Queer festival lets community see rare films
■ This year s event features
movies about drag queens, a
lesbian model and wrestling
By Lisa Toth
Oregon Daily Emerald
When Julia Query, the co-director
of the first University Queer Film Fes
tival, came to campus in 1992, anti
gay state ballot measures were trying
to define homosexuality as perverse,
abnormal, immoral and unnatural.
This was the atmosphere that led
Query to the office of the Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual and Transgender Alliance,
and her first encounter with queer
films at the University.
The LGBTA “was showing a les
bian movie I had already seen, and it
became apparent that we needed a
film festival,” she said.
Query said people were extremely
excited by the idea of a queer film fes
tival. The first year of the festival, she
said they showed a lesbian film.
“We were so starved for lesbian
films,” Query said. “It was great to see
our imagery on screen.”
The film festival has become a tra
dition on campus that continues nine
years later. The University’s Queer
Film Festival, presented by the Stu
dent Activities Resource Office, be
gins today and runs through Sunday.
The festival will bring together a col
lection of homosexual, bisexual and
transgendered amateur films, includ
ing short and full-length films, as well
as documentaries.
“We created an oasis — where
straights and gays could show their
support—and opposition to the rab
id homophobia politics of the time, ”
Query said. “It was a place for some
thing urban to happen outside of
Portland.”
Query said the film festival, which
is the second-largest gay event in the
state, created a foundation for people
to discuss their feelings and debate
the imagery presented in the films.
“It became bigger than pride in a
way,” Query said.
Starting the festival helped Query
to eventually become a filmmaker
herself. Her newest film, “Live Nude
Girls UNITE! ” is a documentary about
an organized stripper club in San
Francisco. The film was recently
bought by Cinemark Theatrer, and it
will play at the Cinema 21 theater in
Portland beginning Feb. 26.
For this year’s festival, two-time
event director Morgen Smith said she
has a handful of non-mainstream
films planned to attract a crowd. The
event will culminate Sunday at the
Hult Center with an evening with fea
tured speaker John Waters, a writer
and director renowned for his twist
ed sense of humor.
Debby Martin, a project coordina
tor in the Cultural Forum, has helped
to host the festival every year. She said
the self-supporting event offers the
queer community an opportunity to
come together to watch the films.
Smith brought a jury committee to
gether fall term to pick the winning
national and international flicks that
will be shown during the festival.
Hanna Perrson, a freshman and
volunteer on the jury, said out of the
eight short films, “kalin’s prayer,” di
rected by DeSales, was her favorite.
The film is set in Tulsa, Okla., where
a crack-addicted lesbian model battles
for the love of an attorney while facing
the memories of sexual abuse.
“I hadn’t seen anything like it,”
Perrson said. “It was so abstract. ”
Perrson said she wanted to be on
this year’s selection committee be
cause she felt she could relate to the
content of many of the films.
“It is issues that I have seen happen
to me and my friends,” Perrson said.
“It is something that expresses peo
ple’s lives on different levels. ”
Perrson also said that the rareness
of queer festivals should be an incen
tive for students, faculty and mem
bers of the community to attend.
“There are not very many queer fes
tivals,” she said. “[The films are for] a
collection of people who don’t get ex
posed and who don’t cater to com
mercial media.”
Smith recommended festival par
ticipants check out “Queens for a
Night,” a short film directed by
Christopher Gomersall that will be
shown Friday. The film focuses on
Southern drag queens in their 60s.
“Below the Belt,” a short film di
rected by Kaizzad Navrose, address
es harassment and death caused by
homophobia in the United States. The
plot concentrates on a member of a
college wrestling team who is injured
because of the presence of homosexu
al issues in the locker room.
“It begins in the hospital with the
kid who as been hurt because of ho
mophobia,” Smith said. “But instead
of being the kid who was the product
of homophobia, he’s the one who
started it who got hurt. ”
Smith said the five-minute film,
“Baking with Butch,” directed by
Melissa Levin and Nina Levitt, is sure
to be a hit because it pokes fun at
Martha Stewart.
“This year, it is so many documen
taries,” Smith said. “Go to see what is
out there — the short films, the com
petition winners — to see what peo
ple are doing that can be done pretty
well on a low budget and aren’t main
stream but could be eventually. ”
Courtesy photo
9th Annua! University
Queer Film Festival
Feb. 15: Paragraph 175
Feb. 16: Short Film Competition Win
ners
Feb. 17: Divine Trash
Feb. 18: An Evening with John Waters
All events begin at 8 p.m.
Ticket information:
Individual Films {At the door):
Room 180 PEC
StudentswithiD;$4.00
General Public: $5.00
Campus film pass (All three films):
Room 180 PLC
Students with ID: $8.00
General Public: $10.00
The campus film pass does not guar
antee a seat, please arrive early.
An Evening with John Waters:
Hult Center, Silva Hall (Reserved seats)
Students with ID: $12.00
General Public: $18.00
For more information, call the Stu
dent Activities Resource Office at 346
4000.
Source: University Queer Film Festival
Wanted: 3 suspects in series of local store robberies
■ EPD otters a $500 reward
for leads resulting in arrests
By Darren Freeman
Oregon Daily Emerald
Police believe three people may be
responsible for a string of robberies of
Eugene businesses in the past two
months.
Among the dozen stores hit, the
closest to the University are Jabber
wocky Cards and Gifts, at 1308 E. Hil
yard St., and Tom’s Market, at 1490 E.
19th Ave.
Police believe one woman robbed
both Jabberwocky Cards and Gifts and
Euphoria Chocolate Company, 199 E.
5th Ave., on Jan. 31. Witnesses de
scribed the suspect as a white woman
in her 20s, about 5 feet 6 inches tall and
about 130 pounds. The woman used
threatening notes to demand money.
Another suspect, believed to have
recently robbed at least three busi
nesses, has been described as a white
woman in her 30s, 5 feet 6 inches tall
and 130 pounds. This suspect uses a
knife to make her demands.
Police believe she has robbed the
Check into Cash, 48 W. 18th Ave., and
Jasper’s Deli, 1504 Coburg Road. She is
also believed to have robbed Ashley’s
Bento, 2578 W. Willamette St., twice.
The Eugene Police Department is
offering a $500 reward for informa
tion leading to the arrest of these two
women. Police haven’t ruled out the
possibility that all the above robberies
were committed by the same woman.
The third suspect in the recent
string of robberies is a white male
who is believe to have robbed Circle
K, 296 E. 13th Ave.; Dari-Mart, 2429
E. Hilyard St.; and Tom’s Market. He
is described as in his 20s or 30s, about
5 feet 7 inches tall and 160 pounds.
He is said to use a fixed-bladed knife
during robberies.
“This amount of robberies is nor
mal for this time of year,” EPD Sgt.
Scott McKee said, adding that the
busiest time of the year for robberies is
typically the holiday season because
increased spending makes businesses
more tempting to would-be thieves.
McKee advised anyone witnessing
a robbery to comply with the robber’s
demands and try to study the per
son’s appearance to aid police.
“Typically, a robber is a desperate
kind of criminal, and we find out of
ten that it’s motivated by addiction,”
McKee said. “When somebody needs
a fix and he has no money, they go out
and get it. We find these kinds of peo
ple difficult to deal with because
they’re so desperate.”
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