The 14th annual Queer Film Festival, presented by the University Cultural Forum, appears on campus three Friday nights this month, highlighting films with topics including the gay culture of New York in the 1970s and Adolf Hitler’s sexuality.
The Queer Film Festival will begin screening international films in 180 PLC Friday at 7 p.m. The final night of the film series, Feb. 25, will begin with a reception at 6 p.m. and end with films that have created a buzz in the film community. As a preview for the event, the forum showed “Happy Endings” and “Slutty Summer” on Friday.
The idea of a queer film series began 14 years ago with a small group of students who wanted to start showing queer films on the University campus to represent what they considered to be an unsung community. The Queer Film Festival has slowly grown since. Last year the ASUO Programs Finance Committee granted incidental fees to the film series to cover some of its expenses.
“We have a big queer community in Eugene and on campus, and it deserves to be supported with film and media that represents their life,” University senior Tara Allred, the film and video coordinator for the Cultural Forum, said.
Allred is in her second year of coordinating the Queer Film Festival and selected this year’s films based on hype and students’ recommendations. She chose to show queer films that are male-oriented this month, and in March Allred will select women-centered queer films as a tribute to Women’s History Month. Splitting the films into these two different categories appealed to Allred, and she looks forward to how the community will react, she said.
Aside from the blockbuster movie “Brokeback Mountain,” queer films are underrepresented in Lane county, Allred said. She hopes that the queer films presented in the series will raise awareness about the queer community.
“Just getting independent film that represents underrepresented communities, I think, is a really great way to increase diversity on campus,” Allred said.
Friday’s showing of the international films “Hidden Fruher: Debating the Enigma of Hitler’s Sexuality,” “Cote D’Azur,” and “Tropical Malady” is free. For $3 on Feb. 25 the Cultural
Forum will complete the 14th annual Queer Film Festival with a reception that will feature food and, weather permitting, an art exhibit in the 180 PLC courtyard. After the reception, the series concludes with the films “Gay Sex in the ’70s,” “Loggerheads” and “HELLBENT.”
The Cultural Forum will continue to show its popular Friday Nigh Flicks free of charge at 8 p.m. in 180 PLC. Next month will feature women-awareness and 3D Asian films.
“We don’t want to be bringing the same things as everybody else, so basically we’re looking for something different. We try to have fun with it and do what the students want to see,” Allred said.

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