Frameline gay film festival director a cheery revolutionary
Frameline gay film festival director a cheery revolutionary
“I think it is certainly a historical moment and signals a huge shift in the culture,” Wallace said in her third-floor office at the Ninth Street Independent Film Center.
Frameline’s 39-year-old LGBTQ (the “Q,” for queer, was added this year “to be more comprehensive,” says Wallace) film festival kicks off its annual run on Thursday, June 18.
After the departure of former director K.C. Price, Wallace was tapped to head the organization that has for 39 years been at the forefront of entertaining and enlightening people — through cinema, outreach and education programs — about the complexities and breadth of the queer experience.
Whether discussing the queer community’s recent legal triumphs, the city’s economic and cultural shifts, or the viability of a gay film festival, Wallace circles back repeatedly to the basic notions of inclusion and representation that have always underscored Frameline’s mission.
Frameline’s Youth in Motion program, initiated in 2008, which provides free LGBTQ films and curriculum guides to schools, “is now in more than 750 high schools in 40 states,” says Wallace.
“I met Frances when I arrived here 18 months ago and was struck immediately by how intelligent and courageous her approach is toward the role film can play in changing lives,” says San Francisco Film Society Executive Director Noah Cowan.
After visiting the Toronto, Sundance and Berlin film festivals this year, and spending “all weekend long for six to eight months leading up to the festival” watching films, Wallace says she’s seeing a turn toward the bold, toward more provocative questioning by filmmakers and conversation starters.
Wallace says that since Frameline’s films reflect and respond to current cultural realities, the ’80s and ’90s saw a preponderance of AIDS stories, and now there’s an uptick in narratives about marriage equality and the transgender experience.
Wallace is particularly enthusiastic about Frameline’s opening-night and closing-night films this year: “I Am Michael,” starring James Franco as Michael Glatze, a real-life gay activist turned heterosexual Christian pastor, and “Bare,” about a woman in a bleak Nevada desert town who becomes involved with an adventurous female drifter.
[...] the fact that we have three major local sports teams sponsoring us and have the sports-related content too (such as Malcolm Ingram’s documentary “Out to Win,” which features perspectives on LGBTQ athletes) is a real shift in the zeitgeist.