Kate Clinton on WCMF's "The Break Room"

Tune in tomorrow morning (Tuesday, April 3) to WCMF's "The Break Room" with Bill Moran, Tom Mule and "Christian Dan" with Kate Clinton as a special guest. Kate's interview should come on around 9:40am EST.

And if you haven't bought your tickets yet then what are you waiting for? It will be a blast! Click here for more information.

WE WERE HERE Returns to ImageOut on Thursday

If you missed the amazing documentary, WE WERE HERE, when we showed it at the Festival last October (eventually winning the Audience Award for Best Documentary), make sure to take advantage of this rare second chance to see it on the big screen in Rochester once again. ImageOut brings back this popular and poignant documentary about the personal stories of survivors of the early years of AIDS in San Francisco.

This FREE screening is ImageOut's way of celebrating LGBT Health Awareness Month. Come to the Little Theatre 1 on Thursday, March 22 at 6:30pm for this important event. A panel discussion follows the screening.

Volunteers will also be selling tickets in person at the theater lobby for our April 13 Kate Clinton event. Tickets are selling fast so make sure to buy yours soon! And tell your friends to come join you for a fun evening!

Kate Clinton Tickets Now On Sale!

Tickets for our April 13 Kate Clinton event are now on sale! Check out our website to buy your tickets online or for more information on other ticket outlets or the event itself.

This is our big fundraising event for our 20th Anniversary and we need all your help to make this landmark year a huge success. Thanks for your support and please spread the word!

ROC the Day and Support ImageOut

Great day to be generous in Rochester! So many organizations are participating in ROC the Day. It's 24 hours of unprecedented giving. We are hoping that you will keep ImageOut in mind as you make your donations. Our Board Chair, Paul Allen, is matching donations dollar for dollar up to $200. Your ImageOut donations will help us continue providing our ImageOutreach services.

Click here to donate.

As usual, thanks for your continue support of the Festival and we will see you in 2012 for our exciting 20th Anniversary!

WEEKEND Comes to the Little Theatre

Check out what everyone is raving about! So glad that the romantic drama WEEKEND is finally here in Rochester. New York Times loved it and I'm pretty sure you will connect to the story of two gay guys who meet and find so much more over one weekend.

We were so ready to highlight this film in our recent ImageOut lineup but the distributors changed their plans for the Rochester market. So I hope everyone can support this film when it opens at the Little tonight (Friday, Oct. 21). Here's what our Adam Lubitow wrote for the program book. (I'm glad we are finally able to publish it!)


"Extended eye contact across a crowded dance floor, a few too many refills at the bar, and a game of follow the leader into the men’s room; all familiar, telltale signs that a one-night stand is imminent. Russell has no reason to expect anything more when he wakes Saturday morning with Glen in his bed and only a hazy recollection of the previous night’s events. Ever the gracious host, he brings his new friend a cup of coffee, and soon the pair is lounging amongst the bed covers, chatting and slowly piecing together their encounter.


They appear to be complete opposites; Russell an introverted romantic, still timid about his sexuality and still closeted in some areas of his life, while Glen is vehemently against getting into a relationship and determined to let the entire world know that he sleeps with other men. Despite their differences, they each find the other appealing enough to make plans to see each other again. They get together again, and the two become fast friends. But just when it appears that they may be on the cusp of something more, Glen reveals that he’s moving to the U.S. when the weekend is out. Armed with the knowledge that their time together is limited, they do their best to make every moment count. They drink, drug, and talk their way through the weekend, making their way from pub to bedroom and back again, and in so doing, form a bond that will come to mean more to each other than either could ever have anticipated.


Like a decidedly more queer take on Before Sunrise, Weekend is an unflinchingly honest and emotional love story, raising thought-provoking questions about identity, sexuality, love, and the importance of living a life that’s open and authentic."

WARNING: This film contains some nudity, sexual situations, and heavy drug use.

