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| Q13’s Mark Wright and Angela King interview Three Dollar Bill Cinema’s Jason Plourde and Rachael Brister. |
Fox News, at least on the local level, doesn’t always suck. The Fox Q13 Morning Show hosted Three Dollar Bill Cinema’s Executive Director Rachael Brister and Programming Director Jason Plourde this morning where the two were asked about Spirit Day, bullying, and the recent developments in DADT. Go here to watch it. Rachael and Jason did a great job representing the community and intelligently discussing these very contemporary issues AND they managed to get the word out about the 15th Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. (They were master pluggers!) A clip was shown from tonight’s FREE screening of the documentary film, Bullied which screens at the Broadway Performance Hall and focuses on the case of Jamie Nobozny.
BULLIED, the latest film from the award-winning Teaching Tolerance program of the Southern Poverty Law Center, is a hard-hitting documentary about one student’s harrowing ordeal that may put an end to antigay bullying in schools. Jamie Nabozny suffered verbal abuse in middle school that soon escalated to kicks and punches. School administrators ignored his pleas for help and even blamed him for the bullying. Eventually, Nabozny stood up to his tormentors and filed a federal lawsuit against the school that led to a landmark court decision holding public schools accountable for not stopping anti-gay abuse. Nationally, more than 80 percent of LGBT youths said their teachers never or rarely interrupt homophobic remarks, and 50 percent of all youths said gay students are bullied most or all of the time in their schools. BULLIED offers an inspiring message of hope to those still fighting harassment. After the screening, the Safe Schools Coalition will copresent a panel discussion of these issues as they relate to our community’s schools. FREE
Jason and Rachael also got time to mention Friday’s screening of Undertow, the award winning film from Peru about a married fisherman and his clandestine love with a visiting male artist from the city. It’s a gorgeous film, (I saw it at SIFF this June) and will be Peru’s official entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards this year. It plays Saturday night at 7pm at Pacific Place Cinemas with an afterparty to follow at Design Within Reach, 1918 First Avenue. Three Dollar Bill got their hands on a beautiful new 35mm print of this film, so it will look amazing on the big screen, AND director Javier Fuentes-Léon will be in attendance. It’s a definite must see.
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| Christian Mercado and Manolo Cardona in Undertow (Contracorriente) |
Finally, kudos to Jason and Rachael for a job well done…they got the word out, and not just for the film festival but for the entire community. Support them AND the community and go see a film at the 15th Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival which continues through Sunday at various theaters around Seattle.
– Michael Strangeways
