Last week, The Reel Pride Film Festival celebrated its 20th anniversary showing a variety of films, documentaries, and shorts from all over the world containing LGBT (Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender) content. It has come a long way since it was organized in 1990 and held at Fresno State.
Over the years Reel Pride has relocated to many places including the now demolished Fig Garden Cinema and the Veterans Memorial Auditorium. It has made a permanent home at the Tower Theater since 2000, buying a projector and retractable screen in order to view movies. Along with the historical ambiance that the Tower District, it has become one of the most renown and visible LGBT film festivals.
Not only has it changed the scenery but so has its audience. It has increased not only in size but also in diversity. According to anonymous poles taken at the end of each night over the course of the five day festival, 25% of the audience identifies as heterosexual, showing a growing acceptance of the event.
Every year it has carefully chosen from a pool of 400 films and only showcases the best of the crop that make the audience laugh, cry and bring about a better understanding of the themes dealing with the LGBT community. The Board of Directors diligently work to find films that will reach out to people, looking at production value, casting, directing and plot to make their decisions.
It gives an opportunity for people to see films that cannot be viewed elsewhere, because either they do not get released on DVD due to budget constraints or they aren’t big enough to make it on television.
Although all of the films have a centralized theme, they do hold some universal ideas that speak to every mind. Jon Carroll, Chairman of the Board of Directors stated “The characters of the film may be gay or lesbian but the themes expressed are universal. Love, lose, triumph over adversity speak to everyone.”
Films such as Patrik 1.5 deals with a gay couple and their anguish of trying to adopt an infant child. This feeling isn’t only shared by gay couples but by heterosexual couples as well, who for whatever reason cannot have a child as well. The Baby Formula explores the idea of a child being artificially made through the fusion of two egg cells so the child will have two biological mothers. Giving a comical turn when one of the spouses decides to go behind the others back and become pregnant with their second child by the same means. Both women are pregnant and deal with the wild ride that is pregnancy (as many mothers might know what that is like).
Many of the films do push buttons, and emotions ran high as Hannah Free came to a close. The film deals with the journey of two women, madly in love, that comes to an end at a nursing home but are kept apart due to over-protective family members. The theater was filled with sobs and sniffles from the dramatic ending that would make Chuck Norris cry.
Despite the economic downturn, and sponsorship down by 20%, Reel Pride was able to open the Tower Theater doors and provide everyone with a unique experience. “The sponsors who thought it was important have come back but not as strong as they did in past years,” said Caroll. As it stands, Reel Pride will not be canceled next year, and is inviting new and returning audience members to enjoy a night of high quality production that cannot be experienced anywhere else.