Local
‘Reel’ debt delays festival
Acclaimed LGBT film event moved to April due to money woes
Larry Guillemette of One In Ten, the non-profit group that organizes Reel Affirmations, said fundraising challenges forced the event to be rescheduled to April 2011. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
An inability to raise the money needed to hold D.C.’s annual LGBT film festival this October has spurred a decision to reschedule Reel Affirmations for spring 2011, according to organizers and sources familiar with the event.
The money problems also prompted organizers to reassess the time of year the event should be held, leading to a permanent rescheduling of the highly acclaimed event for late April and early May in succeeding years.
Larry Guillemette, marketing and sponsorship manager for One In Ten, the non-profit group that has organized Reel Affirmations each October for the past 19 years, acknowledged that a debt exceeding $40,000 from last year’s festival and a diminishing number of corporate sponsors and donors made it difficult to pull together the festival this year.
It had been scheduled to take place Oct. 14-23 in a number of prominent city theaters, including the Harmon Center for the Arts, the Goethe Institute and the E Street Cinema downtown, the Jewish Community Center near Dupont Circle and the AFI Theater in Silver Spring.
“As with a lot of non-profit organizations in our nation’s capital, gay or straight, we are faced with the same [monetary] challenges,” Guillemette said.
“What we found ourselves doing this year was going to various different organizations that we were hoping might sponsor us. And the economy being what it is, that kind of ability to support us wasn’t there,” he said.
Guillemete said One In Ten will screen three LGBT films this fall, including an award-winning film the group planned to announce soon. Beginning in November, One In Ten will resume a practice it previously discontinued: a monthly showing of an LGBT film in Washington at different theaters.
The group’s ability to hold the full festival in October was further hampered by last year’s resignation of Margaret Murray, who had served as One In Ten’s executive director since 2006, Guillemette said. He noted that it was Murray’s job to work on corporate and organizational sponsorships and other fundraising efforts for the 2010 festival beginning in the latter months of 2009.
“What that did for us on some levels is put us in a tiny bit of a period of flux and transition that we weren’t necessarily prepared for because that was the time of year that most festivals are putting together their proposals for funding for the following year,” he said.
Meanwhile, the group’s debt and general shortage of funds prevented the hiring of someone to replace Murray, who left to take a new job, he said.
At the time of Murray’s departure in November, Guillemette said, One In Ten had become nearly an all-volunteer organization, returning to its “roots” before its first executive director was hired in 2000.
Joe Bilancio, One In Ten’s programs manager and the person in charge of obtaining the films, is being compensated as a consultant, Guillemette said. Guillemette is serving as a volunteer and called his work on the festival “a labor of love.”
According to Guillemette, the funding problems were just one of several issues that prompted the One In Ten board to move the annual festival to the spring. He said other factors included competing LGBT events in October, such as the Human Rights Campaign’s annual national dinner and the Miss Adams Morgan drag pageant, a large event that attracts participants who might otherwise attend the film festival.
Guillemette said the problems associated with holding the festival this October led to long discussions on something the event’s organizers have contemplated for a number of years: the advantages of holding a film festival in the early months of the year.
Among other things, top-quality LGBT-related films made by independent filmmakers are usually released in the early part of the year and shown at other film festivals in the winter and spring, said Guillemette and Bilancio. The two noted that by the time One In Ten’s Reel Affirmations festival is held in the fall, some of the patrons of Reel Affirmations have already seen these films at other festivals.
In recent years, a number of films shown at Reel Affirmations and other LGBT film festivals also have been shown first on gay cable television networks, with others sometimes available through Netflix, said Guillemette and Bilancio.
“It’s significantly different than what it was when we started the festival in the early 1990s, when access to independent gay film was not that easy,” Guillemette said. “And we could count on a sold-out festival because there weren’t options like Neflix and Logo and Here TV and other things.”
Although moving the festival to the spring won’t counter the competing venues for gay film, Bilancio said holding Reel Affirmation in the early part of the year will at least ensure that it’s the first opportunity for most D.C. festival goers to see the films.
