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This year’s program features some new components to compliment the film series. For opening night, we will be hosting Dave Schmader and his live commentary of the camp classic Showgirls. Schmader’s one-man show Straight about conversion therapy has been documented and will screen with an introduction by Schmader. Later on in the series will be another lively event, a sing-along to the Olivia Newton John/Gene Kelley/ELO 80s hit Xanadu. Festival founder Jenni Olson will provide her personal print of the rare lesbian pulp film Just the Two of Us. After a one-year break, the audience favorite shorts programs are back with another round of hilarious films from around the world. There are many compelling films to appeal to give a multi-dimensional view of queer lives. Paternal Instinct and Making Grace show the pleasures and pain involved in gays and lesbians choosing to have children. Issues around rural gay life are covered in the documentary Farm Family and the chilling feature film The Mudge Boy. Agnes Godard’s cinematography is stunning in the Teddy Award winning (Best Gay Film, 2004 Berlin Film Festival) Wild Side. For the first time, we will be screening two exciting queer films from Thailand, the campy and alluring The Adventure of Iron Pussy and the heart-wrenching transgender kickboxing film Beautiful Boxer. In addition filmmaker, curator and scholar M.R. Daniel will be on hand to moderate a panel of local filmmakers, curators, critics and programmers to discuss the future of queer cinema, just in time to map out our next 15 years. Stay strong and enjoy the festival. ------------------------------------------------------- Festival Staff: Curator: Dean Otto |
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The Minneapolis/St. Paul LGBT Film Festival celebrates its 15th year of bringing thought provoking, entertaining and challenging queer films to the Twin Cities. The program was first presented under the auspices of Film In the Cities (FITC) with the assistance of filmmaker, curator, author and archivist Jenni Olson who had been programming the Lavender Images series at the University of Minnesota. When FITC closed in the mid-90s, University Film Society took the program on with Bob Strong at the helm for several years and eventually Lucas Hilderbrand in the late 90s. Now organized by Minnesota Film Arts at its new home at Oak Street Cinema, the festival strives to provide a diverse selection of queer work from across the globe to balance the two-dimensional images available in the media today.