Openly gay filmmaker Q. Allan Brocka has come up with a winner in Eating Out, a film about college students making the most of their skyrocketing tuition costs by attempting to hook up with selective honor students to get laid. In this one, Caleb (Scott Lunsford) is so overly anxious to bed Gwen (Emily Stiles) he’ll even pretend to be gay to win her over. And that’s where the gem of this story starts and the fun begins.

I spoke to Michael Shoel, president of Ariztical Entertainment, who produced Eating Out, about the release of their first in-house production, which should be in theaters April 8.

Gay & Lesbian Times: What’s the genesis of Ariztical Entertainment?

Michael Shoel: It all started years ago when I was working for someone else and a client called in to ask about a John Waters video. It dawned on me that there was an eager audience looking for legitimate gay video. I started selling and marketing independent films for $29 each and the rest (leading me to my very first theatrical release) is history.

GLT: It sounds like history is in the making with your first theatrical release, Eating Out.

MS: We’ve got our fingers crossed that this one will be a blockbuster. It was made in 10 days with the majority of individuals just volunteering their time.

Shoel can be fairly confident that Eating Out will do well. It has won many awards after being accepted into more than 50 film festivals to date. Some of these awards include: Frameline San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival (Best Feature Film), Rome Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (Best Feature Film) and San Diego Film Festival (Best Feature Audience Award).

GLT: What do you look for before you commit to a project?

MS: I simply want to produce sexy, gay comedies. Unless things change after the release of Eating Out I want to continue down this path of eye candy, sex and comedy for awhile and see where it leads.

Director Brocka has said that the idea for Eating Out developed as a joke. While taking a film writing class in college he wanted to make the straight guys in the class squirm a bit by having them read some hot and juicy gay lines that he penned.

GLT: How did you find Allan Brocka, your writer/director, for this project?

MS: I met him during the Tucson Film Festival a few years ago. He had written a shorter piece that I liked. He had a fine style and interesting sense of humor, so I asked him if he had another full-length story that I could look at. Although Brocka didn’t feel the story was right, I thought it was perfect.

GLT: How long was the actual shoot?

MS: Believe it or not, we budgeted for 10 days; that’s how meager the budget was. We got by with about 40 volunteers and offered some percentages to the actors. One of our worst nightmares happened when one of the technical trucks caught fire and we lost an entire day.

GLT: When was the final “cut!” announced?

MS: We finished filming in June of 2003 and the editing process was completed in November 2003.

GLT: Did you have an active part in the production?

MS: I pretty much allowed Brocka to do his thing. I was more the overseer; the one who mended fences and interfaced with the cast and crew. There’s a lot of compromising needed in a 10-day shoot.

GLT: What makes this movie so appealing?

MS: I can tell you that it’s much more than the sex, although there is some frontal nudity displayed by Ryan Carnes.

GLT: Tell me something about your cast.

MS: We were so very lucky to have snagged Emily Stiles (Almost, East of Sunset), Jim Verraros (“American Idol” fame), Scott Lunsford (Pandemonium) and Ryan Carnes (“Desperate Housewives”), to name a few.

Ryan Carnes, in his recurring role as the gardener in “Desperate Housewives,” offered the following: “Once you’ve done frontal nudity, hey, what else is there?”

GLT: It looks like you just might be facing success right in the eye. Is there anything you want to say in closing?

MS: Aside from encouraging everyone to get out there a see this film, we’d like to be known as the “Motown of gay entertainment.”

Eating Out offers a fleshed-out version of some stereotypical images found in most gay films. College student Scott wants to pounce on hottie Gwen and thinks the best path to her bed is by playing it gay. Since they both have gay roomies, Gwen tries to fix up Marc, her roommate and best friend, with the straight and sensitive Scott. Marc seems to have the hots for Caleb’s roomie, Kyle.

There seems to be one thing that’s missing in this film: the absence of homophobia, and that’s a very good thing indeed. It’s the first to say loudly and openly: “What’s the big deal if he’s gay? We’ve got believable acting and one heck of a funny script.”

Gwen has some kicker lines such as: “Who needs friends who don’t fuck friends?” “I feel like a turnstile at the White Party” and (ascertaining that she is correct about something) “I couldn’t be any more positive if I were gang raped in a repository bin at the needle exchange.”

There’s some camp in this one, but it’s not broad or in your face. The acting seems so natural, allowing the lines to identify the gay scene without the script knocking you into a coma of Queer Studies 101.

With some hot-body eye candy to drop your drawers for, comedy lines you can store in your own repertoire, and some straights who aren’t afraid to mingle with the gay crowd and their lifestyle agenda, this one’s a winner.