One of the longest-running film festivals in Los Angeles, Outfest, will stage its 27th iteration July 9 - 19 (starts this Thursday!).
Presented by grand sponsor, HBO, Outfest will offer a week and a half of 182 narrative and nonfiction feature and short films and videos from 25 countries at seven different venues across the city, including outdoor screenings at Hollywood's Ford Amphitheatre, one of the most delightful places in LA to see a film under the stars.
The program includes six gala premieres, 68 feature films, 10 shorts programs and thirteen panels and special events over the course of the eleven days. This Thursday at downtown's beautiful Orpheum Theatre, the festival will present the 13th Annual Outfest Achievement Award right before the opening night film, La Mission, starring Benjamin Bratt. On Monday the 13th at the Directors' Guild theater in Hollywood, the Legacy Project Gala will raise money to help preserve LGBT film history with ticket sales for a special screening of Choosing Children from 1984, a film Outfest and the UCLA Film and Television Archive restored this past year. Also, Strand Releasing will showcase some of its catalog in a 20th anniversary film series.
Jon Korn, one of the programmers for the festival says that he thinks "one of the biggest trends we're seeing in LGBT documentaries recently is an increased diversity in the types of stories being told and an increased range in their subject matter. Whereas fifteen, or even ten years ago, a lot of films focused [solely] on the sexuality of their subjects as an exclusive topic. Simply making a film about someone being gay or 'coming out' doesn't seem to have enough narrative heft anymore, barring some sort of extra twist."
He continues: "While selecting films, the Director of Programming Kim Yutani, and I, as well as our crack staff of assistant programmers, certainly made an effort to program a wide variety of films. . . . Of course, given the size and diversity of the LGBT community both here in LA and worldwide, this allowed for a lot of flexibility. And I think our audiences appreciate the opportunity to take a chance and see films that might not directly reflect their individual lifestyles. For example, a film like Still Black: A Portrait of Black Transmen, which explores the black transman community, will most likely have an audience made up of all kinds of different people. On the other hand, we also have things such as Sounds Like Teen Spirit, which tracks the Teen Eurovision Song Contest. There's barely any direct discussion of LGBT topics in the film, but we thought that our audiences would love it, regardless."
Visit Outfest's online film guide to see all the other excellent fare on offer.
Comments