LGBTQ Film Festival returning in June
Researchers find a woman’s cardiovascular health during pregnancy can affect the health of her children
The Connecticut LGBTQ Film Festival will return June 4-13, its organizers at Out Film CT announced Monday, with a mix of in-person and virtual screenings.
“Everyone’s seen the state of Connecticut’s schedule for vaccinations,” says Shane Engstrom, the fest’s co-director. “It seems pretty aggressive. Many people will now be ready to use this to kick off their summer, come back from hibernation. But we also wanted to keep the virtual festival as well.”
When possible, the festival will try to provide the option of seeing films either live or online, Engstrom says. “We’re trying to do both, though there may be some films where the distributor wants a live screening only.” He also expects that some documentaries and short films will be onlineonly.
The 10-day run is one day longer than the usual nine, adding a second Sunday of screenings rather than ending with a Saturday night party.
Engstrom has been involved with the Connecticut LGBTQ Film Festival for 20 years, and its director or co-director for the past 13 . This year, Jaime Ortega has become co-director.
The 34th Connecticut LGBTQ Film Festival will happen only eight months after the 33rd, which was held in October and was entirely virtual. The festival is traditionally held in early June, when it’s seen as a lead-in to other events during LGBTQ Pride Month.
The live screenings will be at Trinity College’s Cinestudio, the festival’s longtime home. “We’re luck to have Cinestudio,” Engstrom says. “It’s large, so with social distancing you can still fit a good number of people.” He anticipates that the ordinarily 500-seat cinema could seat 100 under the likely COVID guidelines.
The festival is also exploring bringing back its silent auction this year.
Only one film has been announced for the 2021 festival so far: “No Ordinary Man,” a documentary about the mid-20th century jazz pianist Billy Tipton, who was outed as trans after his death in 1989. The film brings a fresh perspective to Tipton’s life story, demonstrating how he was demonized, misgendered and misunderstood in the media following his death.
“Normally we don’t book this early,” says Engstrom, who took a break from his day job this week to attend the Berlinale international film festival, a frequent source of inspiration for the Connecticut LGBTQ Film Festival.
Over 400 films have been submitted for inclusion in the 2021 festival, including short films. Engstrom expects that between 70 and 80 will
be chosen. Last year’s all-virtual festival had almost 120, but Engstrom expects fewer shorts on the program this year.
The full schedule will be announced in mid-May on the Out Film CT website, OutFilmCT.org. Tickets and “Festipasses” will
become available at that time.
The festival is currently seeking volunteers, who can express interest at
volunteer@outfilmct.org.
Christopher Arnott can be reached at carnott@ courant.com.
If a woman has heart health factors, such as obesity and smoking while pregnant, her child might end up a decade later with poor heart health, according to a new study from Northwestern Medicine and the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
The study, published Feb. 16 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is the most comprehensive yet to connect multiple heart factors during pregnancy with future health issues in adolescents ages 10 to 14.
Studying more than 2,300 mother-child pairs from six countries, the researchers found that among moms who had more than two heart health factors — like obesity, smoking, high blood pressure or cholesterol — their children were nearly eight times more likely to have poor heart health, monitoring factors in the kids like blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose.
“To me, that’s a pretty striking finding,” said Dr. Amanda Perak, a cardiologist at Lurie Children’s Hospital who co-wrote the study.
A better understanding of why children have cardiovascular issues can help avoid issues for them including heart attacks, strokes and premature deaths, she said.
Perak said they wanted to study the connection between a mom’s heart and their children after finding many women have poor heart health during pregnancy. A previous Northwestern study found fewer than 5% of pregnant women had good heart health.
And as a pediatric preventive cardiologist, she often sees children in young adolescence who already have issues like obesity or high cholesterol. Often, those issues only worsen, so she wants to better understand how to prevent them.
“Adults know for themselves that once they’ve developed obesity or high blood pressure, it’s pretty hard to undo that, and unfortunately even in adolescence it’s pretty hard,” she said.
Heart health among pregnant women has been a concern for maternal health experts.
The Surgeon General’s plan to improve maternal health noted that heart disease is a leading cause of death during pregnancy. Women of color are most vulnerable; the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has noted that Black women are more at risk of dying from cardiovascular diseases than white women.
Previous studies had evaluated single health issues like obesity or high blood pressure during pregnancy, but this study evaluated multiple issues at once, Perak said.
She said further research is needed to know whether this finding is rooted in a genetic factor — something she said is probably a low possibility — or more within socioeconomic factors, such as a mom not having access to healthy food and those factors continuing through parenthood and impacting a child, or an intrauterine factor where a mom’s health during pregnancy impacts the fetus.
Regardless, Perak said, if doctors know some babies might be more at risk, they can better monitor and possibly prevent cardiac issues.
“We know those babies need more attention,” she said.
And it is a good opportunity for further research, she said, for example taking one group of pregnant moms and giving them an intervention targeting their hearts and for the other half offering usual care, then following both sets of moms and babies.
The American Heart Association has recommended hospitals have teams that connect cardiologists and obstetricians, and that women can reduce their risk by entering pregnancy in their best physical shape, when possible, and planning heart-healthy diets and talking to their doctor about exercise.
Signs and symptoms of heart issues can include difficulty breathing, a rapid heart rate or chest pain.