Festival Fair Launches 2011 ImageOut Lineup

It's finally here! We are launching the 2011 October lineup tonight at the Festival Fair at the Strasenburgh Planetarium, Rochester Museum and Science Center starting at 6:30pm. You'll get a chance to pick up a copy of the Program Guide and buy tickets in advance before it becomes available to the general public starting September 16.

There will be a cash bar and free tasty hors d'oeuvres while you mingle and chat with other Festival patrons and film lovers. As a special treat, you can hear Michael and Jessica talk about the highlights of the 2011 lineup at 8pm before the free screening of the fab film Christopher and His Kind at 8:30pm.

For more details on tonight's event, check out this page.

Most importantly, we'll have time to post more updates on this blog as we won't be buried in watching DVD screeners and writing program descriptions anymore!

ImageOut: 18 and Still Blooming

After screening 87 films from all over the world (including a rare gem from the Bahamas!), hosting numerous visiting filmmakers and actors, and selling more than 8700 tickets, ImageOut secured yet another victory with the huge success of our annual October film festival, now in its 18th year. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this Festival just keeps getting better each year.

Opening Night set the tone for the 10-day event with energy and enthusiasm. Both featured Gala films sold out, forcing procrastinating ticket buyers to form long lines for limited “Rush Only” admission. Granted, our second feature of the evening sold out long before the Opening Night festivities began, but hopefully anyone who didn’t score themselves a seat will remember the lesson next year! Following the screenings of The Four-Faced Liar and Howl, guest actors headed by writer Marja-Lewis Ryan and Academy-Award-winning filmmaker Jeffrey Friedman engaged and embraced their audiences in entertaining and informative Q&A sessions. Mr. Friedman and his absent co-director Rob Epstein are also this year’s recipients of the prestigious ImageMaker Award for their outstanding contribution to LGBT cinema. The festive and joyous atmosphere continued at the nearby Eros Bar & Restaurant for the Opening Night Party, stretching this already long day into the wee hours of the morning.

The rest of the Festival schedule kept the pace zooming along with great films screening to packed audiences and garnering their highest approvals. Most importantly, people enjoyed seeing friends from the community, not to mention, meeting new ones, and being able to mingle with our fabulous guest artists. ImageOut has truly become a cultural force to reckon with around these parts.

Here are some of this year’s highlights:

• The impressive list of guests included hot and popular LGBT personalities like Casper Andreas, Jesse Archer, Cathy DeBuono, and Jill Bennett, along with new-to-the-scene artists such as Paris P. Pickard, Adam Huss, Keith Hartman and Israel Luna.

• Oscar-nomination hopeful Undertow received an enthusiastic and emotional reception, helping it win the ImageOut Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature.

• Local short films are back with a vengeance receiving high marks during the Flower City Flicks Program. An independent jury gave Judgment Day the Mary Elizabeth Knight Award for Best Local Short. The crowd votes favored both You Belong With Me and Hens and Chicks in a rare tie for the Audience Award for Best Short Film (of the entire festival!). The Rochester area is bursting at the seams with artistic talent!

• The personal struggles bravely shared in the Archive Night documentary, Word is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives, still resonate with the audiences of today.

• Making the Boys, Audience Award winner for Best Documentary Feature, brought back memories from a tumultuous era and gave our younger audience members some good lessons to carry home with them.

• Festival selections screened in 5 venues this year including theatres at RIT and U of R, enforcing our commitment to reaching out to everyone. The screening at U of R was a wonderful way to help the University celebrate their Meliora weekend and the 40th anniversary of the campus student pride group.

• 5 sold out shows including both Opening Night and the Closing Night films.

While potentially disastrous problems like digital equipment malfunction and a last-minute party venue change threatened to disrupt the Festival proceedings, our resourceful and hardworking team of volunteers ensured that everything ran as smoothly as possible. Kudos to each and every one of you!

Unfortunately, there is not really a lot of time to bask in this year’s achievements as planning for our 19th year begins immediately. Let’s hope we continue the tradition of besting the previous year’s accomplishments as we get even closer to celebrating two full decades of success. Check the ImageOut festival website and blog to see how you can help make next year an even bigger successful event!

