While I'm proud of all of my friends and their amazing achievements in various fields, recently two of my closest buddies decided to undertake a massive affair and put together a film festival for charity. Both guys are prolific in the local independent horror-movie scene here in Texas; Andrew Rose and his wife Dione run DOA Bloodbath Entertainment, a production company geared toward putting on events and film festivals as well as producing local films, while Shawn Ewert is the founder of Right Left Turn Productions and an indie filmmaker/writer in the Dallas area. This marked the first festival collaboration of the two, and hopefully it was only the first in a long future of partnership because it was a great success.
The motivation behind the festival was to bring together horror fans in a celebration of gay, lesbian, transgendered, bisexual and questioning filmmakers and their works. The movies would be showcased in an all-day event, with proceeds benefiting a local gay charity organization called Youth First Texas. Youth First Texas is an outreach program for young people who identify with non-straight sexuality orientations, and it provides a multitude of services to them--- from activities like fashion shows and dances to confidential, safe STD screening, Youth First provides an invaluable service to the Dallas area, and they were very appreciative of the idea of a fundraising event to help them finance their services.
The festival, titled "Fears for Queers: GLBT Horror Film Festival", was hosted at the Studio Movie Grill in Addison, Texas, only a stone's throw from downtown Dallas. It kicked off at 10:30 AM on Saturday, June 19, 2010, after extensive promotions and flyering the metroplex area and a lovely spread in the Dallas Voice. The audience had come from all over the area, many of them driving several hours to take part; there were gay couples, straight couples, families with children, drag queens in full regalia, and everything in between. Filmmaker JT Seaton ("George's Intervention", "Night Shadows") was in attendance from California, as well as Shawn Ewert presenting the Texas premiere of his first short film "Jack's Bad Day". A swag table offered complimentary posters, flyers, business cards and programs while Joe Garcia of Fast Custom Shirts sold a number of high-quality t-shirts at his table.
The day kicked off with Creatures from the Pink Lagoon, an outrageously funny camp film set in the 1950s and featuring gay zombies. Following that feature was the short film by Stacie Ponder titled "Taste of Flesh, Taste of Fear"... which is a zero-budget short using a Barbie doll cast and featuring the Posh Spice Barbie as a vampire in the 'woods' (someone's garden, or possibly even a windowbox of flowers). The film was one of the most hilarious things of the whole festival, with the entire audience in stitches as the Barbies acted out their melodramatic Sapphic love story. Next came "The Pleasure of His Company" by Michelle Ayoub, a cannibalistic little film that took a tired idea and didn't give it too much life of its own. "Bumps In the Night" was a terrific, suspenseful little short with a great climax at the last second; the build-up was tense and well-executed, with some effectively eerie shots culminating in an awesome payoff just before the credits rolled. "Jack's Bad Day", directed by Shawn Ewert himself, is a clever little endeavor involving what happens if a serial killer has 'one of those days' where nothing goes right for him from the time he wakes up.
After the screening of "Jack's Bad Day", I was honored to be asked to host the Q&A with Shawn Ewert. Shawn was charming and funny, and gave terrific answers to the audience's questions. We moved into the screening of JT Seaton's short "Night Shadows", filmed in 2006. The short focused on an aging gay man afraid of growing old alone, thus beginning to dabble in voodoo to preserve the reanimated corpses of his young, vibrant internet hookups. The Q&A with JT was equally awesome, with JT discussing the stigma in gay culture of losing one's youth and attractiveness as well as addressing the role that technology plays in contemporary relationships. Screenings followed for "A Far Cry From Home" by Alan Rowe Kelly, a controversial film that was perhaps the one that truly put the 'horror' in the festival title, and "Mime After Midnight", a very creative and fun little short that will cause you even more of a reason to distrust mimes. The festival wrapped with Baby Jane? by Billy Clift in its test screening a few days before the world premiere in San Francisco; this was a fun and interesting homage to Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? done with a cast of drag queens paying tribute to their inner starlets.
When the credits for Baby Jane? finished, Andrew and Shawn came down front and center to call down the kids in attendance from Youth First Texas to present them with a check for nine hundred dollars. It was an emotional moment for everyone involved, and a great end to the terrific day.
To everyone that came out to support Fears for Queers and Youth First Texas, thank you so much for your love and support. The festival raised almost a thousand dollars for a wonderful local charity, and we all got to watch some terrific horror films in the process. I can't wait until the next endeavor from this team of creative, selfless and good-hearted guys; I will be there with bells on, as everyone should be.
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Awesome! I'm proud of Andrew, Dionne, Shawn, and everyone else who poured time, energy, and love into this. It's great to see that almost a grand was raised for the charity. I only wish I could've been there to watch some great shorts and features and hang out with everyone.
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