Tune in? Drive in? The show will go on
Annual Connecticut LGBTQ Film Festival plans to offer multiple viewing options
The 33rd annual Connecticut LGBTQ Film Festival will take place Oct. 2 to 10, showing 18 features and dozens of short films. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival will not be held in its traditional home, Cinestudio at Trinity College in Hartford, but online, and at a pop-up drive-in in Manchester.
“We didn’t feel that our entire audience would be comfortable going to physical theaters. And we might not have had the option anyway. Cinestudio re-closed in September because the school wanted to limit exposure of students. Then they were going to make a decision to reopen,” said Shane Engstrom, executive director of OutFilmCT, which presents the festival.
The spirit of Cinestudio remains. Engstrom said intros to the movies were shot at that cinema, “to make the experience as real to the original experience as possible.”
In addition to the diverse lineup of feature-length films, there are 12 shorts programs, more than in past years. Two shorts showcase noteworthy Nutmeggers: a doc about LGBT Catholic historian John Boswell, who lived in New Haven; and a caper starring Maggie Cassella, who was an attorney in Hartford before moving to Canada.
John Boswell
John Boswell, a Yale professor, died at the Yale infirmary in 1994 of AIDS-related complications. He was beloved by LGBTQ readers worldwide for his exhaustive research – in 17 languages, from archives worldwide – that proves homosexuality was historically accepted in the Catholic church until recent centuries, when it was demonized.
Boswell, most famous for “Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe,” is Craig
Bettendorf ’s hero. “His work led to liberation and the reclaiming of spirituality for millions of people,” Bettendorf said.
Bettendorf ’s short film about Boswell, “Sorry We Missed You,” is the first in what Bettendorf hopes will become a series about under-the-radar changemakers.
“I consider myself a spiritual person. I was able to reclaim that through Boswell’s work. Without it, I had no roadmap, no justification, no debate points I could offer to friends and family,” Bettendorf said.
In the movie, LGBT spiritual leaders discuss how Boswell’s research was reviled by the church but was so well-researched and footnoted that its validity can’t be denied.
“He converted to
Roman Catholicism as a teenager. He worked inside the church to make things better for people,” Bettendorf said. “He was a renowned scholar with full access to the Vatican archive and any other archive across the world. That access isn’t available to just anybody. He was the right person in the right place at the right time with the right credentials.”
“Sorry We Missed
You” will be shown in the Connecticut Connections shorts block.
Maggie Cassella
Maggie Cassella was a Hartford lawyer and LGBTQ activist. “I considered my work to be activism. I was one of basically two active out lawyers practicing in Hartford. We tried the test case for gay adoption. I took on trans clients early on. I was running around to hospitals doing wills for people with AIDS who nobody else wanted to help,” she said.
In the 1990s. she emigrated to Canada, where she built a career as standup comic, nightclub owner, actress, writer, radio host and talk-show host. She wrote and starred in a short film, “Maggie Mysteries,” which also will be shown in the Connecticut Connections shorts block. Cassella will appear in a Q&A as part of the program.
The inspiration for the silly parody was “Murdoch Mysteries,” a Canadian thriller TV series.
“It’s a very white, very male show. They tried being inclusive and putting in people of color and women in roles, but still, I said, I hate that I don’t see me in that show. Where is the butch? What is her life like?” Cassella said. “So I wrote a butch lesbian in that scenario. It was written out of frustration.”
In Toronto, Cassella also co-founded a charitable queer cabaret festival, We’re Funny That Way, which raises money to make huge donations to small nonprofits.
As an American in Canada, Cassella sometimes gets questions about her background. She has a standard, funny response.
“When Canadians ask me where I am from, I just say I’m gay. They don’t care if you’re queer. But if you
say you’re from the States, they say ‘What is wrong with you? Please explain the electoral college’,” she said. “I’m a closeted American, going back in the closet.”
Other films
“Stage Mother” is the opening-night film, to be shown Oct. 2 at 7:30 p.m. at the drive-in outside Parkade Cinemas, 416 Middle Turnpike West in Manchester. It stars Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver as
a conservative Texan who inherits her son’s drag club in San Francisco.
The centerpiece film is “Ahead of the Curve,” a documentary about Curve, a lesbian magazine. It will be shown Oct. 7 at 7:30 p.m. at Parkade.
The closing-night film is “Breaking Fast,” a comic drama about a gay Muslim man in love with an all-American guy. It will be shown Oct. 10 at 7:30 p.m. at Parkade.
Parkade admission is $20 per car. The Parkade films also can be seen virtually.
All other films are virtual only. Each virtual screening costs $8. Those film’s availability will roll out gradually throughout the festival. Viewers can start watching films within 72 hours from the time of payment and must finish watching within 48 hours of starting.
A five-show FestiPass is $30, $45 for households, and does not include the drive-ins. All Shorts FestiPass is $40, $60 household. All-Access Festi-Pass is $100, $150 for households.
Shorts block categories are international; queer people of color; youths; same-sex male; samesex female; Connecticut Connections; trans and nonbinary; drag and cross-dressing; and documentaries.
Other feature-length narratives and documentaries are:
”Alice Junior,” a Brazilian comedy about a transgender teenager.
”Cicada,” a romantic drama about two men in New York.
”Ellie & Abbie,” an Australian fantasy about a teen girl with a crush on a classmate.
”Goodbye Mother,” a Vietnamese comic drama about a man struggling to come out.
”Lupe,” a drama about a transgender Cuban immigrant.
”Music for Bleeding Hearts,” a Brazilian drama about the complexities of love.
”A Perfectly Normal Family,” a Danish drama about a transgender dad.
”Sequin in a Blue Room,” an Australian drama about a teen looking for a mystery man.
”Summerland,” a British wartime romance with Gemma Arterton and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
”Two of Us,” a French comic drama about an aging lesbian couple.
”Welcome to Chechnya,” a doc about LGBTQ activism in Chechnya.
”Making Sweet Tea,” a doc about Southern gay black men.
”For They Know Not What They Do,” a doc about religious allies of LGBTQ people.
”Cured,” a doc about homosexuality’s former classification as a mental illness.