First wave of films for Out on film 2023
Out on Film has announced the first wave of films that will comprise the 2023 edition of the Oscar® qualifying Atlanta-based LGBTQIA+ film festival Sept 21 – Oct 1, 2023.
The four films are the U.S. Premiere of Eduardo Aquino’s A Big Gay Hairy Hit! Where The Bears Are: The Documentary, Jason Karman’s Golden Delicious, Madeleine Lim’s Jewelle: A Just Vision, and Timothy Harris’s Kenyatta: Do Not Wait Your Turn.
THE 2023 SELECTIONS
A Big Gay Hairy Hit! Where The Bears Are:
The Documentary
(Directed by Eduardo Aquino)
This hilarious and touching documentary tells the story of how three older, gay, "bears" working in Hollywood, tired of having their gay-themed ideas rejected by the mainstream, decided to self-produce their own web series. Against all odds, the comedy featuring three bear roommates like "The Golden Girls" solving crimes a la "Murder, She Wrote," became a sensation online and one of the most successful web shows of all time. The documentary examines ageism, body-shaming, sex-positivity, the creative process and how friendship and community can ultimately create something beloved all over the world.
U.S. PREMIERE
Golden Delicious
(Directed by Jason Karman)
When basketball-obsessed Aleks moves in across the street, Asian-Canadian teen Jake finds himself trying out for the basketball team to get his attention in this classic coming-of-age drama set in the digital age.
Jewelle: A Just Vision
(Directed by Madeleine Lim)
From Black Power in late-60s Boston, to AIDS activism in mid-80s New York, to Marriage Equality in early-10s San Francisco, Jewelle: A Just Vision (64 mins, 2022) from award-winning filmmaker Madeleine Lim, focuses a joyful and hope-filled spotlight on novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, and journalist Jewelle Gomez.
An Ioway and Wampanoag, African American and Cape Verdean, femme lesbian, Jewelle co-founded decades-old social justice organizations that are more relevant than ever. Expansive in her creative imagination, inclusive in her philanthropic leadership, and passionate in her lesbian of color feminist ethics, she is an unrelenting torchbearer for the transformative power of the artist as activist.
Author of the prescient 1991 novel The Gilda Stories, this double Lambda Literary Award winner shaped the emergence of Afro- and Indigenous futurisms through the journey of the titular lesbian vampire, from 1850s slavery era through 2050s climate catastrophe. Jewelle’s plays reclaim queer Black ancestors, writer James Baldwin in Waiting for Giovanni (2011) and singer Alberta Hunter in Leaving the Blues (2017), to reimagine history. Her poems in Still Water (2022) shape our understanding of Native American heritage, identity, and relationships.
Kenyatta: Do Not Wait Your Turn
(Directed by Timothy Harris)
This inspiring love story - executive produced by Al Roker (NBC's “Today”) follows a self-described “poor, gay, Black man from North Philly” on his historic run for the United States Senate. But this race is about more than taking on the political competition. It’s about taking on an entire system.