From Zanderology, screening at the Gender Reel Film Festival.
The T of the LGBTQ community is arguably the single most focused on minority group in the country currently, despite simultaneously being one of its most invisible. Even Laverne Cox, setting media on fire following the success of her role as a trans inmate on Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black, has named her own trans* documentary series The T Word, a tip-of-the-hat toward the fact that, widely speaking, the term is something said in whispers more than directly aloud (even within the LGBTQ community).
While the trans* community is getting a plethora of much-needed exposure, this isn’t to say that advocates haven’t been long at work in developing exposure. This includes the country’s only coast-to-coast festival dedicated to trans* film and performance, Gender Reel Film Festival, which has a home right here in Long Beach—thanks to the auspices of husband and husband team Leeroy Joyce and Darby Darling.
“Gender Reel Festival was born from the Philadephia Transgender Health Conference, which hosts about 2,500 people yearly,” Joyce said. “Joe Ippolito founded the festival to highlight the transgendered artists in our community.”
Come October 3, Gender Reel will bring trans-oriented film and art to The LGBTQ Center on Retro Row and to North Pine Avenue in Downtown as the festival makes its annual circuit nationwide. It shows its cinematic vision off at five other cities out of Long Beach: D.C., Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Omaha, and Durham, NC.
“The cities were chosen by the physical locations of specific organizers,” Joyce said. “For example, my husband Darby Darling and I live in Long Beach, so we host it here. Last year, we held it in Oakland, CA, because we lived there.”
Friday, October 3, will mark the festival’s opening celebration at The Center, which will be screening five shorts to celebrate the art of camp: Urban Drag, Crazy Hot, How To Be Beautiful, M.I.: A Different Kind of Girl [pictured left], and The Heartbreak of VD. The event will be held from 8PM to 10PM.
Saturday, October 4, from 2PM to 4PM, the festival will host their family-oriented, donation based event at the Cultural Alliance of Long Beach. Six short films—The Nanny Project, The Family Journey: Raising Gender Nonconforming Children, Turn: A PSA by SupaFriends 2013, Oversimplified Episode 1: Origins, I’m Just Anneke, and Fragile.—will explore the troubles gender non-conforming and trans* youth (as well as what their parents) face.
In addition, two separate events will occur at The Center. Firstly, The Center will be home to seven short films that tell the personal journey of individuals on the same day, October 4, from 5PM to 8PM: A Self-Made Man, The Baseball Project, DOH! Oh Dear, A Female Tear, Zanderology, How I Gave Birth To Myself, and Joyeux Anniversaire. In addition, readings from Letters From My Brothers, and the news anthology about the lives of trans men, Manning Up!, will be performed.
Lastly, The Center will host the closing party from 8PM to 10PM that will showcase a series of short films that focus on social justice and trans* living: In My Skin, Trans Lives Matter! Justice for Islan Nettles, Stark Electric Jesus, When A Butch Dyke Dies, and …until justice rolls.
To RSVP to the event via Facebook, click here. All events except the one being held at CALB have an admission fee of $7.