BRATTLEBORO — CineSLAM returns to the Latchis Theatre with a Pride Film Festival of Shorts on Friday, June 24 at 6:30 p.m.
Sponsored by the Kopkind Colony, founded 18 years ago in memory of celebrated political journalist Andrew Kopkind, CineSLAM is Vermont's first LGBTQ film festival, celebrating 11 years in 2016.
The intention of CineSLAM is to offer a glimpse into the diversity of life, struggles, and triumphs of LGBTQ people and their allies in short narrative, documentary, and art video formats.
It is programmed by John Scagliotti, creator of the first LGBT series on PBS, In the Life.
Scagliotti has also produced the documentary films Before Stonewall and After Stonewall, programmer of the Vermont Bear Film Festival, and administrator of Kopkind Colony.
Scagliotti has chosen films to “reflect the amazing diversity of the LGBTQ community.”
“In these sad times after Orlando, one needs to reflect on how much love there is in our community, and I think this year's films frame those sentiments,” he said.
Festival lineup
Leading the festival will be FLOAT, celebrating gender diversity with Sam Berliner's experimental short film - shot completely underwater - of trans and genderqueer folks swimming nude to the music by trans musician Rae Spoon. FLOAT has been called “stunningly celebratory” by the LBGTQ film festival Frameline.
A Legacy of Devotion by filmmaker Samantha Stark tells the story of a shy widower named Jim Obergefell, who was thrust into the media spotlight as the lead plaintiff in the first legalized same-sex Supreme Court ruling. But his win was bittersweet - he had been fighting to list his name as “surviving spouse” on the death certificate of his husband, John Arthur.
The love story behind one of the biggest Supreme Court cases in history is told with great intimacy from the perspectives of Obergefell, his deceased husband's aunt, their funeral director, and the local civil rights lawyer who asked to represent them.
Other shorts include From Baghdad to the Bay, which looks into the life of a gay Iraqi refugee, Ghazawan Alsharif, who now lives in San Francisco, and the full-length documentary Reel in the Closet by Stu Maddux, being screened across the country at other festivals, which connects the LGBTQ community of the past with the present through footage of rare home movies.
Intermission will feature a Pride cake and sparkling cider.