One of Italy's most talked-about movies in recent years was made by an American director, albeit of Italian heritage. But that's no big surprise, really, as 30-something Californian Monica Stambrini is no stranger to the Italian cinema, having studied filmmaking in Milan and made a number of Italian shorts and documentaries for Italian TV.

But "Gasoline" (aka "Benzina") -- her full-length directorial debut -- is an unabashedly lesbian film and as such was bound to turn a few heads on the continent. The dramatic film centers on a pair of benzinaie, women gas station attendants, who are also lovers.

Dark and dangerous Stella (Maya Sansa) apparently has no family, beyond her beloved canine pal. Eleanora (Regina Orioli), blond and plainish, is the disappointing daughter of a fashionable bourgeois mother (Mariella Valentini).

Mamma arrives at the gas station after years of silence between her and Eleanora to discover the girls engaged in a passionate kiss. She demands that Eleanora return home with her but her rampage is interrupted by an accident.

When a rowdy group of two guys and girl enters the picture things turn really violent and Stella and Eleanora strike out on the road in their aging Volvo. What ensues is a road movie that many have likened to "Thelma and Louise," but with a frankness that film veered around. Not only is the sexual relationship between Stella and Eleanora hinted at, it's shown unashamedly. Apparently, however, some have criticized that Stambrini didn't take the sex scenes far enough.

Stambrini is as intrigued by the same sort of industrial landscapes that fueled Antonioni's wonderful "Red Desert" in the '60s, although her grunge-scapes are more modern and more intimate: the gas station and the scrap heap rather than the sprawling oil refineries of Rimini.

Although it has a low-budget feel and some of the actors, especially the trio of pursuers, hardly seem like the best Italy has to offer, "Benzina" is a dramatic film and especially during some of the chase scenes, an edge-of-your-self movie. That is speaks so openly about a passionate and loving relationship between two young women, shouldn't be controversial.

"Gasoline" screens Sat., Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. at UWM Union Theatre, 2200 E. Kenwood Blvd., as part of the annual LBGT Film Festival. The screening, which costs $6, is co-sponsored by UWM's Department of French, Italian and Comparative Literature.

Also showing this weekend -- at 9 p.m. on Fri., Oct. 3 -- is "My Life on Ice," which was titled "My Real Life in Rouen" ("Ma vraei vie a Rouen") in its original French release. Disguised as an edited-together collection of home video footage shot by teenaged figure skater Etienne, the film -- directed by Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau -- traces his development on the ice, among his friends and family and the blossoming of his sexuality.

It's a testament to the actors involved that it's hard to know until the credits roll at the end whether or not the ingratiating and fascinating film really is a home movie. Etienne's mother Caroline and his grandmother are pitch-perfect as the self-conscious family members unused to being on camera.