~ Michael Gamilla
Programming Director

Tickets Sales Update ...

... or more like Ticket Sales Warning! As we enter the second week of ImageOut ticket sales, some shows are proving to be more popular than others. If you are planning on seeing Howl and/or Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay! at the Festival, be advised that these two shows are close to selling out. So get your tickets within the next few days before they run out!

Closely following these two films in sales (and would most likely sell out as well), in no particular order, are The Four-Faced Liar, From Beginning To End, Is It Just Me?, Room In Rome, You Should Meet My Son!, Violet Tendencies, Undertow, The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, and Elena Undone.

Other popular titles include: Plan B, Twisted Love (shorts), Just Curious (shorts), Purple Sea, Children of God, The String, We Have To Stop Now, A Frozen flower, Wild About Harry, BearCity, Making the Boys, A Marine Story, and Word Is Out.
You can purchase your ImageOut tickets online until Oct. 7. Our next phone-in and in-person ticket sales at our Village Gate office is tomorrow, Saturday, Sept. 25 from 12:30 to 4:00pm.

Do not delay your ticket purchase for too long or you'll be sorry!

~MG

ImageOut 18 Guest Roster

Have you seen the amazing lineup of guest stars and guest filmmakers who are gracing the ImageOut "red carpet" this year? Household names and up-and-coming talents in the world of LGBT cinema share the spotlight for 10 days in Rochester. Popular and internationally-acclaimed stars such as Casper Andreas, Jesse Archer, Cathy DeBuono, Jill Bennett and many others will be attending the screening of their respective films at ImageOut to meet their fans and to talk about their movies.

So be sure to have your tickets, enjoy the movies, and meet our guests! Check out our website for more information.

ImageOut 18 Program

Now that the ImageOut 18 program guides are all over Rochester, I hope you've had a chance to grab your copy and have enjoyed checking out our film offerings for October. This has been a very tough year for some reason, probably because of all the high-quality film options we have. But I'm very satisfied with the resulting Festival lineup. It's a very strong program and I want to personally highlight the amazing lesbian and trans choices this year.

So what films have caught your attention? Anything you are looking forward to see? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

In the weeks leading to the festival, we will be posting some of our recommendations and favorites here in the blog.

For now, click here for the latest trailer of the controversial film, TICKED-OFF TRANNIES WITH KNIVES. I'm posting it here as it will give you an idea of what the film is about and how graphic the violence could be. We love this film but we want you to be aware of what it's about. Is this too gory or bloody for you? This is nothing compared to the movie so just be warned!

January 16 FREE Screenings

On Saturday, January 16, ImageOut is proud to bring back the Audience Award winning films from 2009 that captured people's hearts and votes. We are hosting encore screenings of FALLING FOR CAROLINE, EDIE & THEA: A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT, and PATRIK, AGE 1.5 at the Cinema Theatre. These screenings are free and open to the public so bring your friends and family along to show them why ImageOut should be on their agenda for 2010.

Saturday, January 16

Cinema Theatre, 957 South Clinton Avenue, Rochester NY

2:00pm

Falling for Caroline - Audience Award Winner for Best Independent Short

Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement - Audience Award Winner for Best Independent Documentary

3:45pm

Patrik, Age 1.5 - Audience Award Winner for Best Independent Feature

R U a Fruit Fly?

No, it's not another bug movie starring Jeff Goldblum, but it is a movie you shouldn't miss!

For the second straight year (surprisingly, no pun intended), the ImageOut Festival Fair will feature two great (and cheap!) film screenings. These two carefully selected films just couldn't make it into the Final festival lineup for one reason or another, but we wanted to bring them to Rochester anyway.

Fruit Fly shows life the way I wish it really was: a musical! Seriously, I would never miss a day of work or put off doing laundry if I knew large-scale dance numbers and songs about the dozens of different terms for fag hag were possibilities at any moment!

Will you be a fly on the wall at this year's Festival Fair?

