Lavender Images and Poetic Landscapes: My Thirty Years in the Queer Film Ecosystem

2021 ◽  
pp. 568-606
Author(s):  
Jenni Olson
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
Film Exhibition ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
Queer Cinema ◽  
Royal Road

This chapter by LGBT filmmaker and film historian Jenni Olson is a firsthand account of her thirty-plus years of work across the ecosystem of queer cinema. It covers her curatorial work in the late 1980s and early 1990s (she was codirector of the San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival); her extraordinary efforts as an LGBT film collector and archivist over the decades (her collection was acquired by the Harvard Film Archive in 2020); her pioneering work in online queer-film exhibition, as cofounder of PlanetOut.com; her decade as director of marketing for the LGBT film distributor, Wolfe Video; and her work as a maker of digressive and contemplative 16mm essay films, such as The Royal Road (2015) and The Joy of Life (2005), which speak from a butch lesbian perspective and reflect on a wide array of preoccupations.

Commentary onThe 49th San Francisco International Film Festival,April 20 – May 4, 2006Sólo Dios sabe (Only God Knows), Mexico/Brazil. Directed by Carlos Bolado .Into Great Silence (Die Grosse Stille), Germany. Screenplay by Philip Groening . Directed by Philip Groening .The Silent Holy Stones, China. Screenplay by Wanma-caidan . Directed by Wanma-caidan .The Giant Buddhas, Switzerland. Directed by Christian Frei .Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, USA. Directed by Stanley Nelson .One Long Winter Without Fire (Tout un hiver sans feu), Switzerland/Belgium. Screenplay by Pierre-Pascal Rossi . Directed by Greg Zglinski .Clouds of Yesterday (Utsukushiki Tennen), Japan. Screenplay by Takushi Tsubokawa , Directed by Takushi Tsubokawa .Illumination, France. Screenplay by Pascale Breton . Directed by Pascale Breton .Sa-Kwa, South Korea. Screenplay by Kang Yi-Kwan . Directed by Kang Yi-Kwan .The Descent, England. Screenplay by Neil Marshall . Directed by Neil Marshall .The Bridge, USA. Directed by Eric Steel .Favela Rising, Brazil/USA. Co-directed by Jeff Zimbalist and Matt Mochary .Workingman's Death, Austria/Germany. Screenplay by Michael Glawogger . Directed by Michael Glawogger .Iraq in Fragments, USA. Directed by James Longley .The Dignity of the Nobodies (La Dignidado de los nadies), Argentina. Screenplay by Fernando E. Solanos . Directed by Fernando E. Solanos .

2006 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 20-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathleen Rountree
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
Life And Death

scholarly journals Homosexuality and South African Cinema

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin P. Botha
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Unique Contribution ◽  
African History ◽  
Film Festival ◽  
African Cinema ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
African Film ◽  
Lesbian History ◽  
Gay And Lesbian History

The following is an excerpt from a larger manuscript HOMOSEXUALITY AND AFRICAN CINEMA, a co-operative effort of Dr Botha (CityVarsity, Film & Television and Multimedia School in Cape Town, South Africa) and Professor Dethier and Dr. Willemse at the Free University of Brussels. IN A GLITTERING ceremony at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival a full-length South African film, The Man Who Drove With Mandela won the Documentary Teddy Prize. It was rewarded for its unique contribution to gay and lesbian history and for bringing forward a challenging and politically engaging subject. The Man Who Drove With Mandela was directed by Greta Schiller and researched by the co-writer of the outstanding compilation on South African lesbian and gay lives, Defiant Desire, namely Mark Gevisser. No other film in South African history chronicled the lives of lesbian and gays in the way Gevisser's documentary has done(1). It is a...

Talk About Loving in the War Years

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily K. Hobson
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Women Of Color ◽  
The United States ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
Bay Area ◽  
Sandinista Revolution ◽  
Gay Activism ◽  
Gay Movement ◽  
Ongoing Support

Between 1984 and 1990, lesbian and gay activists in the Bay Area and in Nicaragua built transnational ties that reshaped the gay and lesbian left. Two solidarity brigades composed largely of lesbians of color, Somos Hermanas and the Victoria Mercado Brigade, traveled from San Francisco to Nicaragua and made Nicaraguan solidarity a vehicle for multiracial, transnational, and women of color feminism. Meanwhile, the Nicaraguan lesbian and gay movement sought recognition in the Sandinista Revolution. They resisted repression by Sandinista security forces but kept that repression unknown in the United States to ensure ongoing support from solidarity activists. By managing solidarity efforts, Nicaraguan activists pursued their own goals and won Sandinista support for AIDS prevention and lesbian and gay activism.

24th and Mission

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily K. Hobson
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Women Of Color ◽  
Central American ◽  
Gay And Lesbian ◽  
New Right ◽  
Mission District ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
Sandinista Revolution ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Nicaraguan Revolution

Gay and lesbian radicals opposed both the domestic and the foreign policies of the New Right and became allies to Nicaragua's Sandinista Revolution. Starting in 1978, activists began to organize uniquely lesbian and gay solidarity with Nicaragua and to use these efforts to address tensions between sexuality, socialism, and racial and ethnic identities. Lesbian and gay solidarity was anti-imperialist, anti-militarist, and sought multiracial community in the San Francisco Mission District. Activists built groups including the Gay Latino Alliance, Gay People for the Nicaraguan Revolution, and Lesbians and Gays Against Intervention. By 1983 lesbian and gay radicals had won a major presence in Central American solidarity and forged networks tied to women of color feminism and the San Francisco Women's Building.

Representing Ourselves into Existence

2021 ◽  
pp. 510-540
Author(s):  
Laura Horak
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Arts Funding ◽  
Transgender Identity ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Many ◽  
Film And Video

This chapter explores the energetic and innovative trans cinema movement that emerged in the 1990s by looking at case studies of the first transgender film festivals—Counting Past 2 in Toronto, the International Transgender Film and Video Festival in London, and Tranny Fest in San Francisco. Each festival took a different approach to trans film programming, community building, and arts funding. Together, the three festivals helped define a specifically transgender identity and community that overlapped with but were not the same as “queer.” They also influenced the programming of lesbian and gay festivals, carving out more room for trans-made work. These case studies demonstrate how film festivals can contribute to social and aesthetic movements, how festival organizers have overcome and become mired in the challenges they face, and the many ways in which trans has long put pressure on “lesbian and gay” and “queer” in the face of its erasure.

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