In a first for the festival, One Institute presents “Reel Resilience: The Circa 2024 Short Film Festival.” This curated selection of films delves into the transformative power of love and the revolutionary spirit that has driven the LGBTQ+ community’s journey through history. Each film offers a unique perspective on queer liberation, personal growth, and the evolution of queer identities.
Through these films, the festival provides a platform for stories that inspire and challenge us to continue advocating for our communities and recognizing the diverse expressions of love and identity.
“Reel Resilience: The Circa 2024 Short Film Festival” will take place at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Renberg Theatre on Sunday, October 13, 2024, from 3-7 p.m.
The evening will be split into two 90-minute blocks, each showcasing a pair of short films with a post-screening Q&A with the filmmakers. Block 1 will take place from 3-4:30 p.m. and Block 2 will take place from 5-6:30 p.m.
BLOCK 1: 3-4:30 PM
Free Radicals: A Queer Liberation Story Archive Screening
Filmmaker A. Allegra shares unreleased footage from their 35-year archive, capturing pivotal moments in queer history, from ACT UP demonstrations to recent Trans Marches. This work-in-progress documentary reflects on radical joy and the complexities of visibility in the fight for queer liberation.
Perfectly Queer
This short film features six staged monologues that explore heartwarming, heartbreaking, and hopeful stories of personal growth and self-acceptance. Through voice, movement, poetry, ASL, and dance, Perfectly Queer celebrates the journey of loving oneself and embracing one’s identity.
BLOCK 2: 5-6:30 PM
Lesbians in Boystown
Award-winning filmmaker Betsy Kalin highlights the contributions of lesbians and queer women to West Hollywood since the 1980s. The documentary explores the history of Dyke Marches, lesbian activism during the AIDS crisis, and the ongoing effort to maintain visible spaces for queer women, despite societal challenges.
Old Lesbians
Old Lesbians honors the legacy of Arden Eversmeyer’s Old Lesbian Oral Herstory Project, animating the resilient and joyful voices of older lesbians. The film captures stories of love, loss, and connection, preserving the rich history of an often overlooked community.
This program is suitable for all ages.
Panelists: Block 1
Queer, Queens-bred A. Allegra (they/them) is a multi-award winning documentary filmmaker, with work spanning generations and genres over forty years. After starting at MTV NEWS in the early 80s, Allegra pioneered accessible news to teenagers at CHANNEL ONE NEWS with then-unknown journalists Anderson Cooper and Lisa Ling. There, Allegra won a PEABODY AWARD for documentary short A DECADE OF AIDS, and continued to create compelling shorts covering everything from teenagers in prison to teen pregnancy.
Allegra’s career next went digital, with the launch of the first web-based video channel in the late nineties, the Digital Entertainment Network. Allegra helped launch CURRENT TV for AL GORE, and then OWN for OPRAH WINFREY, winning two digital Emmys for this work.
They are currently in production on feature-length documentary FREE RADICALS: A QUEER LIBERATION STORY, spanning 40 years of queer joy and resistance through the lens of their personal archive.
Carin Jacobs has designed, produced & directed over 100 shows for professional and educational theatre. Her work can be seen in many genres including theatre, film, live stage shows and professional cheerleading. In addition to her freelance design work, Carin has taught art, fashion, and design courses at CSUDH and FIDM, and is currently the Associate Dean of the Fine and Performing Arts Division at Santa Ana College. Carin is a founding member of the Equality Task Force at CSUDH and is the faculty mentor of the LGBTQ Club. She is a former board member of The Human Rights Campaign & The Art Exchange, both organizations serving local LGBTQ and art communities. She holds a B.A. in Art History from UCLA and an M.F.A. in Theatre from Cal State Long Beach. Carin loves her career and feels like one of the luckiest people in the world to be making a living creating art.
Panelists: Block 2
Betsy Kalin (director/producer/writer) is the award-winning founder of Itchy Bee Productions. Her feature documentary DREAMING IN SOMALI was awarded a NEH/ITVS Humanities Documentary Development Fellowship. Her documentaries VISION 2030: FUTURE OF SOCAL and its follow-up VISION 2021: FUTURE OF SOCAL were both Emmy-nominated and premiered on Spectrum News 1 to two million households. Her previous documentary EAST LA INTERCHANGE won ten jury and audience awards. Her films ROOF, CHAINED!, and HEARTS CRACKED OPEN have been honored with multiple awards at festivals around the world. She is an Assistant Professor in the Film Program at the University of Central Florida.
Marna Deitch is an interpreter for the deaf, motorcycle instructor, and actor. She has been a proud resident of West Hollywood since 1985. She was the first woman hired to wait tables at the Greenery, a popular all night ‘diner’ in ‘Boystown’ and went on to bartend at WeHo spots like The Palms, Peanuts-7969, and Hamburger Hamlet. She was one of the two women credited with bringing the Women’s Motorcycle contingent back into the Los Angeles Gay Pride parade in 1995. She served on the WeHo Lesbian & Gay Advisory Board and is a 2019 Melissa Etheridge Award recipient for her community involvement.
Angela Brinskele has been the Director of Communications of the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives since 2006. She is a professional photographer who studied Photography at Fullerton College, Cal State Fullerton and UCLA Extension. She has worked in many photography fields including event photography and aerial photography from a helicopter. Angela aims to preserve women’s history through photography and has been documenting the LGBTQ+ community for over 35 years.
Meghan McDonough is a filmmaker and journalist who creates documentaries to better understand our world. She won Aesthetica/Audible’s Listening Pitch in 2023 to fund her documentary short Old Lesbians. A Question of Sex, her documentary series for Scientific American about how gender biases skew science, won a 2023 Telly Award and was nominated for the 2023 GLAAD Media Awards. Meghan was selected for the Atlantic Media Editorial Fellowship, and her work has since appeared in Quartz, NBC, Thomson Reuters Foundation, FiveThirtyEight, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Atlas Obscura, and has been supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
This screening series is organized by One Institute and is co-presented with the Los Angeles LGBT Center as part of Circa: Queer Histories Festival 2024.
The Los Angeles LGBT Center is a safe and welcoming place where the LGBTQ+ community finds help, hope, and support when it is needed the most.
Founded in 1952, One Institute is the oldest active LGBTQ+ organization in the country and the proud presenters of Circa: Queer Histories Festival. It's mission is to elevate queer and trans history and embrace emerging stories through collaborative education, arts, and cultural programs.
Each year, One Institute produces one-of-a-kind exhibitions and public programs connecting LGBTQ+ history and contemporary culture to effect social change. Through unique K-12 teacher trainings, lesson plans, and youth mentorship programs, One empowers the next generation of teachers and students bringing queer history into classrooms and communities. As the independent community partner of ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, One Institute helps promote the largest collection of LGBTQ+ materials in the world.