Colors that was about how hard it is to be gay.

If that sounds dated, that was my first thought, too, especially on the heels of having just seen an AIDS tribute, something that took me back in a bad way to the '90s.

But as I watched the Arizona-based student film, which profiles four gay college-aged men speaking about the abuse they'd received from family members and peers, it became a much-needed reminder that "post-gay" is a fantasy invented by the coasts and few big cities in-between; people are often saying that the new generation is wildly accepting of gay people, and while it may be wildly more accepting, it is not by any means a war that we've won. People are still being tossed out of their homes as kids, told they deserve to get AIDS and die and, worse, beaten up or driven to suicide.

Anxiously awaiting their turn to speak

Watching Hollywood to Dollywood was a similar experience in that these southern boys, who I'd thought everyone knew are gay, were really just coming out in a big way for the first time during the making of this film. The film is not heavy by any stretch, but rather a light, breezy road trip with some unexpected detours when they encounter gay southerners with stories of how Dolly Parton has been a refuge for them, not to mention when they must do battle with the horrendous flooding that plagued Memphis. (Looky here—no amount of water is going to keep a couple of Dolly queens from getting their special passes to Dollywood, y'hear?)

One highlight of the film includes their touching encounter with a prayerful couple and their remembrance of visiting Dollywood as teens. It's shocking that two handsome, ambitious and accomplished guys like the Lanes would have members of their immediate family who still just "aren't ready" to hear about their committed relationships, and it's all the more infuriating considering how understanding and accommodating they both are. Their own mother can't watch the film of which they are so obviously proud; I can't relate to that, but it sure does affect me.

The film is short in spite of their long journey, and I'm sure you will guess it has a happy ending (even if that script they wrote is no closer to being produced). Dolly makes an angelic appearance, too, which adds to the film's already powerful documentation of why gay guys do fandom like nobody does fandom. Judy? Cher? Madonna? Gaga? Don't forget Dolly—she's got fans who would argue she's the #1 gay-friendly diva of them all.

And if for no other reason, see the film for the gay-brotherly bickering—it's absolutely hysterical.

Afterward, the guys took questions from the audience, including a couple of questions that, again, were coming from youngish people who didn't betray any signs that "gay" is no big deal anymore. One guy told them he thought of gay men as representing less competition and a young woman asked them what it felt like to be openly gay, if it felt better.

Beaming ear to ear—and coming off of an endorsement of their film by Rosie O'Donnell herself—the boys didn't even have to answer that one.