Frameline and SF Pride Directors Share Takeaways from 50 Years of LGBTQ Protest and Celebration
Reporting from FestForums SF | May 8, 2019
The end of June marks 50 years since the Stonewall Riots that led to the first Pride marches, giving us an opportunity to look back at the progress of gay liberation and discuss the work that’s still ahead. In this spirit of reflection, FestForums San Francisco brought together some of the most influential LGBTQ festival directors to share their challenges and joys — from working with corporate underwriters, to finding talent that drives the most important issues forward, to creating an inclusive internal culture.
Sharing a deep interest in the issues of diversity and representation in festival programming and production, SF Urban Film Fest attended the conference to report on this talk. We’ve summarized the main takeaways with the speakers’ own words.
Takeaway #1: Everything huge was once underground (so don’t be afraid to just start).
George F. Ridgely, Jr., Executive Director of Pride: Stonewall was in 1969, and then in 1970, in cities across the country — New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago — there were marches commemorating what had happened a year before… It’s pretty amazing when you think of the millions and millions of people who come out to Pride events around the globe, as a catalyst from this event that happened in New York in 1969. And there was tons of activism happening, in San Francisco, in Los Angeles, in New York, in Chicago — everywhere, prior to that event, that really sparked this.
Frances Wallace, Executive Director of Frameline: In the 70s, the revolutionary 70s (bloody hell bring them back!), there was kind of a ragtag group of gays, and at that time it was gay men actually, who said, “We’re not seeing anything on our screens that is gay or LGBTQ+, so we’re just going to create our own event.” It was in a small community space, it was about 150 people; they just put up a sheet and projected Super 8.
Takeaway #2: Find your people inside big corporations, because these partnerships are stepping up.
George: San Francisco Pride gets almost ⅔ of our funding from corporate underwriters, and about 50% of our parade is corporate contingents. And that was really driven by the diversity and inclusion departments at those companies that want to support the employees within that company, and also have that company show the support for the broader community.
…When they’re coming to the table, 99% of them are genuinely looking for a way to organically participate in the event, and not have it be about marketing and branding, as much as how are they folding into the event, what added value are they bringing? And then understanding that they too are part of the community. I have felt in the past 5 ½ years that those partners have really stepped up. We’ve seen our budget more than double in that timeframe.
Frances: I think like anything, you just find your people…[Frameline has] some of the American corporations who’ve always supported us, supported us for decades, like AT&T and Wells Fargo, etc… And of course, a lot of these tech companies too are looking at diversity and inclusion. So that’s kind of one of our new big focuses.
We’re going to have our first VR, which is free to the public at the de Young, which of course is produced by Oculus, who produced a transgender film content piece…we’re also screening State of Pride, which was just at South By [Southwest], and that’s a YouTube presentation.
Jonah Blechman, Founder of Potent PR: Many organizations these days do have a diversity/inclusivity department…it has a lot to do with finding the right partners, and it can be as easy as finding the department that’s now happening within those different organizations and companies.
Takeaway #3: Merge entertainment with activism by sticking to your values and adding to the broader conversation.
Jenn Stokes, Pride Main Stage Producer: It is important to me to have talent not just be straight-up entertainment, but acts that do have a message and do have a purpose — so it’s not just about having someone up there shaking their booty (which is great, don’t get me wrong) — but it’s sort of like this really perfect hybrid of both.
…I think especially given our current administration, it’s incredibly important to have a home on that stage for the transgender community. And so I have a variety of different artists up there that identify as transgender. Given the latest legislation with banning transgender from the military, this has really hit home for me, and we have a speaker up on stage that is a former Navy SEAL.
Representing organizations is something that’s really important to me as well. We have a video back-wall — of course I think everyone here knows the power of video — and even if it’s not a speaker up on that stage, or an artist that’s giving verbal cues about the subject matter, I will have slides. I’ll have static slides, of “hey, here’s where you can go to get involved, here are organizations doing incredible things in our community, come on, get involved.”
Jonah: The festival QueerX is a music, film, and industry festival that happens in Los Angeles… QueerX is about global emerging voices, but also wanting to honor history… This year we’re honoring Raymond Braun — State of Pride is our centerpiece — we’re honoring him, an advocate, a journalist, a writer, who leads us through that film. We have Ryan O’Connell, who is the first out, queer, cerebral palsy actor, he has a show on Netflix called Special. And then we have Nikita Dragun who is an influencer, trans, Asian… And then we also are going to be announcing soon a WNBA player… So it’s great to have all these different stars and talent from all sides… It was really important for us to have that variety.
Frances: We try to present the best [films], and the most cutting edge… The big discussion at the moment, of course, is that we will mostly only show films where transgender characters are played by transgender actors. Because that’s the biggest discussion coming out of Hollywood, or the landscape at this point, so an organization like Frameline always has to be at the forefront of those types of discussions. And when everyone is included — across ethnicity and socioeconomic barriers too — perhaps we can loosen up a bit. But we always want to be challenging the culture and moving it forward.
Takeaway #4: To champion diversity and inclusion with your festival, begin with your team.
Ric Victores, Founder of ImagineX Productions: It’s not ok anymore for our production teams, our event management teams, our producing teams, to not start meetings and create environments in which pronouns are expressed by each individual. We can no longer just assume that because someone physically looks a certain way, they can be labeled a certain way. As we’re out there, I would say, let’s create environments where people feel safe — and one way we do that is through starting meetings with asking people their specific pronouns.
Frances: Maybe it is always a particular person that you’re interviewing that you think, “Well, they have the most experience.” They have the most experience because they were given the 10 jobs previously. So why not give it to the second person in line, who perhaps can bring something different to the table? And then they’ll have the number of job experiences that other people get perhaps more easily… I’m from a particular place; we’re all from a particular place, we all identify in a particular way. We’d be kind of hypocritical if we’re presenting all this work that’s all about breadth and representation, but we’re not employing those people… See who’s inside your crews, and make sure you’re always questioning and bringing new voices in.
Jonah: I hope that for your festivals, that you are thinking in the way of inclusion, because having people on that team brings those communities forth. Their friends, their audience — just having them on the team gives you that insight to be more inclusive. Maybe you don’t think about having gender-neutral bathrooms, or things that could actually add more of a comfort level to LGBT families that come with their kids, and just have a space that they’re represented in some way, and that they feel they’re included.
Frances Wallace, Executive Director of Frameline, represented the largest and most widely recognized LGBTQ+ film exhibition event in the world, with an annual attendance of 60,000+. Frameline’s 43rd festival is June 20–30 in San Francisco.
George F. Ridgely, Jr. (Executive Director) and Jenn Stokes (Main Stage Producer) shared the thinking behind the scenes of SF Pride. With over 200 parade contingents and exhibitors, and more than twenty community-run stages and venues, the San Francisco Pride Celebration and Parade is the largest gathering of the LGBT community and allies in the nation. This year, SF Pride is June 29–30.
Jonah Blechman, founder of Potent PR, spoke about his work with Revry to start QueerX, a new LGBTQ festival that hopes to become the queer South by Southwest. A weekend festival for queer music, film, and entertainment that’s based in West Hollywood, QueerX took place May 31–June 2 this year.
Ric Victores, founder of the boutique event planning firm ImagineX Productions, moderated the talk, drawing from his experience running LGBTQ events, including 5 years on the Main Stage team for Pride.
