GLAAD Congratulates Award Winning LGBT Films & Filmmakers at 2010 Sundance and Slamdance Film Festivals

Inaugural cineGLAAD Program Raises Awareness of LGBT Films & Issues with guests including
Dustin Lance Black, David Hyde Pierce, Rob Epstein, & Jeffrey Friedman

Photos, videos of panel discussions and interviews with LGBT filmmakers available at glaad blog

Los Angeles, CA, February 04, 2010 – Since 2006, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the nation’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media advocacy and anti-defamation organization, has brought a dedicated space to celebrate and elevate the voices of filmmakers whose storytelling included the visibility and inclusion of the LGBT community to the Sundance Film Festival. This year GLAAD announced an official partnership with the Sundance Institute and unveiled a new multi-day programmatic event, cineGLAAD.

cineGLAAD held a series of panels at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival to raise awareness about films with LGBT content and elevate the voices of filmmakers, all towards the goal of bringing these important LGBT stories to wider audiences. Photos and videos of panel discussions as well as interviews with LGBT filmmakers and Dustin Lance Black are available at: http://glaadblog.org/tag/cineglaad.

cineGLAAD congratulates the LGBT filmmakers and films with LGBT content that received honors at this year’s Sundance and Slamdance Film Festivals. cineGLAAD worked to build visibility for the following films and the more than 20 others by LGBT filmmakers or featuring LGBT content which were shown at the Park City film festivals:

• Contracorriente (Undertow), from out director Javier Fuentes-León, received the World Cinema Audience Award – Dramatic. The film tells the story of a Peruvian fisherman who has a passionate affair with a handsome artist.
• Zona Sur (Southern District), received the World Cinema Directing Award – Dramatic. The film looks at family class structure in Bolivia and the conflict between a mother and her lesbian daughter. It also received the World Cinema Screenwriting Award.
• Tatiana Maslany was awarded a World Cinema Special Jury Prize for Dramatic Breakout Performance in Grown Up Movie Star. Maslany plays the daughter of a former NHL star who is realizing his attraction to other men.
• His & Hers, received the World Cinema Cinematography Award: Documentary. The documentary features 70 Irish women, young and old, candidly discussing relationships.
• The Documentary Editing Award was presented to Joan Rivers – A Piece of Work. The film was a fitting tribute to outspoken LGBT supporter and comedian, Joan Rivers.

cineGLAAD also congratulates the filmmakers of The Kids Are Alright and Contracorriente (Undertow), which have been picked up for distribution by Focus Features and Wolfe Releasing, respectively. The Kids Are Alright starts Annette Benning and Julianne Moore as lesbian partners. When their teenage children, conceived by artificial insemination, discover their biological father played by Mark Ruffalo, a romance develops between him and Moore.

LGBT filmmakers from films such as 8: The Mormon Proposition, Contracorriente (Undertow), Howl, William S. Burroughs: A Man Within, and Sweet, Sampled and LeftOva participated in the panel discussions hosted by cineGLAAD at the Sundance Filmmaker Lodge. Many media industry professionals and top-tier press attended and reported on the panels and films involved. Clips from a panel on the film 8 as well as LGBT Mormons and allies featured in the film were also shown on Salt Lake City’s Channel 5 evening nightly news broadcast.

“From documentaries like 8 which highlighted Mormon families embracing their gay and transgender neighbors to stories of LGBT people across the world such as Contracorriente, the images seen in Park City this year will inspire and change perceptions,” said GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios. “We are hopeful that our work in raising visibility for these and other films will bring more inclusive images to broader audiences.”

The program’s comprehensive listing of more than 20 films by LGBT filmmakers, in addition to all Sundance films featuring LGBT content shown at the Park City film festivals is available at: http://www.glaad.org/cineglaad/films.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF cineGLAAD’s PRESENCE AT THE 2010 SUNDANCE AND SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVALS INCLUDE:

• Panel discussion featuring LGBT publicists who have worked on Milk, Brokeback Mountain, and other films as well as Sundance filmmakers discussing how to leverage and market LGBT festival films. (Video)
• A well attended panel featuring the filmmakers and cast — including Dustin Lance Black, NCLR’s Kate Kendell and HRC’s Joe Solmonese — of the documentary 8: The Mormon Proposition discussing the film and offering insight into the current fight for marriage equality. (Video)
• Panel on the next wave of queer cinema featuring Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, the Academy Award-winning filmmakers of Howl, as well as producer Christine Kunewa Walker and performance artist Kalup Linzy.
• “Cocktails with cineGLAAD,” a networking opportunity for festival attendees in which cineGLAAD partnered with the Slamdance film The Four-Faced Liar.
• Reviewed Sundance films The Runaways and Howl, as well as the Slamdance films William S. Burroughs: A Man Within and The Four-Faced Liar
• Discussed issues of LGBT images in film with:

• • David Hyde Pierce (Video)
  • Dustin Lance Black (Video)
  • Slamdance filmmaker Yony Leyser (Video)