Angela Robinson is an American film and television director, screenwriter and producer. Outfest Fusion LGBTQ People of Color Film Festival awarded Robinson with the Fusion Achievement Award in 2013 for her contribution to LGBTQ+ media visibility.
Maeve Quinlan is an Irish-American actress. She is best known for starring as Megan Conley for 11 years in The Bold and the Beautiful, as Paula Carin South of Nowhere, and Constance Tate-Duncan in the rebooted 90210.
Jenni Olson is a writer, archivist, historian, consultant, and non-fiction filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. She co-founded the pioneering LGBT website PlanetOut.com. Her two feature-length essay films — The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) — premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Her work as an experimental filmmaker and her expansive personal collection of LGBTQ film prints and memorabilia were acquired in April 2020 by the Harvard Film Archive, and her reflection on the last 30 years of LGBT film history was published as a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Queer Cinema from Oxford University Press in 2021. In 2020, she was named to the Out Magazine Out 100 list. In 2021, she was recognized with the prestigious Special TEDDY Award at the Berlin Film Festival. She also campaigned to have a barrier erected on the Golden Gate Bridge to prevent suicides.
Fina Torres is a Venezuelan film director and screenwriter. She became internationally recognized after winning the la Caméra d'Or award at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival with her directorial debut film, Oriana.
Donna Deitch is an American film and television director, producer, screenwriter, and actor best known for her 1985 film Desert Hearts. The movie was the first feature film to "de-sensationalize lesbianism" by presenting a lesbian romance story with positive and respectful themes.
Desert Hearts is a 1985 American romantic drama film directed by Donna Deitch. The screenplay, written by Natalie Cooper, is an adaptation of the 1964 lesbian novel Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule. Set in Reno, Nevada in 1959, it tells the story of a university professor awaiting a divorce who finds her true self through a relationship with another, more self-confident woman. The film stars Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau with a supporting performance by Audra Lindley.
Outfest is an LGBTQ-oriented nonprofit that produces two film festivals, operates a movie streaming platform, and runs educational services for filmmakers in Los Angeles. Outfest is one of the key partners, alongside the Frameline Film Festival, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, and the Inside Out Film and Video Festival, in launching the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film.
Chutney Popcorn is a 1999 comedy-drama film starring, directed and co-written by Nisha Ganatra. Ganatra plays a young lesbian Indian American woman called Reena. Jill Hennessy plays her girlfriend Lisa, and Reena's mother and sister are played by real life mother and daughter Madhur Jaffrey and Sakina Jaffrey. The film explores the conflict between Reena's sexual and national identities as well as her mother Meenu's attempts to come to terms with the Western lives of both her daughters.
D.E.B.S. is a 2003 American action comedy short film written and directed by Angela Robinson. D.E.B.S. made the film festival circuit including the Sundance Film Festival, L.A. Outfest and New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, receiving a total of seven film festival awards.
Julie "J. D." Disalvatore was an American LGBT film and television producer/director and gay rights activist. She was openly lesbian.
Michelle Ehlen is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actress best known for her comedic feature Butch Jamie.
Butch Jamie is a gender-bending romantic comedy film that premiered in July 2007 at Outfest: the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Writer, director, and lead actress Michelle Ehlen won Outfest's Grand Jury Award for "Outstanding Actress in a Feature Film." The film was produced independently through the filmmaker's production company, Ballet Diesel Films.
Katherine Brooks is an American film writer and director. She is a member of the Directors Guild of America, a Jury Member for Samsung Fresh-Films 2007, and the recipient of the LACE Award for Arts and Entertainment. In 2011, she was named one of the "Amazing Gay Women in Showbiz" by POWER UP.
Were the World Mine is a 2008 romantic musical fantasy film directed by Tom Gustafson, written by Gustafson and Cory James Krueckeberg, and starring Tanner Cohen, Wendy Robie, Judy McLane, Zelda Williams, Jill Larson, Ricky Goldman, Nathaniel David Becker, Christian Stolte, and David Darlow.
Girl Play is an independent film produced in 2004 by Gina G. Goff and Laura A. Kellam of Goff-Kellam Productions. The feature film was directed by Lee Friedlander. The film premiered at Outfest in 2004, and had a limited theatrical release in 2005.
Cathy DeBuono is an American actress and practicing psychotherapist.
Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement is a 2009 American documentary film directed and produced by Susan Muska and Gréta Ólafsdóttir for their company Bless Bless Productions, in association with Sundance Channel. The film tells the story of the long-term lesbian relationship between Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer, including their respective childhoods, their meeting in 1963, their lives and careers in New York City, Thea's diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and Edie's care for her partner, and their wedding in Toronto, Canada, in May 2007, because gay marriage was not then legal in their home state of New York.
Jennifer Young is an American film producer and photographer.
S&M Sally is a 2015 American comedy-romance film directed by Michelle Ehlen. It stars Jen McPherson, Michelle Ehlen and Shaela Cook. This is the third installment of the "Butch Jamie" series and follows the relationship of the characters Jamie & Jill.
A Million Happy Nows is a 2017 American independent drama film written by Marisa Calin and directed by Albert Alarr. The film stars Crystal Chappell and Jessica Leccia as a lesbian couple dealing with the diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer's.
