The 2015 NewFest, New York’s LGBT Film Festival, concluded its 27th anniversary year at the Bow Tie Chelsea Theater–and the recently completed screening room at the LGBT Community Center–with a sold-out screening of Girls Lost. The highly successful six-day festival screened nearly 100 films to a number of sold-out audiences and included a centerpiece gala screening of Todd Haynes’ Carol, a star-studded world premiere of new trans series Her Story followed by a discussion moderated by Laverne Cox, a MasterClass discussion with award-winning filmmaker Ira Sachs, NewFest’s first ever Queer Horror Night, and a panel discussion on the evolution of transgender representation in modern media.
Following the Closing Night Gala screening, NewFest announced the 2015 Audience Award winning films:
Those People, directed by Joey Kuhn, won the Audience Award for Outstanding Feature Film for its crowd-pleasing depiction of a complicated romance between two young men in the gilded halls of Manhattan’s high society. Those People will be distributed by Wolfe Releasing in 2016.
The Same Difference, directed by Nneka Onuorah, won the Audience Award for Outstanding Documentary Feature. The film, which shines a light on the all-too-often ignored problem of homophobia and gender discrimination within the African-American lesbian community, broke NewFest records, selling out four screenings to audiences eager to finally see the issue addressed onscreen and within the lively panels that followed each screening. The Same Difference will be distributed by Women Make Movies in 2016.
Tremulo, directed by Roberto Fiesco, won the Audience Award for Outstanding Narrative Short, thanks to its tender and beautifully realized depiction of a brief encounter between two young men in Mexico. A feature version is currently in the works.
And In The Hollow, directed by Austin Bunn, won the Audience Award for Outstanding Documentary Short. Bunn, the screenwriter of last year’s Kill Your Darlings, masterfully combined documentary and narrative techniques to place audiences at the center of a horrific crime against two gay women.
Speaking on behalf of the programming team, NewFest’s senior programmer Adam Baran also singled out Martin Edralin’s narrative short Hole and Blair Fukumura’s documentary short Bedding Andrew for special recognition, for using brave, emotionally stirring methods to tell the often-overlooked stories of gay men with disability and their need for physical and emotional support.
“Our 27th annual festival marked a year of huge growth for NewFest,” noted NewFest executive director Robert Kushner. “As a new generation of filmmakers comes through with exciting new stories and means of telling them, it’s clear that LGBT audiences continue to seek community through shared experiences onscreen. We’re extraordinarily happy that NewFest can play a role in that.”
