Staying in focus.

Hollywood is interested in gay and lesbian film festivals, but the festivals are more interested in gays and lesbians

When the unofficial season of lesbian and gay film festivals kicks off this month with events in New York City and San Francisco and in July in Los Angeles, gay moviemakers: won't be the only ones in attendance. Hollywood executives will also be there, sniffing out the screenings, searching for new trends, and pushing their own gay-themed films. In fact, during the course of the past few years, the festivals--especially those in major cities--have evolved into increasingly glamorous affairs, adding a sleek business overtone to gatherings that once stemmed from the simple desire to strengthen the gay and lesbian community and see images of gay people on-screen.

In the years since the early-1990s splash of New Queer Cinema--the phenomenon spearheaded by films such as Todd Haynes's Poison, Rose Troche's Go Fish, and Tom Kalin's Swoon--movie distributors have begun to use lesbian and gay film festivals to launch their own gay-related releases. Titles such as Jeffrey, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love, Wigstock: The Movie, and Bound generated a prerelease buzz at the major gay festivals before opening at commercial theaters nationwide. This, year a number of distributors will participate in the festivals, with one of the most highly anticipated films being Kiss Me Guido, a Christine Vachon-produced comedy and the first-ever gay independent film to be distributed by a major studio--Paramount Pictures.

This newfound industry participation has also changed the face of festival funding and administration. Outfest, the Los Angeles gay film festival, in its 15th year this summer, has over the past three years attracted gay board members and financial support from several high-profile film companies, including DreamWorks SKG, Warner Bros., and 20th Century Fox.

At the 21-year-old San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival--the oldest and largest of its kind, with 1996 ticket sales numbering 50,000--the changing climate has generated intense scrutiny from Hollywood's filmmaking industry. "Every year the festival gets more respected and carries more weight in the industry as a whole," says festival codirector Michael Lumpkin. "People at Paramount know our festival now, so we don't have to twist arms to get them to give us a film. That wasn't true in the past."

This industry shift isn't a one-way street. As Hollywood uses the festivals to promote their wares, gay filmmakers hope to attract Hollywood interest in their work as well. This year both the San Francisco and Los Angeles festivals open with Brian Sloan's I Think I Do, a romantic comedy that currently has no distributor. Both festivals hope the situation will change after the excitement of an opening-night screening. "I think the real change will happen when a film gets picked up by a major distributor out of a gay festival rather than from Sundance," says Stephen Raphael, vice president of publicity at Gramercy Pictures, referring to Utah's highly successful independent film festival. "Then the gay festivals will be both a grassroots audience launch and a center for buying a movie."

Although increased industry participation has served to boost the visibility of gay and lesbian cinema, the growing interest in gay festivals may also be changing the face of gay film themselves--and not necessarily for the better. In fact, some critics believe that the trend toward glamorous openings veers dangerously away from the community-nurturing purpose of gay festivals. "It's as if the mainstream media have come to play a more important role in determining what a `gay' film is than the queer festivals," says Shari Frilot, programmer of MIX International Film Festivals, a New York City-based showcase for experimental lesbian and gay film and video. "I always tell people who want to learn about queer film to go to two film festivals--San Francisco, because they show all the films everyone else will show, and MIX, because we show all the films no one else will."

But even as established gay film festivals become more prestigious, some film of interest to gay men and lesbians have chosen to sidestep the gay festival circuit completely. For example, the film version of Terrence McNally's Tony award-winning play Love! Valour! Compassion! passed right over the gay festivals. Instead it screened at Sundance in January and at the San Francisco International Film Festival in April, and then it opened for its commercial run in May.

The marketing of Love! Valour! Compassion! may reflect an isolated strategy, but it also hints at the fact that the commercial market for gay-related films has evolved so rapidly that in the future, studios may no longer need gay film festivals to promote their films. "I think the festivals are probably at their peak right now, especially with the mainstream distribution of more lesbian and gay film," says Tom Di Maria, former executive director of Frameline--the organization that cosponsors the San Francisco gay film festival--and current development director for the San Francisco International Film Festival.

And if the current peak foreshadows a future plateau for the festival circuit, that evolution may have as much to do with market saturation as it does with what some observers term the decline of New Queer Cinema. "That term hit with such a splash, it probably generated more hype than the films themselves," says Lumpkin. "Expectations were high after that initial boom, but there was a lull."

Lumpkin notes that though films such as Go Fish saw modest success, New Queer Cinema didn't exactly turn into the profit-making genre it was anticipated to be. Which is not to say that gay-related films did not find a mainstream audience. After all, the Australian crossover hit The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert earned $12 million. And Mike Nichols's gay comedy The Birdcage earned more than $100 million. However, films more closely aligned with the New Queer Cinema movement--such as 1996's Stonewall--proved disappointing at the box office. "If Hollywood decides they can't make money on gay films, their interest in them will end," says John Cooper, who secures programming for both Outfest and Sundance.

Whether or not gay film festivals continue to function as buyers' markets for Hollywood, most observers believe that the festivals are so firmly rooted in community ground, they'll almost certainly continue. "The gay festivals still fill a niche as a prime venue for bringing new works by lesbian and gay artists to audiences," says Di Maria, who adds that that role "may become less vital cinematically, but the festivals will continue to play a part culturally."

Filmmaker Isaac Julien agrees. "In terms of audience building, I'm absolutely indebted to lesbian and gay film festival," says the director of such works as the documentary Looking for Langston. "My work would not be known without them."

In other words, regardless of industry participation--or the lack thereof--gay and lesbian film festivals remain vital links to gay culture. And while gays in larger cities have become accustomed to the pleasures of their annual film festivals, their counterparts in smaller cities are just now getting into the act. Some of the most recent entries include Austin, Tex.; Dayton, Ohio; and Nashville. These modest festivals often screen the same films seen at the larger ones. And the philosophy behind those schedules remains the same--lots of substance topped with a bit of style. "The glitzy films are the stuff in the shop window to bring the crowds in so they'll look at the less glamorous work," says Jenni Olson, former codirector of San Francisco's gay film festival and producer of the gay film Web site PopcornQ. "Narrative features are always more glamorous than a documentary on gays in the military, but the majority of festivals are made up of the rank-and-file films that have been staples for the past 20 years."

Those staple films remain true to the festivals' initial goal: to reflect gay and lesbian culture in ways that might never enter the mainstream. "We see ourselves having different roles," says Robin Vachal, program director for the New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. "We work on launches and marketing of the high-profile films, but we also provide a forum to see the short films and documentaries that you won't see in theaters or on TV."

Even if they were to enter the mainstream, these smaller films might never be greeted by the kind of entranced, celebratory lesbian and gay audiences that can be found only at the festivals. "There's still this power of seeing yourself onscreen if you're from an underrepresented community," say Di Maria. "It's still a really electric thing that happens in the festival. That experience is different from seeing a film in other contexts. And that won't diminish as long as there is material to be seen."