7th annual Pride Film Festival, 'Steer Queer,' busts out this weekend

Mike Albo of The Advocate Magazine searched and ranked America’s 15 “gayest burgs.”

Bloomington was listed fourth.

Albo calls it a “magnet city for gays in the Grain Belt.”

If this is true, then the seventh annual Pride Film Festival will be no stranger to the high magnitude.

The festival will begin at 7 p.m. on each night from Jan. 28 to 31. The theme of this year’s festival, “Steer Queer,” focuses on GLBT life and energy in rural communities.
Buskirk-Chumley Theater Marketing Director Maarten Bout said ticket sales for the event have been constant during the years with a great audience for all four days of the festival.

Film programming coordinator Brittany Friesner organized film screenings and voting to narrow the selection to nearly 40 films, including shorts and features, animation, documentaries, comedy and drama.

“We want as much diversity as possible,” she said.

Friesner said she feels the festival has a strong plate of films this year, including the documentary “Prodigal Sons” that passed by one vote.

“The film got us talking the most, so I am interested to see how the community reacts to the film,” she said.

Friesner said the film festival is not just for the GLBT community, it’s for everyone.
“I wasn’t technically a part of GLBT, but it’s not exclusive,” Friesner said. “It’s great to have something that you feel a part of that you wouldn’t have necessarily been a part of.”

When senior Jackie Webster signed up for her Communication, Culture, and Community course that helps plan the GLBT Film Festivals, she had never been much of a film-person but soon found herself a part of the GLBT community as well.

“The festival is different than any other event on campus,” Webster said. “There is an atmosphere of acceptance where people can go to celebrate their sexuality and gender identity.”

As part of the class, Webster became a member of the steering committee. Members decided on the theme of the festival and participated in the marketing, fundraising and screening of films.

“The festival is more than just the film screenings, you have to experience the whole event, not just the screenings,” she said.

Webster was responsible for outreach on the IU campus while some of her classmates planned service events or movie trivia nights.

“The festival has a reputation that it gets more community members than students, but it has a lot directed toward youth,” Webster said.

Webster said one example of this is the Closing Night Party beginning at 10:30 p.m. on Jan. 30. The Pride Festival Web Site states “erotic attire encouraged.”

“It [the dance party] is the concept of the whole festival to celebrate GLBT in all forms and send a message that it is okay to be gay,” Bout said.

Helen Harrell, IU OUT GLBT Student Union advisor and WFHB Disc Jockey for bloomingOUT, the only local gay radio show and one of the few gay radio shows in the U.S., said this is an important community event because it celebrates acceptance for queers as well as the community in general.

“It offers an opportunity for GLBT to get their films out there in a nonthreatening way,” Harrell said.

Harrell said she is looking forward to seeing old faces, having coffee with old friends and enjoying the good party afterward.

“There are a lot of GLBT who come as you may expect,” Harrell said, “but a lot of allies and people who are curious come too.”