Festival Celebrates Gay Culture Through Film

*Editor's note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the city in which the Hi-Pointe Theatre is located. It is located in St. Louis City. This article has been updated to reflect its correct address.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) filmmakers will have their voices heard this weekend at the in St. Louis City*, near Richmond Heights.

Organized by Cinema St. Louis—the nonprofit organization that hosts the each fall—the fourth annual Stella Artois QFest celebrates the diversity of LGBTQ culture through movies. QFest will offer a variety documentaries, short films and features from across the nation and globe from Thursday through Sunday.

The festival seeks to cover subjects from all the bases implied by the term LGBTQ.

"I’m a man, but I don't want to have all men’s films," artistic director Chris Clark said. "I want to honor women and transgender people."

Queer is a broader term than those represented by the other letters, Clark said. People who claim the word might be gender nonconforming in one way or another.

Although people in the LGBTQ community are certainly encouraged to come, Clark said, Cinema St. Louis hopes to also provide a mind-opening experience for people who are straight and have limited exposure to queer culture.

"When people who aren't gay come and enjoy the films and enjoy the community, they see they’re just normal people with normal, day-to-day problems," Clark said. "It doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight or live in Tokyo or Belleville ... . People are just people. They really are just the same." 

Although there aren't many local-interest gay films to go around, selections of particular interest to Clayton and Richmond Heights residents—as well as St. Louisans as a whole—include BearCity and Just Like Anyone Else.

Creve Coeur native Blake Sherman, now of New York City, appears in BearCity, an unrated comedy about bear culture in Manhattan awarded Best Screenplay and Best Actor in a Feature at Outfest 2010. The show description compares the movie to a cross between Sex and the City and Queer as Folk.

Sherman will attend the screening, which closes out QFest at 8:30 p.m. Sunday.

Just Like Anyone Else is a 12-minute documentary by local filmmakers Jen Rich and Dawn Balk about gay rights for St. Louisans in the aftermath of the Stonewall Uprising, a series of protests that followed the 1969 police raid of the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. The short film will accompany March On, a feature-length documentary on the National Equality March that screens at 2 p.m. Saturday.

Each year, Clark attends LGBTQ film festivals across the nation to determine which pictures would suit QFest. Clark began researching and booking films in December.

Cinema St. Louis picked the Hi-Pointe, one of the primary venues for the St. Louis International Film Festival, from a field of independently owned and operated movie houses in the area.

"It has a big, bright corner spot, so it's very clearly visible from the highway and intersection there," Clark said. "It’s the biggest, best place we could find that’s centrally located."

The venue's classic marquee also served as a draw for the festival organizers.

Other notes:

• Regularly priced tickets cost $12 per screening. Students and Cinema St. Louis members with valid IDs receive a $2 discount.

• Cinema St. Louis is accepting submissions for the St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase. Students, hobbyists and professionals who live in or have strong ties to the greater St. Louis area may enter their original movies by May 31. The chosen films will be screened July 27-31.