Lisa Condit spoke with James Duggan of qFlix: New England’s LGBTQ Film Festival. The WCRN interview originally aired Saturday, August 19. Listen to the full interview below or scroll down to read highlights.
Lisa: I can’t tell you how excited I am to learn more about this, because I don’t think we’ve ever had a film festival before. We’ve had silent films, we’ve had screenings, a lot of feature films, but this is a real event. It’s quite the party all weekend long.
James: There are a total of 25 different films. We go through a curation process where filmmakers either submit their films to us or we go seeking films. We have a list of jurors that watch our films and they give us feedback, and then we do a final tally and we hand select them.
Lisa: Do you have a few personal favorites that are a part of this festival?
James: Opening night is one of my favorites, “Something Like Summer.” It’s a gay, la-la land musical. It’s romantic. A fresh approach dealing with youth identity. It’s about feeling comfortable in one’s own skin. We’re very happy to have two local filmmakers. And then we have the film, “Thirsty.” It’s the story of Scott Townsend, how he grew up and became a very successful Cher impersonator.
SEE A FULL LIST OF 2017 QFLIX FILMS
Lisa: If somebody can only go for one of the days, which day would you recommend?
James: For a full festival day, I would recommend Sunday. Sunday has our mixed shorts program of approximately seven or eight short films from all over the world. That’s followed by “Feminista,” a wonderful short documentary about the feminist movement across Europe. The film director of “Russian Doll” comes from Framingham. This will be the East Coast premiere. We’re really excited we chose Worcester as our second city to expand to. And we’re looking forward to showing our films.
What films are you looking forward to seeing at The Hanover Theatre?