20 Years in The Life
In a city quickly becoming known for both the abundance and quality of its film festivals, he LGBT Film Festival is one of Milwaukee’s longest running. Once housed solely in the UWM film department and programmed in conjunction with Great Lakes Film and Video (no longer in existence), the festival has grown over time and now incorporates the efforts of the Peck School of the Arts – UWM’s visual arts, dance and theatre department. Now in its 20th year, the LGBT Film Festival is no longer just a community tradition; it has become a showcase for some of the finest films and videos from and about the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities.
The LGBT Film Festival started in 1987 to address the lack of representation of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people on screen. Its growth in popularity can be attributed in part to the boom of the independent film market and a greater general awareness of the LBGT community. But its long-running success has been achieved through consistently providing a well-run event offering an excellent balance of thought-provoking and entertaining films.
The process of putting on an 11-day film festival takes planning – weeding through film submissions, making contacts and solicitations, researching and attending other gay and lesbian film festivals and reviewing old films. And while the festival itself has gotten bigger, making it happen still falls, as it has for the last decade, upon one man: Carl Bogner.
As an undergraduate student in the film department at UWM in the mid ‘90s, Carl ran the Union Theater. After receiving his film degree, he was asked by Dick Blau, then Chair of the UWM Film Department, to take over the festival. Now in his 10th year with the event, Carl has seen the festival grow to hit more notes on the cinematic scale. It has become a textured body, striking a perfect balance of audience-pleasing films and more challenging and academic works.
One factor is the lack of labels or cultural taboos that many of the younger generation of gay and lesbians associate with, most notable being the trauma of “coming out,” which has been, until recently, a staple of gay and lesbian film festivals. “For younger people, gays and lesbian film festival have a different kind of weight and interest. I don’t think they feel like they don’t have access to gay and lesbian images the way early generations did,” Carl explains.
Finding the one perfect film for opening night that serves the diverse LGBT community can be a challenge. This year’s festival will open on September 6 at the Oriental Theater with Nina’s Heavenly Delights, from pioneering filmmaker and scholar Pratibha Parmar. Described as “pure froth in an intelligent and pleasurable way,” by Carl, Parmar’s first feature-length film is a family comedy about a closeted daughter who finds romance in an unusual way.
“In some ways” Bogner explains, “it’s about Bollywood cinema, in that it has an unabashed commitment to sentiment and to all sorts of sensory pleasures. It’s a real foody movie –the heroine is this chef and she enters a cooking competition to save the family restaurant and falls in love along the way.” Not just a comedy, Nina’s Heavenly Delights addresses the representation of lesbians of color and the pleasure of family and same-sex relationships.
Another notable entry is the documentary For the Bible Tells Me So, from director Daniel Karslake. The film utilizes the experience of five families with gay or lesbian children to explore how the Bible has impacted the treatment of the LGBT community. From its premiere in 2006 at the Sundance Film Festival, For the Bible Tells Me So has been winning awards around the country.
Aside from serving the gay and lesbian community directly, the LGBT film festival also addresses a culture that is either unknown or strewn with confusion for many who live outside it. This year’s LGBT film festival promises to be both a visual and an educational feast that will showcase a mix of comedies, dramas, documentaries and experimental shorts from around the world. And while films always aim to entertain, if people walk away a little more enlightened, a little more compassionate and a little more appreciative of their LGBT neighbors, then the 2007 festival will have been another success. VS
The LBGT Film Festival runs September 6 – 16 at the UWM Union Theater and the Oriental Theater. For tickets and more information, including a full schedule of events,visit
www4.uwm.edu/psoa/programs/film/lgbtfilm/index.html
