Scene from Rafiki, a Kenyan film telling a tale of forbidden love, showing as part of the Milwaukee Film Festival on Sunday, Oct. 28 and Tuesday, Oct. 30.
It’s film festival season, and movie buffs are all abuzz about the Milwaukee Film Festival extensive (and seductive) program of cinematic offerings. There’s even a brand-new “GenreQueer” category dedicated to LGBTQ documentaries and fiction filmmaking.
The half-dozen features traverse contemporary themes—from Chedeng and Apple, a lesbian Thelma and Louise-style road trip comedy, to the starkly contrasting 1985, an intense and emotional black-and-white flashback to our past confrontation with AIDS. The remaining four include an energetic documentary, When the Beat Drops, about an underground Atlanta-based African American dance style known as “bucking;” Rafiki, a Kenyan film (and banned there) telling a tale of forbidden love; a Brazilian documentary on black trans performance artist and activist Linn da Quebrada, Bixa Travesty; and, finally, the comedy Ideal Home, in which a pair of very gay bon vivant gastronomes take in a 10-year-old grandson with a taste for Taco Bell, and the perfect family ensues.
Most of the films are co-sponsored by a range of LGBTQ community partners like the LGBT Community Center, the LGBT Chamber of Commerce, Outwords Books, This Is It!, The Tool Shed and the LGBT Film/Video Festival.
Speaking of which, the 33rd Annual LGBT Film/Video Festival is also underway. Unless you follow it on social media or the UW-Milwaukee website, you may not have noticed. Abandoning decades of tradition, there was no gala launch reception or grand opening screening at the Oriental Theatre. As reported last month’s Shepherd Express WTF? (“Where’s the Festival?”) interview with long-term festival director Carl Bogner, the event’s format has again reverted to one that had been in place (briefly) several years ago. Namely, rather than the classic, full-fledged, 11-day festival, there will be monthly screenings. While the interview didn’t fully explain the rationale for the change, Bogner mentioned “resources” and referenced the fact that UWM’s film department, the event’s host, “has other things going on.”
This subject has come up before and may reflect funding cuts imposed on the UW System by the current state administration. There’s simply less money to go around, and outside funding for non-priorities may not be making up the difference. That, and conservative state government policies (resulting, for example, in an attempt to cut health benefits for trans employees) certainly impact extra-curricular activities—especially ones celebrating the LGBTQ community.
And there’s the reality of falling attendance. In a conversation I had with Bogner several years ago, I asked about the lack of younger attendees, surprising as it was, given the festival’s location on the city’s largest university campus. His response cited the various media alternatives students enjoyed, like watching movies on a phone.
One would like to be optimistic and hope the LGBT Film/Video Festival might return to its former days of glory, when the entire community, in all its diversity, thronged into the Oriental Theatre lobby, and one found oneself immersed in the vibe and giddy anticipation of a communal cinematic experience. Perhaps a major change in the political landscape might bring that about. Or, perhaps, a greater integration into the Milwaukee Film Festival might be in the offing. Either way, I’ll look forward to a grand reception, a red carpet opening and an after-party—maybe next year.
