San Francisco Transgender Film Festival

Last updated
San Francisco Transgender Film Festival
Location San Francisco
Founded1997
Website sftff.org

The San Francisco Transgender Film Festival (SFTFF) is the world's oldest transgender film festival. [1] [2] Originally named Tranny Fest, the Festival was co-founded by Christopher Lee and Alex Austin in 1997, with Elise Hurwitz as technical director. [3] [4] Lee and Austin produced the Festival until 2002; in 2003, Shawna Virago took over as Artistic Director. [3] [5]

Contents

Originally, the festival was organized largely by volunteers and operated without any government or private funding. [2] Artistic Director Shawna Virago explained that neither government nor foundations would support transgender arts, stating "There was absolutely no funding available for transgender arts events" and that SFTFF "had to survive and thrive on our transgender smarts, sweat, and love from the community." [2]

The festival was held biennially from its founding in 1997 until 2005, when audience demand led Virago and the advisory board to transform the festival into an annual event. [4] Before 2016, the festival's screenings and programs were held in venues including The Roxie Theater, The Bearded Lady Cafe, The Lexington Club, Mama Calizo's Voice Factory, the San Francisco LGBT Community Center, and CounterPulse. [6] [7] SFTFF returned to its original home — the Roxie Theater — for its 2013 festival, [8] and has remained at the Roxie Theater ever since. [1] [9]

On November 10, 2016, SFTFF celebrated its 15th Anniversary Festival at the Roxie Theater with two feature-length films and 38 short films scheduled. [2] The 2016 festival included a subtitled program for deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons for the first time, as well as ASL interpretation. [1] [2] The 2016 opening night feature film was FREE CeCe!, a documentary about trans woman CeCe McDonald, who was sent to a men's prison after defending herself from an attack. [1] [10] Directed by Jac Gares, the film also features trans actress Laverne Cox, who served as the executive producer. [1] [10] [5] Among the short films playing in the 2016 Festival was the documentary Mezzo, featuring trans opera singer Breanna Sinclairé. [10] [11]

The 2018 San Francisco Transgender Film Festival ran November 9–11, 2018 at the Roxie Theater, San Francisco. [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roxie Theater</span> Movie theater in San Francisco, California

The Roxie Theater, also known as the Roxie Cinema or just The Roxie, is a historic movie theater, founded in 1912, at 3117 16th Street in the Mission District of San Francisco. It is a non-profit community arthouse cinema.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Francisco Pride</span> Annual LGBTQ+ event in San Francisco, California

The San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Celebration, usually known as San Francisco Pride, is a pride parade and festival held at the end of June most years in San Francisco, California, to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and their straight allies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Turner Schofield</span> American actor, writer and producer

Scott Turner Schofield is an American actor, writer, producer, and speaker. He is a transgender activist, and uses he/him and they/them pronouns. He was the first out transgender actor in Daytime television, and the first out trans man to earn an Emmy nomination for acting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GLBT Historical Society</span> American non-profit LGBT historical society

The GLBT Historical Society maintains an extensive collection of archival materials, artifacts and graphic arts relating to the history of LGBT people in the United States, with a focus on the LGBT communities of San Francisco and Northern California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katastrophe (rapper)</span> American rapper

Rocco Kayiatos, known professionally as Katastrophe and in some later releases as Rocco Katastrophe, is an American rapper.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Stryker</span> American professor, historian, author, and filmmaker

Susan O'Neal Stryker is an American professor, historian, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses on gender and human sexuality. She is a professor of Gender and Women's Studies, former director of the Institute for LGBT Studies, and founder of the Transgender Studies Initiative at the University of Arizona, and is currently on leave while holding an appointment as Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership at Mills College. Stryker serves on the Advisory Council of METI and the Advisory Board of the Digital Transgender Archive. Stryker, who is a transgender woman, is the author of several books about LGBT history and culture. She is a leading scholar of transgender history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CeCe McDonald</span> American activist

CeCe McDonald is an African American trans woman and LGBTQ activist. She came to national attention in June 2012 for accepting a plea bargain of 41 months for second-degree manslaughter of a man she stabbed after McDonald and her friends were assaulted in Minneapolis outside a bar near closing time. The attack, a year prior, was widely seen as racist and transphobic, and became physical when McDonald was struck in the face by the man's friend with "an alcoholic drink" glass causing a bleeding gash that needed stitches.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honey Mahogany</span> American drag queen

Honey Mahogany is an American activist, politician, drag performer, and singer. She first came to national attention on the fifth season of RuPaul's Drag Race, followed by releasing her debut EP Honey Love. She was instrumental in setting up The Transgender District in San Francisco, where she served as the first director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBT culture in San Francisco</span> Culture of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in San Francisco, United States

The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in San Francisco is one of the largest and most prominent LGBT communities in the United States, and is one of the most important in the history of American LGBT rights and activism alongside New York City. The city itself has been described as "the original 'gay-friendly city'". LGBT culture is also active within companies that are based in Silicon Valley, which is located within the southern San Francisco Bay Area.