ImageOut 17 and our Festival Fair

Well, the Festival lineup is just about complete. Just working on a couple more kinks. In the meantime, catch up on ImageOut-related news by downloading our Summer Newsletter. Or if you are in our mailing list, you should receive it by post very soon.

Our next big event is our annual Festival Fair where the program book will be launched, the lineup unveiled, and tickets for this year's films will be available for purchase to the public for the first time. Board Members and volunteers will be on hand to talk about anything about ImageOut. So join us at the Rochester Museum and Science Center (Eisenhart Auditorium) on Sept. 8 from 6pm to 11pm. It's free and open to anyone!

During the Festival Fair, we are showing two films that missed our lineup. Advance tickets for these screenings are available at Outlandish and Equal=Grounds. Click here for more information and click on the images above to see the trailer.

See you there!

Pacesetter Event Another Success

ImageOut hosted our Annual Spring Pacesetter Event to raise donor and membership funds for the current festival year last Saturday morning, April 4, at the Little Theatre and Cafe. The wet and cold weather certainly boosted attendance and the ImageOut Board of Directors mingled with both loyal and new members over breakfast AND lunch. A quick presentation followed by a preview screening of award-winning short films for this year broke up the two meals. It was another huge success for ImageOut and I certainly hope it's a sign of good things to come for this year. If you wish to become an ImageOut member, check out our website for information on how to join or call the office at 585-271-2640.

Here are some pictures from Saturday. Everyone had smiles to share! I myself was happy and gay that morning from all the sweet delights from Hedonist Artisan Chocolates, one of our loyal supporters and sponsors. Thanks Jen and Zahra!
Photos courtesy of ImageOut member Garnetta Ely.

Call For Work

ImageOut is seeking films for our 2009 festival in October. If you have films with strong LGBT themes and/or characters (shorts, features, documentaries) that you want to submit for our consideration, you can download the Call for Work submission form from our website for all the information. We'd love for you to be part of our fabulous event this fall.

Of course, one of the highlights of the festival is our showcase of talented area filmmakers. So if you are, or know of, a filmmaker from the Western New York region (or originally from the area), please let us celebrate you! Check out our Flower City Flicks submission form.

Hurry! Deadline for film submission is July 1. And please forward this information to your friends.

If you have questions or want to recommend LGBT films for the festival, feel free to leave a comment anywhere in this blog (we will find it!) or email us at programming@imageout.org.

~MG

ImageOut Audiences Embrace TRU LOVED

After two years of picking heavy powerful dramas, ImageOut 16 voters opt for something lighter by giving the 2008 Audience Award for Best Independent Feature to the comedic romp TRU LOVED. The film, also one of the Festival's top sellers, manages to squeak by some of the heavy favorites including XXY and SAVE ME, which many voters note are the best films in this year's lineup. But sometimes it only takes a couple of people to have issues with a film to bring its average down.

However, TRU LOVED rates consistently high among the many people turning in their votes. And the film screening also has the most diverse audiences attending. So congratulations to Director Stewart Wade for winning this coveted award.

Here's how you rate our feature films this year:

1. Tru Loved
2. The Secrets
3. Steam
4. Four Minutes
5. Clapham Junction
6. Save Me
7. What Love Means
8. The Sensei
9. XXY
10. Breakfast with Scot
11. Ready? Ok!
12. The New World
13. Mulligans
14. Were the World Mine
15. The World Unseen
16. Antonio's Secret
17. Fashion Victims
18. Ciao
19. Grimm Love
20. Savage Grace
21. Drifting Flowers
22. Boystown
23. Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild!
24. To Each Her Own
25. Sugar Rush
26. Otto; Or, Up With Dead People
27. The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela
28. Newcastle

Popular PAGEANT Wins the Crown

PAGEANT charms its way to the hearts of ImageOut audiences and captures our 2008 Audience Award for Best Independent Documentary. Our documentary films this year really connect with our audiences with the Top 10 all rating within .30 point of each other. The rest are not too far behind.

