However, considering that LGBTQ issues are becoming much more commonplace in mainstream film and TV, including transgender characters and story lines, what types of territory are left for forward-thinking LGBTQ filmmakers to explore?
Michael Patrick Spillers, who wrote and directed Whittier Boulevard, one of the short films being screened during the QFilms Fest in Long Beach next month, says the intermingling of various communities is one theme to conquer.
“Now that LGBTQ issues are becoming more visible in the mainstream media, I think it is vital to tell stories about the ways in which we intersect with other communities, particularly youth and communities of color,” Spillers wrote in an email to the Signal Tribune. “Young people like Devan represent our future, and it is so important that we work to share their stories, and to demonstrate the diversity within our larger community.”
“Devan,” to which Spillers referred, is 19-year-old Long Beach resident Devan Torres, a transgender actor who has been part of the film project— “a rock ‘n’ roll fable” about transgender teen runaway Andre falling in love with a rockabilly princess on the streets of East LA— from its genesis.
“Devan originated the lead role in Whittier Boulevard three years ago, when he was only 16,” Spillers said. “The film began as a short theatre piece at Company of Angels in Los Angeles, and Devan auditioned for us through a teen acting class sponsored by Casa 0101 Theatre, a nonprofit arts organization in Boyle Heights. It has been so exciting to see Devan continue and mature in the role over the last three years, as we expanded the project to a short film. Devan brings an honesty and authenticity to the role that has always served as the heart of the story.”
Casper Andreas, whose thriller Kiss Me, Kill Me has garnered several audience awards— including Best Narrative Feature at FilmOut San Diego— and will be shown during the QFilms Festival, said his film takes a new approach to a classic genre.
“It’s very entertaining, and it’s a take on the classic noir murder mystery-thriller but with a gay twist— not something that I think has been done before, so I think audiences enjoy that aspect too,” Andreas told the Signal Tribune. “But we also got awards for the cinematography, the score and several acting awards both for the ensemble cast and our lead played by Van Hansis— and that, I think, is because all our actors are amazing, and I worked with a fantastic cinematographer, Rainer Lipski, and an incredible composer, Jonathan Dinerstein, who truly captured the film noir aspect in their work on the film.”
There seems to be no shortage of narratives for LGBTQ filmmakers to share these days. Porter Gilberg, executive director of the LGBTQ Center Long Beach, says the 2016 lineup for the QFilms Fest is the most diverse yet.
“We have so many different stories about the LGBTQ community— everything from the famous Catch One nightclub in Los Angeles, the current ball scene on the East Coast, young transgender activists and great narrative features from all over the country,” Gilberg said. “This year we’re honored to screen a number of Los Angeles-based features and shorts, while also highlighting the best LGBTQ films around on the independent film scene.”
He said a volunteer programming committee that donates time to the screening process selects all the films.
“We review over 150 films every year for our 16 different programming spots,” Gilberg said. “Our committee is incredibly diverse and includes Center staff and board members, film-industry professionals, professors, one of QFilms founders and folks who just really love LGBTQ cinema.”
The 2016 Long Beach QFilm Festival will take place Thursday, Sept. 8 through Sunday, Sept. 11 at the Art Theatre, 2025 East 4th St., and the neighboring LGBTQ Center of Long Beach.
The event is Long Beach’s longest-running film festival, having begun in 1993, according to Gilberg, and more than 1,500 people attend each year to view a mix of West Coast, Southern California and local premieres as well some of the most acclaimed features on the film-festival circuit.
Numerous filmmakers and cast members of the films will be in attendance for audience discussions after each screening, and festival events will feature parties and opportunities for attendees to meet and mingle with filmmakers, actors, critics and other industry professionals.
The festival will open at the Art Theatre the evening of Sept. 8 with the Long Beach premiere of Jewel’s Catch One, the celebratory documentary about the queer black woman who established Los Angeles’s landmark nightclub “for gays, lesbians, bis, tris and otherwise.”
It will be followed by the Los Angeles-area premiere of Rob Williams’s Shared Rooms, a “sexy and moving” story focused on several different gay men whose paths inadvertently cross between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
An opening-night party will take place between screenings at the LGBTQ Center.
Two well received “killer” features will have their local premieres on Friday, Sept. 9.
Women Who Kill is a dark comedy of manners involving two ex-girlfriends who have become true-crime podcasters. Writer-director-star Ingrid Jungermann’s screenplay has won awards at both the Tribeca and Outfest film festivals.
It will be followed by the aforementioned Kiss Me, Kill Me, in which a man is accused of murdering his unfaithful boyfriend. The cast includes Gale Harold of Queer as Folk fame.
A party “to die for” will take place between screenings at the Center.
Other narrative and documentary features that will have their Long Beach premieres between Saturday and Sunday are: Kiki, “a worthy successor to Paris is Burning and Leave It on the Floor,” about the young, multicultural participants in New York City’s famed drag balls; Retake, in which a man played by Tuc Watkins (Desperate Housewives, Where the Bears Are) hires a hustler to accompany him on a life-changing road trip; The Revival: Women & The Word, a fly-on-the-wall documentary focusing on four queer, black women devoted to poetry and the spoken word; Free CeCe, a documentary (featuring Laverne Cox of Orange is the New Black) that confronts the culture of violence surrounding trans women of color; Bruising for Besos, in which a lesbian artist finds her life upended when she falls for a Puerto Rican woman; Raising Zoey, the real-life story of a transgender teenager who won an anti-discrimination legal case against her school district; and Angry Indian Goddesses, an award-winning Bollywood comedy-drama set against the backdrop of a woman’s impending wedding.
The closing-night films on Sunday, Sept. 11 will be First Girl I Loved, a Sundance Film Festival-award winner about the love triangle between two high school girls and a jealous male best friend, and Paris 05:59: Theo & Hugo, the initially racy but ultimately romantic tale (and winner of the “Teddy” Audience Award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival) of two men who meet in an underground sex club.
In addition, QFilms’ signature short film programs— Men in Briefs and Women in Shorts— will return Sept. 10 and 11 as well as a Queer and Trans People of Color short-film program.
Jury and audience awards will be given to films in several categories. All net proceeds from the festival will benefit The LGBTQ Center of Long Beach and its community-outreach programs.
Passes and tickets are available for purchase at qfilmslongbeach.com.
