Building a community

Eau Queer Film Festival to start Wednesday

Building+a+community

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Quinn Forss and incorrectly said this was the first year the festival featured transgender films. The Spectator regrets these errors and apologizes for them.

The Eau Queer Film Festival, which will begin Wednesday and run through Sunday in Davies Center’s Woodland Theater, will screen 14 films.

Professors Ellen Mahaffy and Pamela Forman are the executive directors for the festival. Mahaffy and Forman are the only faculty members involved in the festival, which is primarily run by students, Festival Director Jerrika Christianson said.

“It is an insane amount of work organizing an event like this,” Christianson said.

Mahaffy said the film festival is unique because not a lot of small towns have LGBTQ film festivals, which are mostly held in bigger cities.

Other students involved with this year’s event include Assistant Director Ryan Spaight and J.R. Smathers, the event’s web designer, who created the Eau Queer website. Rose Mish, Lauren Pink and Quinn Forss also play a role in putting on the festival.

The first film to show will be “Out in the Night,” created by visiting filmmaker blair dorosh-walther.

The team has been working to get information about the event out to students and community members, Mahaffy said, noting one purpose of the Eau Queer Film Festival is to give back to the community and students, since the event receives its funding from the Blugold Commitment grant.

Christianson said she found a connection with the Eau Queer Film Festival because she could relate to the actors on screen, as well as interact with the people around her.