LGBT Film Festival

By Anthony Pilloud
Contributing Writer

“The Fargo-Moorhead Film Festival seeks to celebrate Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender lived experience through the visions of innovative film and video makers. We are seeking films and videos that enrich, entertain, and encourage a sense of community. This festival hopes to recognize the diversity of local, regional, national, and international LGBT communities”

The mission statement for MSUM’s LGBT Film Festival, with its third annual screening next week, reinforces a single important word: community. What is often regarded as solely an LGBT event is gaining the respect that it deserves as an artistic venue for (and by) the community.

The festival will be hosted at the historic Fargo Theatre on Sept. 16 and 17. Friday night’s events start at 8 p.m. and Saturday afternoon’s events start at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. Admission price is five dollars for each screening. This is the first year that the event was not hosted in June for Pride Week (it was the kick-off event for Pride Week its opening year).

The growing interest and reception for the festival by both the Fargo/Moorhead local community and the college crowd expresses the importance to view it just as much as a regular film festival, a venue for individual artistic expression, as well as a LGBT event. “It’s really a cross academic, cross community event,” said Raymond Rhea, the Fargo-Moorhead LGBT Film Festival Curator. An LGBT Film Festival does not simply mean including films about gay culture, but films made by members of the gay community. Many LGBT Film Festivals were once established simply as a means for individuals to venue their work and have since grown in size, quality, and influence consistently over the years. They yet remain an often much needed breathe of fresh air for movies.

Categories include Narrative Short, Documentary Short, and Documentary Feature. A total of thirteen films are being screened for the weekend event.

Friday will air “Falling for Christine,” a lesbian romantic comedy; “Spiral Transition,” a documentary that follows the filmmaker’s relationship with his mother as he changes genders; “El Abuelo,” a short by and made for Chicano Gay men; “Bedfellows,” a homosexual telling of a fairy tale; and “I Am,” a glimpse into the gay/lesbian life within India.

The Saturday early afternoon screening shows “Alone,” a black and white 16mm experimental short that explores relationships within the city; “Being Me,” the only local submission about the filmmaker’s journey to coming out; and “Mom’s Apple Pie,” a feature length documentary about the Lesbian Child Custody Rights Movement.

And for Saturday night, the final showing, we will see “Dish,” which follows two Los Angeles emo kids who ‘dish’ about their sexting escapades; “Decoding Alan Turing,” a historical documentary about the renowned homosexual inventor; “A Drag King Extravaganza,” a documentary that explores the rise of Drag King performances; “Alison, My Love;” and “Swimming with Lesbians,” which expresses the New York community’s efforts to archive a LGBT history.

This is also the first year with a local submission. Jared Kellerman is a 26-year-old Concordia graduate who took a Personal Documentary class and decided to structure his story about his experience coming out to his friends and family. The result was his first film “Being Me.”
Kellerman plans to attend graduate school for counseling – in fact, it was the therapeutic process of art that attracted him to the idea of making a film about his experience. He spent time in India, and during his time exploring cultures he was given a chance to structure his own personal identity in a space that was removed from a Western-minded, typically Christian culture. “Homosexuality was a culture of omission,” Kellerman said. “We weren’t able to talk about it when I was younger.”

The film is told chronologically up to the point when it was made, “where I am comfortable with who I am.” It focuses on the concept of the “director as subject,” and so the film incorporates several interviews with Kellerman’s friends and family. He hopes that his film will help others with their own personal experiences. “I’m not the only one who is going through this. The key is to talk about [it].”

Kellerman’s submission shows the importance of using filmmaking as a healing process. “I’ve come to respect the process [of filmmaking]. It was worthwhile.”  Hopefully with Kellerman’s submission, we will see a rise in local art tailored for these forms of venues. “Identity is such an important thing in one’s life, and until you incorporate those things together, you kind of feel like a drifter until you find all the parts.”

The event is sponsored by the Fargo-Moorhead Pride Collective and Community Center and the MSUM Film Studies Department.

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IF YOU GO:
WHAT: LGBT Film Festival
WHERE: Fargo Theatre
WHEN: Friday Sept. 16 and Sat. Sept. 17
COST: $5 per screening
MORE INFO: http://www.mnstate.edu/film/festival/