By: Margot Dragos
A new generation of queer artists took the spotlight at “Queer Voices: New York City Film Festival’s Youth Showcase” on Sept. 11. This is the fourth annual festival, held at The LGBTQ Center (The Center) in Manhattan.
The Center provides resources to and fosters connection among LGBTQ+ individuals. This year’s theme is “Queering the World,” and it featured over 100 films from multiple countries. Various events were held during the festival, including the Youth Film Showcase, which highlighted filmmakers aged 14 to 18.
Before the showcase, a mixer was held, allowing guests to connect and build community. The free event connected young LGBTQ+ creatives with organizations that can support them.
Organizations such as PFLAG, National Queer Theater, and NY LGBT Network were tabling at the event.
“I think it’s so important to have a presence at events where queer youth get to thrive and know they’re not alone, that they should not only be tolerated but they should be celebrated,” Shelby Hall Denney, who tabled for PFLAG and its Safe Schools program, told The Vanguard.
“And so being here I’m able to help with that celebration of queer youth voices while also being a resource […] and connecting with the kids.”
“It was surprising to see the community here behind what made this festival possible, [such as] the government support,” said New York University (NYU) student Steven Wang when asked his favorite part of the festival.
“I also do film, and it’s really cool to see everybody’s perspective and how that translates to a film and what kind of story they come up with.”
Five films were screened, varying in genre and covering multiple sexualities. They explored aspects of being queer that weren’t always typical.
“Heartworms” by Finch, an NYU student from Texas, was a queer body horror that captured “the anxiety of feeling like a pariah and a social parasite to your peers in college,” according to the official film festival website.
“I really think we should have more gay films that are about more than just being gay, that are just people in films that are gay that we can relate to, but the storyline is about so much more,” Finch told The Vanguard.
“I’m trying to make the films that I wish I could see more, and I feel like [Queer Voices: NYC Film Festival] is the perfect avenue to share that.”
The showcase featured an animated film, “The Soul’s Anchor” by Sanjali Paruthi from Toronto, Canada. Her film was an experimental short that explored how cutting your hair can act as a “physical anchor to a shift within the soul.”
Finch and Paruthi answered audience questions at a Q&A after the showcase, where they detailed their creative process, what they learned, and specific themes of the films.
“My film was deeply personal,” Paruthi said at the Q&A. “I cut [my hair] during my freshman year of college […] I wanted to make a film that didn’t necessarily tell the exact story but told all of the emotions I was going through, and put it in a way that a lot of people would be able to relate to.”
Another film was “Out of the Blue” by Vivian Nguyen, which used both animated and live-action elements. It tells the story of a grocery store cashier who falls for a customer and imagines their relationship, using an orange and a blueberry to represent each girl.
“Where I Find Myself” by Saidey Kim and Sydney Kim is a documentary that follows two teenagers, Alexander and Maëlle, who come to understand their identities as gay and lesbian.
The narrative short “When We Fell (in love)” by Kayla Buckley travels through a family’s history, covering how black love existed from the 1950s to 2020s.
Notable figures such as Queer Voices founder and CEO Brandon Smith and NYC’s first openly gay borough president, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, provided opening remarks before the screening that emphasized the importance of highlighting queer communities throughout the festival.
“There’s always a political climate around queer people, but we are here because we are prevailing throughout all of this calamity and mess,” Smith said in his speech. “And having a community just shows us how much support that we have and why the fight is so much bigger than all of us.”
Each filmmaker used their film to start a new conversation about what it means to be young and queer in society today.
“Young people are going to be leading the future one day,” Paruthi told The Vanguard. “There are a lot of issues right now in terms of fighting for queer rights, so I think having youth voices out there is really important.
“We know how we want our futures to be and how we want to shape them, and we should be part of the conversations that are happening now.”
Queer Voices: NYC Film Festival’s Youth Showcase can be streamed from now until Sept. 21.