Friday June 16, 2006 SGN.org |
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Volume 34 Issue 24 |
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Saturday, Nov 21, 2009
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Outfest's Legacy Project: Racing to save our vanishing Queer history |
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| Outfest's Legacy Project: Racing to save our vanishing Queer history | ||
| The state of independent Queer film preservation is in crisis. Almost none of the major Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender (LGBT) films of the 70s, 80s and 90s have been preserved. There isn't a viable archive-quality print of PARTING GLANCES, DESERT HEARTS, POISON, EDGE OF 17, GO FISH and on and on. The film elements that make possible everything from revival screenings to commercial DVDs are lost, in disrepair, and in some cases already substantially deteriorated. Whenever a revival screening of an LGBT film is booked, inevitably what arrives is a print on its very last legs, usually one of the original prints, struck 10 or 20 years ago, never replaced because making a new print isn't cost effective, or because the elements are lost, or the filmmaker has died.
These are the works that represent our community's cultural legacy, so what can we do to prevent the erasure of our own history? In 2005, Outfest (The Los Angeles LGBT Film Festival) announced the establishment of the Outfest Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation. This landmark program is a partnership with the UCLA Film and Television Archive, one of the premiere archives on the planet and the institution that sponsored the formation of Outfest on the UCLA campus 24 years ago. Outfest's Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation is the only program devoted to addressing the crisis in preservation of this work. This major new initiative has three primary components: the LGBT Film Study Center; the LGBT Motion Picture Collection; and public education. The LGBT Film Study Center aims to be the world's first comprehensive collection of LGBT films. This library of work is directly accessible to students, scholars, and the creative community at the UCLA Archive Research and Study Center. The LGBT Motion Picture Collection will be comprised of archive-quality 16mm and 35mm prints acquired by Outfest and UCLA for permanent preservation. In addition, they will strike new prints of films and other material for widespread public exhibition, and restore damaged films to their initial release forms. Public programs, seminars, and forums will educate filmmakers and the general public about LGBT film and video preservation. The Legacy Project faces a huge caseload. It is difficult to overstate the artistic, cultural and scholarly gaps that exist in LGBT film preservation. The most obvious, "must-do" projects are only now beginning to be addressed. Through Outfest's network of advisors Comprised of archivists and industry peers, we know that films such as Jean Genet's UN CHANT D'AMOUR (1950), the Mariposa Film Group's WORD IS OUT (1977), and Bill Sherwood's PARTING GLANCES (1986) have yet to be preserved properly. "When we created the Legacy Project," said Stephen Gutwillig, Executive Director of Outfest, "we knew in abstract terms that there was a crisis in LGBT film preservation. But now, after the Legacy Project's pilot year, we have tangible evidence that we are in a race against time to preserve the cinema history of the LGBT community. The Legacy Project is our community's version of grabbing the family photos when the house is on fire. Saving our images and memories is vital to our understanding of ourselves now and in the future." For more information, or to find out how you can support this worthy project, visit www.outfest.org/legacy. Courtesy of Outfest |
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