One source familiar with last year’s Reel Affirmations festival, who spoke with the Blade on condition of anonymity, said the One In Ten debt stemmed from a drop in revenue compared to previous festivals. Ticket sales were down as was advertising in the festival’s lengthy program booklet, the source said.
Instead of generating seed money for the 2010 festival, which was slated to celebrate Reel Affirmations’ 20th anniversary, the revenue shortfall resulted in debts to various vendors, including the graphic artist who helped produce the program booklet. At least $20,000 to $25,000 was needed to produce the booklet for this year, a sum the group apparently did not have, the source said.
Organizers were hopeful that a special town hall meeting that One In Ten held in April at the Human Rights Campaign headquarters would persuade people to make the donations that were needed to keep the event on track for October. But less than $5,000 was raised as a result of the town meeting, the source said, an amount far less than was needed to stage the festival in October.
Guillemette, who was not among the festival organizers last year, said still other factors were at play, including foul weather during several evenings of the October 2009 festival. He also noted that an earlier decision to discontinue the festival’s VIP membership program, which provided special benefits to large donors, made the festival more reliant on single ticket sales, which were down in 2009.
He said the board this year reinstated the VIP membership program and is taking other steps to better promote the spring festival.
“We’re not burying our head in the sand. We fully acknowledge there were things that needed to be changed in the way we did things,” he said. “And I think we brought back the right team to make those changes.”
Lisa King, One In Ten’s board president, declined to comment, deferring to Guillemette as the organization’s spokesperson. Murray could not be immediately reached for comment.
District of Columbia
Second trans member announces plans to resign from Capital Pride board
Zion Peters cites ‘lack of interest in the Black trans community’
Zion Peters, a member of the Capital Pride Alliance Board of Directors who identifies as transgender, told the Washington Blade he plans to resign from the board “due to the lack of interest in the trans community, specifically the Black trans community.”
Peters continued, “Nobody has checked on me in the last two months so that shows their level of unprofessionalism towards their board members and the community as a whole.”
If he resigns, Peters would be the second known trans person to resign from the Capital Pride board since February, when longtime trans activist Taylor Lianne Chandler informed the board of her resignation in a detailed letter that was sent to the Blade by an anonymous source.
Chandler, who served as chair of the Capital Pride Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, and Intersex Committee, stated in her Feb. 24 letter that she resigned from the board out of frustration that the board had failed to address instances of “sexual misconduct” within the Capital Pride organization. The organization’s and the board’s transgender-related policies were not cited in her letter as a reason for her resignation.
The Blade learned of Peters’s plans to resign from an anonymous source who thought Peters had already resigned along with four other board members identified by the anonymous source. The others, who Capital Pride confirmed this week had resigned, include Anthony Musa, Bob Gilchrist, Kaniya Walker, and Dai Nguyen.
Musa and Gilchrist told the Blade they resigned for personal reasons related to their jobs and that they fully support Capital Pride’s work as an organization that coordinates the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events.
The Blade has been unable to reach Walker and Nguyen to determine their reasons for resigning.
Capital Pride CEO Ryan Bos and Board Chair Anna Jinkerson didn’t respond to a Blade question asking if they knew why Walker or Nguyen resigned.
In response to a request by the Blade for comment on the resignations and the concern raised by Zion Peters about trans-related issues, Bos and Jinkerson sent separate statements elaborating on the organization and the board’s position on various issues.
“We can confirm that the individuals you referenced, except for Zion, no longer serve on the Capital Pride Alliance Board of Directors,” Jinkerson said in her statement.
She added that following the WorldPride festival hosted by D.C. last May and June that was organized by Capital Pride Alliance, the group anticipated a “significant level of board transition,” with many board members reaching the end of their terms. But she said many board members chose to extend their service or apply for an additional term, showing a “powerful reflection of commitment.”
Without commenting on the specific reasons for the resignations of Peterson, Walker, and Nygun, Jinkerson noted, “As with all volunteer leadership roles, transitions occur for a range of personal and professional reasons, and we appreciate those transitions with both understanding and gratitude.”
In his own statement, Bos addressed Capital Pride’s record on transgender issues.
