{"id":115249,"date":"2022-07-13T23:23:45","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T17:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/outfest-directors-on-bringing-the-fest-in-festival-back-for-40th-anniversary\/"},"modified":"2022-07-13T23:24:26","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T17:54:26","slug":"outfest-directors-bringing-the-festival-in-festival-back-for-its-40th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/outfest-directors-bringing-the-festival-in-festival-back-for-its-40th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"Outfest Directors: Bringing the Festival in Festival Back for its 40th Anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Nonprofit Outfest will celebrate its 40th year with the launch of the 2022 edition of the festival. This festival is held in Los Angeles LGBTQ+ and will feature new awards, programming, and more than 200 screenings.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that I really did like is that [the festival] wasn\u2019t in June, because I think there\u2019s this way of thinking about queerness as if it is siloed within the space of one month,\u201dFaridah Gbadamosi, Outfest’s artistic director, spoke in a recent interview. \u201cI like the idea that it exists beyond the month of June because it kind of brings this idea that our identities can\u2019t be siloed within the space of one month.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gbadamosi, who has been working with Outfest for more than a year, stressed a collaborative approach for programming the festival in Los Angeles. This year, Outfest was sensitive to the presentation and depiction of trauma that came out of such a difficult past few years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that\u2019s been really interesting to come out of COVID is the way in which programmers interact with programming trauma because for marginalized communities, you always have externalized trauma, but it\u2019s become more socially aware that there is anxiety and stress,\u201dShe spoke. \u201cSo the way you program is inherently in response to the community at large. So it\u2019s also the way that you look at certain films like is this a necessary harm to show, is this a necessary story to center at this particular point in time?\u201d<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s 11-day festival anticipates the attendance of 30,000 people in-person throughout seven different venues \u2014 with an increasing number of allies attending over the last couple of decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve increasingly seen allies to the tune of 20 to 25% that are coming with their friends now to experience these things together,\u201d executive director Damien Navarro told . \u201cThere was a world in which those that were \u2018in the closet\u2019 had to sneak in the back doors of Outfest back in the \u201980s and the \u201990s because simply by walking through, people would sit there and question and point, and it was terrifying for many to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
The festival will begin with an Opening Night Gala hosting the world premiere of Billy Porter\u2019s directorial debut \u201cAnything\u2019s Possible,\u201dA trans girl and her charming teenage boyfriend form a loving relationship during their senior year of highschool. The Closing Night Gala will feature a screening of Blumhouse Productions\u2019 \u201cThey\/Them,\u201dKevin Bacon stars. <\/strong>Many other activities and screenings will take place in between these nights, including a 20th Anniversary screening of Todd Haynes\u2019 \u201cFar From Heaven\u201dHaynes, Julianne Moore, and Christine Vachon were there.<\/p>\n \u201cThe \u2018out\u2019 in Outfest means many different things. It can also mean outsider. Never before have so many people come together that have felt like outcasts or outsiders, and I think when we look at the youth today identifying increasingly more as queer, it\u2019s not necessarily always about just sexuality and gender,\u201d Navarro said. \u201cYou can be anything you want, and it\u2019s okay and those spaces are really important for us to continue to foster and create so that Outfest can eventually become known as a space in which anybody can thrive. I guarantee there\u2019s several films that anybody will see themselves in, regardless if they consider themselves necessarily gay or lesbian or queer or any of the acronyms.\u201d<\/p>\n Outfest will screen films of \u201cGirl Picture,\u201dThey were awarded the Sundance Audience Award and their U.S. Centerpiece \u201cUnidentified Objects,\u201dThe documentary centerpiece \u201cMama Bears.\u201dThe lineup is divided into Narratives (documentary), Platinum Section, Episodics, and an Episodic Showcase. \u201cStay on Board: The Leo Baker Story,\u201d a documentary from Drew Barrymore\u2019s Flower Films and Pulse Films and an advanced showing of the first two episodes of Prime Video\u2019s \u201cA League of Their Own\u201d series.<\/p>\n \u201cWe kind of go through a combination of the films that have been submitted directly to us and then the films we\u2019ve kind of seen out in the world in the curation process,\u201dGbadamosi expressed concern about the programming. \u201cFor me personally, the concept of good and bad is inherently a flawed one. But whether or not the story accomplishes what it intends to do, whether or not to serve an audience, whether or not it serves a filmmaker \u2014 these are all things that we have in discussion.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A variety of engagement programs, including live read performances and screenings will take place in addition to the screenings. \u201cOur Lady of the Six,\u201d a script by Dominic Col\u00f3n to be featured in the scripted podcast series \u201dLove in Gravity,\u201c the 6th Outfest Los Angeles Trans, Nonbinary & Intersex Summit \u2014\u00a0 consisting of a keynote address from writer and activist, Raquel Willis, two timely filmmaker perspectives, an artist to artist conversation on intersex visibility, and a comedy showcase featuring D\u2019Lo, Nori Reed, Jes Tom, 7g, River Butcher, and Kai \u2014 and dance classes from Tiffany Billings\u2019 J\u2019Et\u00e9, House of Ebony and Rashida KhanBey Miller\u2019s (Lizzo\u2019s \u201cWatch Out for the Big Grrrls\u201dMessy Movement Workshop for Female Spectrum Actors\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re really trying to bring the fest in the festival back,\u201d Navarro said. \u201cObviously film will always be centered around this particular festival, but we have lots of activities for whether you\u2019re a fan, an audience member, a cinephile or an industry insider that is interested in film.\u201d<\/p>\n Navarro joined Outfest before the outbreak of the pandemic in 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cThe irony of COVID was I had spent the better half of nearly 20 years of my career in streaming media technology, and so there was definitely a bizarre moment in which I realized that perhaps that might be valuable in ways that I didn\u2019t exactly expect to be a fit,\u201d Navarro said. \u201cIt was a very analog kind of more traditional festival. Many of us had to change our thinking when COVID came along. However, I have come to realize that the COVID crisis forced many of us to pivot in ways we never imagined. [they\u2019re have]It was a great opportunity to show off concepts that have become mainstay programming. So it\u2019s bittersweet.\u201c<\/p>\n