Congratulations to filmmakers Ron Davis and Stewart Halpern!

Here's how you rate our documentary films:

1. Pageant
2. The Times of Harvey Milk
3. In Sickness & In Health
4. U People
5. It's Still Elementary
6. The Universe of Keith Haring
7. Equality U
8. Out Late
9. Sex Positive
10. Ask Not
11. Be Like Others
12. Laughing Matters . . . Next Gen
13. Eleven Minutes
14. Bi the Way
15. Searching for Sandeep
16. Ebony Chunky Love: Bitch Can't Get a Date

NO BIKINI wins Best Short Film

Congratulations to Claudia Morgado Escanilla (Vancouver, Canada) for winning ImageOut's Audience Award for Best Short Film for her wonderful and entertaining piece, NO BIKINI! Ironically, this award-winning short is the very first film I booked for our 2008 lineup having first seen it at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival in September of last year (yes, even before ImageOut 15 started!). Claudia, whom I met at TIFF last year and again at Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, generously agreed to participate in our Youth Project Series because she understands what we are trying to accomplish here at ImageOut -- to reach out to as many LGBT youth as possible through films. Her film narrowly edges out another popular youth film, ODD ONE OUT, VERY NORMAL REALLY.

Here are your Top 25 choices for Best Short:

1. No Bikini (Growing Pains)
2. Odd One Out, Very Normal Really: From Lucas to Luus, From Boy to Girl (Growing Pains)
3. The Postcard (His Dark Secret)
4. Traces (His Dark Secret)
5. Laundromat (screened with In Sickness & In Health)
6. Mano-A-Mano (screened with Another Gay Sequel)
7. Mrs. Kasha Davis: The Life of an International Celebrity Housewife (Flower City Flicks)
8. In-Sight-Out: Mark Groaning (Flower City Flicks)
9. Babysitting Andy (Growing Pains)
10. Ready? Ok! (Growing Pains)
11. Auld Lang Syne (screened with Out Late)
12. Souljah (His Dark Secret)
13. The Crown (Womyn Power is Everywhere)
14. Pages of a Girl (Arts & Crafts)
15. Crafty (Arts & Crafts)
16. A Boy Named Sue (Flower City Flicks)
17. Pitstop (Arts & Crafts)
18. HerzHaft (His Dark Secret)
19. Ready or Not (screened with Searching for Sandeep)
20. Solace (His Dark Secret)
21. The Premiere (Arts & Crafts)
22. Ta (His Dark Secret)
23. Donkey Girl (Growing Pains)
24. Death & Taxes (Flower City Flicks)
25. Buffalo-Bangalore-Buffalo (Flower City Flicks)

ImageOut 17 - Save the Dates!

Did you miss ImageOut 16 because you were on vacation? Or away on business? Well, you missed a lot! And we missed you too! So let's not make that same mistake and plan early for next year. ImageOut 17 will be bringing excitement to Rochester and our LGBT community from October 9 to 18, 2009. We hope to see you then.

ImageOut 16 is His(Hers)tory!

And just like that, another great ImageOut Film Festival is over. What great 10 days we had! Thanks to everyone who made ImageOut 16 another huge success for us -- our Board of Directors, our Grantmakers, Donors, Sponsors, Members and Community Partners, our Volunteers, our Audiences, and the staff at our venues. The films were well-received, the parties were well-attended, and the feedbacks have been great. Of course, we'll just have to make ImageOut 17 even better!

I'm particularly very happy (and proud of our audiences!) that our new ImageOut There! Series was well-received. There were a couple of comments that we might be alienating our audiences with darker subjects but the feedbacks have been overwhelmingly positive. So I think we gained a lot more by having the series.

We will be posting more pictures in the next few days so I hope you continue to visit the blog. And we'll keep you in the loop on what's going for the next year.

I will also be posting the results of your votes for our Audience Awards -- and the competition was very tight!

Don't forget that we welcome and appreciate your comments.

See you soon!
~ Michael G