On Saturday, March 10, aGLIFF hosted a boisterous filmmakers brunch at Austin’s The Iron Bear bar to celebrate LGBTQ+ films and filmmakers at SXSW and utilized the occasion to formally announce the festival has changed its name from the Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival to the All Genders, Lifestyles, and Identities Film Festival, as aGLIFF looks to their 31^st edition in September of this year (September 6-9). Attending filmmakers represented buzzworthy SXSW titles like THE GOSPEL OF EUREKA, THIS ONE’S FOR THE LADIES, TRANSMILITARY, and WILD NIGHTS WITH EMILY, as well as the short films RUKUS, THE THINGS YOU THINK I’M THINKING, and last year’s festival hit, SIGNATURE MOVE.

 

 

 

Also announced at the brunch were the expansion of aGLIFF’s Queer Youth Media Project from a one-week long program to two weeks due to the popularity of the program last year, as well as the approaching regular deadline for the festival’s Call for Entries.

 

 

Regarding the name change, the President of aGLIFF’s Board of Directors, Ashley Marshall, said that during last year’s 30^th Anniversary edition of the film festival, the board and festival staff had discussions about “who are we now and what do we represent?” Ultimately, aGLIFF, which is the longest running film festival in Austin and the 4th longest running LGBTQ+ film festival in North America, decided it was appropriate to update what the letters in the festival literally stood for in order to reflect and make a statement pointing to their true inclusiveness. Marshall said, “We are proud of the diversity of our programming, our membership, and the filmmakers who contribute to aGLIFF – we showcase art that represents experiences across the LGBTQ spectrum and we want to ensure that our name reflects that.”

 

 

 

Marshall also announced that due to the popularity of aGLIFF’s Queer Youth Media Project (QYMP) film education program, it will be expanded to two weeks with the first week of classes (June 11-15) devoted to documentary filmmaking, and the second week (June 18-22), focused on narrative filmmaking.

QYMP is offered free-of-charge in collaboration with the Austin School of Film, and is open to aspiring filmmakers ages 12-20. The students will spend five days immersed in learning the filmmaking process and participating in various roles to complete a short film project which will be screened at this year’s film festival in September. Students will learn not only the entire movie making process, but will also be introduced to theater, acting, casting calls, how to enter films into festivals, market their films and find distribution.

To apply, visit the Austin School of Film’s website at http://austinfilmschool.org/youth-programs/queer-youth-media/. For more information on the Queer Youth Media Project, go to: http://agliff.org/qymp/.

 

 

 

aGLIFF’s Call for Entries details are as follows:

Regular Deadline:   May 12, 2018

Late Deadline:                     June 2, 2018

Extended Deadline:            June 30, 2018

 

Juried Competitions include:

Best Narrative Feature

Best Documentary Feature

Best Narrative Short

Best Documentary Short

Best Student Made Short

The “Hum” dinger Award (Audience Award), named after aGLIFF founder, Scott Dinger.

Submissions can be made exclusively at Film Freeway: https://filmfreeway.com/AustinGLIFF.

For more information on aGLIFF, go to http://agliff.org.