“The Capital Pride Alliance is committed to supporting and uplifting the Trans community through our work with the Trans Coalition under the Diversity of Prides Initiative, our partnership with Earline Budd on the LGBTQ+ Burial Fund with a focus on our Trans siblings, our collaboration with the National Trans Visibility March, and our ongoing investment in programming for Transgender Day of Visibility and Transgender Day of Remembrance,” Bos said in his statement.
“We also recognize there is always continued work to be done, and we always welcome feedback from our community to ensure our commitment remains unwavering,” he said.
At the time of her resignation in February, Chandler said she could not provide specific details of the instances of sexual misconduct to which she referred in her resignation letter, or who allegedly engaged in sexual misconduct, saying she and all other board members had signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement preventing them from disclosing further details.
Board Chair Jinkerson in a statement released at that time said she and the board were aware of Chandler’s concerns but did not specifically address allegations of sexual misconduct.
“When concerns are brought to CPA, we act quickly and appropriately to address them,” she said. “As we continue to grow as an organization, we’re proactively strengthening the policies and procedures that shape our systems, our infrastructure, and the support we provide to our team and partners,” she said.
Rehoboth Beach
Rehoboth Summer Kickoff Party set for May 15 with Ashley Biden
The Washington Blade’s 19th annual Summer Kickoff Party is scheduled for Friday, May 15 in Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Ashley Biden, daughter of President Joe Biden, has joined the list of speakers, the Blade announced. She will accept an award on behalf of her brother Beau Biden for his LGBTQ advocacy work as Delaware attorney general. (Her appearance was rescheduled from last year.)
The event, to be held this year at Diego’s (37298 Rehoboth Ave. Ext.) from 5-7 p.m., is a fundraiser for the Blade Foundation’s Steve Elkins Memorial Fellowship in Journalism, which funds a summer position reporting on LGBTQ news in Delaware. This year’s recipient will be introduced at the event.
The event will also feature remarks from state Rep. Claire Snyder-Hall. New CAMP Rehoboth Executive Director Dr. Robin Brennan and Blade editor Kevin Naff will also speak. The event is generously sponsored by Realtor Justin Noble, The Avenue Inn & Spa, and Diego’s.
A suggested donation of $25 is partially tax deductible and includes a drink ticket and light appetizers. Tickets are available in advance at bladefoundation.org/rehoboth or at the door.
District of Columbia
Curve magazine honors Washington Blade publisher
Lynne Brown named to 2026 Power List
Washington Blade Publisher Lynne Brown has been named to the 2026 Curve Power List celebrating LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary individuals in North America who are blazing trails in their chosen fields.
“From sports and entertainment icons to corporate leaders and lawmakers, these individuals are breaking barriers, challenging norms, and shaping the future,” Curve Foundation/Curve magazine said in announcing this year’s list, which includes ABC newscaster Robin Roberts, comedian/actress Hannah Einbinder, and singer/actress Renee Rapp, among others.
Brown has worked for the Washington Blade for nearly 40 years. She was named publisher in 2007 before becoming a co-owner in 2010.
“I am honored to be recognized by Curve magazine during Lesbian Visibility Week,” Brown said. “Receiving this Curve honor is twofold. I was an early subscriber to Curve. I enjoy the product and know its history. Its journalism, layout and humorous features have inspired me.
“As an owner/publisher, receiving recognition from a similar source acknowledges my work and efforts, with a sincerity I truly appreciate. Franco Stevens, the publisher of Curve, is a business person of duration, experience, and purpose. The fact that they are in the media business, and honoring me and my publication makes it a tiny bit sweeter.”
Nominations for the Curve Power List come from the community: peers, mentors, fans, and employers.
Curve explained the significance of the list in its announcement: “An annual, publicly nominated list of impactful LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary changemakers is crucial in current times to counter discrimination, legislative rollbacks, hostility, and the invisibility of queer women within mainstream and marginal spaces and endeavors. Such a list also fosters encouragement and solidarity, and elevates voices and achievements—from high-profile roles to under appreciated areas of life.”
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