LGBT, coast to coast.

"One of the struggles faced by Outfest (aka the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival) in recent years has been to clarify its purpose in a post-Will & Grace/Queer Eye for the Straight Guy world in which studies on cultural homophobia show Americans (notably younger generations) becoming more tolerant of LGBT folk even as the political right reliably deploys homophobic tactics to bolster support among its faithful," writes Ernest Hardy, introducing the LA Weekly's guide to the festival running through July 21 - and looking back over its history:

Updated through 7/13.

How to negotiate the two-steps-forward-one-step-back realities of queer power and visibility on a morphing cultural landscape? How to juggle the often conflicting perceptions of film festivals as bazaars for distributors and studios, rarefied outposts for cinephiles and (particularly in the case of Outfest) forums for activist art? Those questions have been complicated by a lot of queer filmmakers evolving - or devolving, depending on your point of view - away from the more politically charged, often experimental fare of the New Queer Cinema of the 1980s and early 90s to create films as bland and formulaic as anything coming out of mainstream Hollywood.

Susan King in the Los Angeles Times: "Kirsten Schaffer, interim executive director of Outfest, says that while the festival's main audience is gay men, it does attract straight moviegoers as well, and organizers are working to expand Outfest's appeal. 'We are trying hard to generate more of a female audience and bring in a younger audience and bring in more people-of-color audience,' she says."

"This year's festival contains a whopping 212 titles (including roughly 80 features), with many keynote premieres, from director Tim Frywell's fascinating-sounding Victorian women's prison mystery, Affinity, to Todd Stephens's likely D-and-A beefcake fest Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild!" Paul Birchall introduces the LA CityBeat's upbeat Outfest overview: "Even considering the daunting number of entries on display, the number of works likely to make a crossover to the mainstream is small. Instead, the festival offers an exciting venue for dynamic smaller efforts, which continue to artfully shade in the nuances of queer life."

Laurie Lynd's Breakfast with Scot (site) opened Outfest last night and, as Brian Brooks reports in indieWIRE, it's "been acquired by here! Films, the theatrical distribution and worldwide sales division of here! Networks, the company announced Tuesday. Sister company Regent Releasing will open the film in autumn." A quick rundown of Outfest highlights follows.

Meanwhile, the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival opens today and runs through July 22; both the Philadelphia City Paper and the Philadelphia Weekly offer guides to the first week.

Also in the City Paper: Natalie Hope McDonald talks with Jane Lynch, who plays a closeted teacher's girlfriend in Stewart Wade's Tru Loved (site), and who'll "be in town this weekend to receive the fest's Artistic Achievement Award for Acting and cut a rug at Sisters nightclub's after-party, aptly titled See Jane Dance."

Sam Adams has got an interview, too: "Samuel R Delany has conjured distant worlds and bizarre societies, alien beings and unfathomable futures, but few of them are as strange and wondrous as his own life." Fred Barney Taylor's doc, The Polymath, or The Life and Opinions of Samuel Delany, Gentleman, is featured at the festival.

Gabriel Wardell, executive director of Image Film and Video Center, currently morphing its identity into Atlanta Film Festival 365, has put out a call to the local LGBT community to "take ownership" of Atlanta's Out on Film (November 6 through 9). He points Gregg Goldstein breakdown of the challenges facing LGBT festivals and independent LGBT cinema in general in the Hollywood Reporter, adding, "It was almost a year ago to the day that I wrote 'LGBT Film Festivals in crisis?' in which I drew comparisons between LGBT film festival programming and the increasing challenges of programming quality international films on fest circuit because of unreasonable guarantees demanded by reps and distribs, and pointing out why the LGBT distributors were effectively crippling the fests by asking for unreasonable guarantees."

Earlier: Michael Koresky and Chris Wisniewski open indieWIRE's "Queer Cinema Notebook."

Update, 7/13: "Outfest's Queer State of the Nation panel with gay politicos and filmmakers on Saturday was designed to talk about issues like same-sex marriage and 'don't ask, don't tell,' but it naturally spilled over into a wider discussion of the state of the 08 race." Ted Johnson reports.

Posted by dwhudson at July 10, 2008 4:39 AM