Crystal Jang is an LGBT activist based in San Francisco, California. She is one of the co-founders of the San Francisco Bay Area based organization, Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women and Transgender Community (APIQWTC), as well as community-based organization Older Asian Sisters in Solidarity (OASIS), which is now a part of APIQWTC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cecilia Chung</span> Civil rights leader

Cecilia Chung is a civil rights leader and activist for LGBT rights, HIV/AIDS awareness, health advocacy, and social justice. She is a trans woman, and her life story was one of four main storylines in the 2017 ABC miniseries When We Rise about LGBT rights in the 1970s and 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Lee (activist)</span> American LGBT activist

Christopher "Christoph" Lee was an American transgender activist, and award-winning filmmaker in the San Francisco Bay Area community. He was also the co-founder of Tranny Fest, now called the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival (SFTFF). In 2002 he was the first openly trans man Grand Marshal of San Francisco Pride. Lee's death and the designation of his assigned gender at birth on his death certificate rather than his self-identified gender was the impetus behind the "Respect After Death Act", AB 1577, which was passed in California on September 26, 2014.

Morty Diamond is a filmmaker, artist, performer, and writer from the United States who has worked alongside the LGBT community for over 14 years. Diamond has written and edited three books, which all focus on transgender topics, and has also made two films which explore LGBT subjects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Breanna Sinclairé</span> American singer

Breanna Sinclairé is an American singer based in California. In June 2015, she became the first transgender woman to sing the American national anthem at a professional sports event.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Felicia Elizondo</span> American transgender activist (1946–2021)

Felicia Elizondo was an American transgender woman with a long history of activism on behalf of the LGBT community. She was a regular at Gene Compton's Cafeteria in San Francisco during the time of the Compton's Cafeteria riot, a historic LGBT community uprising.

Sean Dorsey is an Emmy Award-winning transgender and queer choreographer, dancer, writer and trans rights activist. He is widely recognized as the United States' first acclaimed transgender modern dance choreographer. Dorsey founded his San Francisco-based dance company Sean Dorsey Dance, which incorporates transgender and LGBTQ+ themes into all of their works and has toured to more than 30 cities internationally. Along with creating a dance company, Dorsey is also the founder and artistic director of Fresh Meat Productions. Founded in 2002, Fresh Meat Productions is a non-profit organization that invests in the creative expression and cultural leadership of transgender and gender-nonconforming communities. Fresh Meat Productions creates and commissions new work, presents performing arts programs, conducts education and engagement, and advocates for justice and equity in the Arts. The organization is well known for its annual Fresh Meat Festival in San Francisco, an annual festival of transgender and queer performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Megan Rohrer</span> American activist for homeless and LGBTQ+ rights (born 1980)

Megan Rohrer is an American activist for homeless and LGBTQ+ rights and former Lutheran bishop. Rohrer is the first openly transgender minister ordained in the Lutheran tradition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toni Newman</span> African-American transgender author and sex workers rights advocate

Toni D. Newman is an African-American transgender author, sex workers' rights advocate, Director of The Coalition for Justice and Equality Across Movements at NMAC, and the Former Interim CEO of the Black AIDS Institute and former Interim Executive Director/President for LYRIC in San Francisco. She was the former Executive Director of St. James Infirmary in San Francisco. She is the author of I Rise-The Transformation of Toni Newman, a 2011 memoir about her gender transition which was nominated for multiple Lambda Literary Awards and became the basis for a short film, Heart of a Woman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Francisco Independent Film Festival</span> Annual festival held in San Francisco, California, U.S.

The San Francisco Independent Film Festival, known as IndieFest, is an annual film festival, held in January or February, that recognizes contemporary independent film. It is run by SF IndieFest, a nonprofit organization, and based at the Roxie Theater in the Mission District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dana Aliya Levinson</span> Actor, writer, trans advocate

Dana Aliya Levinson, born in 1992, is a television writer, actress, and Jewish transgender advocate best known for her roles as Toni Rykener on the television series American Gods, Sadie Lipton in The Good Fight, and Hazel in the independent film Adam which had its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "San Francisco Transgender Film Festival". San Francisco Bay Times. November 10, 2016. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Staver, Sari (October 27, 2016). "Trans film fest unveils largest program ever". Bay Area Reporter . Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  3. 1 2 Cynthia Laird (January 31, 2013). "Memorials set for trans filmmaker Christopher Lee". Bay Area Reporter. Retrieved December 8, 2016.
  4. 1 2 "San Francisco Transgender Film Festival - About Us". San Francisco Transgender Film Festival. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  5. 1 2 Schmider, Alex (October 27, 2016). "The San Francisco Transgender Film Festival returns in November". GLAAD . Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  6. ↑ Levinson, Deborah (2001). "Tranny Fest - Gender Armageddon: This Is The Future". Official Site of Author Robert S. Levinson. Retrieved August 4, 2017.
  7. ↑ "Monthly Archives: November 2009". San Francisco Transgender Film Festival. November 2, 2009. Retrieved August 4, 2017.
  8. ↑ Hutt, John (November 6, 2013). "Need to Know: San Francisco Transgender Film Festival". Out . Retrieved August 4, 2017.
  9. ↑ Nahmod, David-Elijah (October 31, 2023). "Transgender Film Festival returns: 26 years and going strong". Bay Area Reporter . Retrieved November 1, 2023.
  10. 1 2 3 Seikaly, Roula (November 9, 2016). "Now 15 Years Old, SF Transgender Film Festival Pushes for More Than Visibility". KQED . Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  11. ↑ Nahmod, David-Elijah (November 11, 2016). "Local Opera Singer Highlighted At This Weekend's Transgender Film Festival". Hoodline. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  12. ↑ "Submit Your Film". San Francisco Transgender Film Festival. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
Gay flag.svg

This article about a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender-related festival or event is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

United States film clapperboard.svg

This article about an American film festival is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.