Queer and Here

Cinema Q, the Denver Film Society’s series focusing on GLBT movies, got its start after Keith Garcia, DFS programming manager, kept getting comments about a lack of good gay films. “I was like, ‘Actually, no, there’s lots of it, it’s just that it’s not being programmed,’” he remembers. “I got my ducks in a row and decided there was enough gay film out there so I could consistently do one new title a month at least, so I sort of made that promise with Cinema Q….it took on a life of its own.”

Over the past two years, Cinema Q has shown more than forty GLBT films at Starz — and now it has its own four-day festival, Cinema Q: A Festival of Queer Cinema. The festival opens at 7 p.m. May 28 with Sex Positive, a documentary about forgotten figure Richard Berkowitz, one of the earliest advocates for safe sex in the gay community, who will appear in person. That screening will be followed by films covering everything from a docudrama about a Filipina ladyboy to the complementary his-and-hers love stories that close the festival Sunday night. “The gay community is really diverse,” Garcia explains. “I was looking to see if we could truly have films that answered to the g, the l, the b, the t — and the q — in the branding.”

See it all at the Starz FilmCenter in the Tivoli. Tickets for the opening are $15 for DFS members and $20 general admission, and include an opening reception with food and drink; tickets for all other showings are $9.50 general admission, $9 for members of the GLBT community and $6 for DFS members. For a full schedule, visit www.denverfilm.org or call 303-595-3456.

May 28-31, 2009