SEATTLE — They’re stories about love, friends, family, and everything in between. They also happen to celebrate queer and trans culture.
Three Dollar Bill Cinema is hosting Seattle’s Queer & Trans Film Festival in Capitol Hill next month. It’s the first time the Seattle Queer Film Festival and TRANSlations will join forces as one.
The event is happening July 10-12 and will celebrate queer and trans characters, actors, directors, producers and more.
Elevating queer stories is part of the key mission behind Three Dollar Bill Cinema.
“With the power of cinema, we can share stories and really share how people are just beautiful humans,” said Board President Lindy Boustedt.
The nonprofit works to elevate queer stories, while also providing education and resources to queer filmmakers in the area.
“We believe in the power of representation,” Boustedt said.
Boustedt has been a filmmaker in Seattle for more than 20 years.
“I didn’t really come into my queer identity until later in life,” she said. “I found my community by being able to share my films and find my identity through those films.”
She hopes to help others do the same in this year’s festival, whether the films help them identify with characters on screen or better understand those who are different from them.
This year’s festival will also include a special highlight reel of local, queer cinema, showcasing local films and filmmakers.
It’s a collection that has been made possible by the unique archive at Seattle’s Scarecrow Video.
“We are a nonprofit cultural museum and the world’s largest publicly accessible video library,” said Tyler Mesman, Scarecrow Video’s Development Director.
The collection contains over 150,000 titles.
“Anyone can walk in and find an authentic representation of themselves on screen,” Mesman said.
The collection helps preserve stories you might have never heard of or never had the chance to see.
“It’s really a repository of human history,” Mesman said.
It’s a history that Boustedt hopes the festival will shine a light on.
“If we can just continue to have places where we can share queer cinema and share the power of what it’s really like to be human, it just really would make it makes the world a better place,” she said.
You can find more information about the festival here and buy tickets here.
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