Long Beach QFilm Festival 2016 - Major Features Lineup including Local Premieres | June 25, 2016

Credit: QFilms

The 2016 Long Beach QFilm Festival will take place September 8-11, 2016 at the historic Art Theatre located at 2025 East 4th St. and the neighboring LGBTQ Center of Long Beach, both on Long Beach’s renowned “Retro Row.” Submissions for this year’s fest are now closed but will be accepted beginning in October for the 2017 festival via www.withoutabox.com.

Passes and tickets will be available for purchase beginning in August through the QFilms festival page at www.qfilmslongbeach.com.

Long Beach’s longest-running film festival since 1993, the QFilm Festival annually presents narrative features, documentaries and short films that embody the rich diversity and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) communities. More than 1,500 people attend each year to savor a mix of West Coast, Southern California and local premieres as well some of the most acclaimed features on the film festival circuit. Numerous filmmakers and cast members of the films to be shown will be present for audience discussions after each screening. Festival events will feature numerous parties and opportunities for attendees to meet and mingle with filmmakers, actors, critics and other industry professionals.

The 2016 QFilm Festival will open at the Art Theatre the evening of Thursday, September 8th with the Long Beach premiere of “Jewel’s Catch One,” the celebratory documentary about the queer black woman who established Los Angeles’s landmark nightclub “for gays, lesbians, bis, tris and otherwise.” It will be followed by the Los Angeles-area premiere of Rob Williams’s “Shared Rooms,” a sexy and moving story focused on Page 2 several different gay men whose paths inadvertently cross between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. An Opening Night party will take place between screenings at the LGBTQ Center of Greater Long Beach, located directly next door to the Art Theatre.

Two acclaimed, “killer” features will have their local premieres the night of Friday, September 9th. “Women Who Kill” is a dark comedy of manners involving two ex-girlfriends who have become true-crime podcasters. Writer-director-star Ingrid Jungermann’s screenplay has won awards at both the Tribeca and Outfest film festivals. It will be followed by Casper Andreas’s “Kiss Me, Kill Me,” in which a man is accused of murdering his unfaithful boyfriend. This twist-filled mystery’s cast includes Gale Harold of “Queer as Folk” fame. It recently won multiple awards including Best Narrative Feature at FilmOut San Diego. A party to die for will take place between screenings at the Center.

Other narrative and documentary features that will have their Long Beach premieres between Saturday and Sunday are: “Kiki,” a worthy successor to “Paris is Burning” and “Leave It on the Floor” about the young, multicultural participants in New York City’s famed drag balls; “Retake,” in which a man played by Tuc Watkins (“Desperate Housewives,” “Where the Bears Are”) hires a hustler to accompany him on a life changing road trip; “The Revival: Women & The Word,” a fly-on-the-wall documentary focusing on four queer, black women devoted to poetry and the spoken word; “Free CeCe,” another powerful documentary (featuring Laverne Cox of “Orange is the New Black”) that confronts the culture of violence surrounding trans women of color; “Bruising for Besos,” in which a lesbian artist finds her life upended when she falls for a Puerto Rican woman; “Raising Zoey,” the inspiring real-life story of a transgender teenager who won an antidiscrimination legal case against her school district; and “Angry Indian Goddesses,” a delightful, awardwinning Bollywood comedy-drama set against the backdrop of a woman’s impending wedding.

The Closing Night films on Sunday, September 11th will be “First Girl I Loved,” a Sundance Film Festival award winner about the love triangle between two high school girls and a jealous male best friend, and “Paris 05:59: Theo & Hugo,” the initially racy but ultimately romantic tale (and winner of the prestigious “Teddy” Audience Award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival) of two men who meet in an underground sex club.

In addition, QFilms’ signature short film programs Men in Briefs and Women in Shorts will return on September 10th and 11th, as well as a Queer and Trans People of Color short film program. These selections will be announced within the next few weeks.

Jury and Audience awards will be given to worthy films in several categories. All net proceeds from the festival will benefit The LGBTQ Center of Long Beach and its important community outreach programs. We are grateful to those filmmakers and current sponsors who are supporting this effort. Sponsors of the 2016 QFilm Festival include: Hyatt Regency Long Beach, TGIS Catering, Anderson Real Estate Group, St. Mary Medical Center Foundation, EP Productions, Long Beach Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, Barefoot, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and Nick Chavez Beverly Hills. Additional sponsors and underwriters are being sought, and program ad space is available. Please contact Porter Gilberg at (562) 434-4455 ext. 245 or porterg@centerlb.org for information about sponsorship and advertising opportunities. For more information on the Art Theatre, please visit www.arttheatrelongbeach.com.

About The LGBTQ Center of Long Beach

The LGBTQ Center of Long Beach is located at 2017 E. Fourth Street in Long Beach. The Center was officially incorporated in 1980 and has been providing a variety of health, social, advocacy, legal, and service programs to the LGBTQ community in the Long Beach area for three decades. The Center serves approximately 25,000 clients annually through dozens of programs and services. www.centerlb.org.