Every year, Outfest hosts Fusion, a film festival for and about LGBTQ people of color with screenings, workshops, special presentations, galas and parties. 2017’s line-up is full of incredible programming for queer women, and we’ve got some highlights picked out below.
Workshops
No Money, No Problem: Creating Content on Your Own Terms With Brittani Nichols
Out comic/writer/actor Brittani Nichols (“Words with Girls,” “Suicide Kale”) leads this Thursday evening workshop on how to make your own web series or podcast without a huge budget.
One-Minute Filmmaking Incubator Lab With Marla Ulloa and Nidhin Patel
Award-winning filmmaker Marla Ulloa (I Know Who I Am, Sands of Silence: Waves of Courage) co-leads this workshop on teaching the basic skills of creating a one-minute cinematic story.
Archive and Thrive: Transferring VHS Tapes to Digital Files With Taylor Morales
The manager of the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project will show attendees how to take VHS, Hi8, 8mm and 16mm film and make it digital, as well as how to preserve it forever.
Shorts
The LatinX Files: Queer Shorts
Highlights include Candy Guinea‘s “Que Siga La Cumbia” (“Queer and trans people sanctify public space amidst gentrification”), Florencia Manovil‘s “Encuentro” (“Claudia’s night out with friends is disrupted by an encounter with the captivating Isabel”) and “The Sweetspot” from Kimberly Bautista (“A diverse group of friends approach their 30s and realize that they’re no closer to traditional adulthood than when they were fresh out of high school.”)
No Place Like Home: Queer Asian Shorts
Don’t miss “The Right Bank” from Yvonne Li (“A Chinese lesbian must come out to her conservative mother in order to save her relationship with her American girlfriend”), Mei Liying‘s “Cocoon” (“An adolescent girl in China discovers her mother’s secret, which disrupts her family life”) and Pallavi Somusetty‘s “Escaping Agra” (“A gender non-conforming student runs away from their traditional Indian parents”).
Black Queer Magic: Shorts from the African Diaspora
Cecilie McNair‘s “Mukwano” follows Mary, who flees Uganda for Demark “after she and her girlfriend faced horrible terrors” in their home country.
Fusion Gala Shorts
Several of these specially-chosen shorts are from women directors and/or feature female-focused stories: Leann Bowen‘s “Sidekicks,” Elegance Bratton‘s “Walk for Me,” Cathy Yan‘s “According to My Mother,” April A. Wilson‘s “Care” and Petersen Vargas‘s “Swirl,” a four-minute film about “two girls fall[ing] in and out of love through the course of a day, in reverse.”
TV Shows & Web Series
Netflix’s “One Day at a Time” and Fox’s “Star” will both have special presentations of their LGBTQ-inclusive series that focus on a Cuban-American family and a multi-cultural girl group, respectively. Both screenings will be followed by Q&As with creators, writers and stars, including Isabella Gomez, who plays the teenage lesbian daughter on “One Day at a Time.”
“Spectrum London”
Out filmmaker Campbell X (“Stud Life”) returns with this series of stories focusing on diverse LGBTQs living and loving in London.
Films
“Angry Indian Goddesses”
Pan Nalin directs this feature about a group of friends who reunite for a bachelorette party where it’s revealed that one of them is in love with another woman.
“Apricot Groves”
Writer/director Pouria Heidary Oureh tells the story of Aram, “an Iranian-Armenian trans man living in the U.S. since childhood, [who] returns to Armenia to meet his girlfriend’s conservative family.”
“And Still We Rise”
Activists Nancy Nicol and Richard Lusimbo document the “devastating effects” the Anti-Homosexual Act has had on their Ugandan LGBTQ community.
“Jewel’s Catch One”
C. Fitz chronicles the extensive career of Jewel Thais-Williams whose Los Angeles nightclub was a staple for LGBTQs and POCs from the 1970s through the early 2000s. An out and proud lesbian activist who wanted to create a space for all people to enjoy themselves, Jewel is a legend that the likes of Madonna, Sharon Stone and Thelma Houston show love for.
“Forbidden: Undocumented and Queer in Rural America”
Director Tiffany Rhynard follows an undocumented gay man whose parents brought him to America from Mexico when he was a baby.
Outfest Fusion 2017 runs March 1-7. Get tickets and find out more at Outfest.org.
