Last summer, the UCLA Film and Television Archive teamed with
Outfest to create the largest collection of gay films in the world.
Today marks the project’s first major event.
“Out of the Closet, Into the Vaults” is a symposium
dedicated to the challenges faced by independent lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender cinema.
It will feature filmmakers, scholars, archivists and
preservationists in three discussion panels, including one
highlighting the archive’s groundbreaking partnership with
Outfest, one of the leading showcase groups for lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender film and video.
Formally known as the Outfest Legacy Project for LGBT Film
Preservation, the project initiates the preservation of
Outfest’s catalog of over 3,300 LGBT films and videos, as
well as the much-needed restoration of a number of older and more
damaged LGBT film prints and the creation of online finding aids to
allow for free and comprehensive information on these films.
“The collection creates the world’s first
comprehensive collection of every LGBT film, affirming LGBT’s
place in film history,” said Stephen Gutwillig,
Outfest’s executive director. “These films would
disappear if we didn’t do this now.”
Today’s symposium was preceded on Sunday by screenings at
the James Bridges Theater of a pair of LGBT films ““ the short
film “Queens at Heart” and the influential
“Saturday Night at the Baths,” which presents a
portrait of New York City’s gay bathhouses in the 1970s.
“(“˜Saturday Night at the Baths’) is just an
example of the richness and diversity of movies we will have to
offer,” UCLA Film and Television Archive director Tim
Kittleson said.
“The film provides an interesting historical
glimpse,” added Legacy Project program associate Erica Cho.
“(It) also testifies as to why we need to do this. This is
the only existing print of this film.”
Because of the lack of commercial viability found in this genre
of films, there is no system or money for the preservation of
independent LGBT films similar to the extremely expensive systems
used by Hollywood studios.
“People don’t realize how expensive it is with
restoring films. It involves putting together films that are
fragmented, missing scenes,” panelist and UCLA Moving Image
Archive Studies graduate student May Haduong said. “Films
that I thought were significant culturally have not been taken care
of,” Cho added.
Many are hoping the Outfest Legacy Project is the answer.
“One way or another, we’ll work our magic,”
Kittleson said. “We have a lot of tools in our tool
kit.”
Besides the preservation of these films, another of the
discussion panels, “Access Challenges: Public Resources for
LGBT Moving Image Research,” will focus on issues of
accessibility. The Outfest Legacy Project aims to give full access
of these films to students, researchers and people all over the
world through both the digitization of many rare LGBT films and the
creation of online finding aides and study guides, giving anyone
the ability to search the entire Outfest catalog and perform
research.
“There has not yet been a lot of study on ’70s,
’80s and ’90s LGBT films because no one knows how to
study it quite yet. There are already scholars working in this
field who just don’t have the right access,” Gutwillig
said.
Ultimately, the symposium is a move that recognizes the project
is about more than just archiving.
“It represents the need for the community to come
together,” Gutwillig said.