Local
‘Reel’ debt delays festival
Acclaimed LGBT film event moved to April due to money woes
Larry Guillemette of One In Ten, the non-profit group that organizes Reel Affirmations, said fundraising challenges forced the event to be rescheduled to April 2011. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
An inability to raise the money needed to hold D.C.’s annual LGBT film festival this October has spurred a decision to reschedule Reel Affirmations for spring 2011, according to organizers and sources familiar with the event.
The money problems also prompted organizers to reassess the time of year the event should be held, leading to a permanent rescheduling of the highly acclaimed event for late April and early May in succeeding years.
Larry Guillemette, marketing and sponsorship manager for One In Ten, the non-profit group that has organized Reel Affirmations each October for the past 19 years, acknowledged that a debt exceeding $40,000 from last year’s festival and a diminishing number of corporate sponsors and donors made it difficult to pull together the festival this year.
It had been scheduled to take place Oct. 14-23 in a number of prominent city theaters, including the Harmon Center for the Arts, the Goethe Institute and the E Street Cinema downtown, the Jewish Community Center near Dupont Circle and the AFI Theater in Silver Spring.
“As with a lot of non-profit organizations in our nation’s capital, gay or straight, we are faced with the same [monetary] challenges,” Guillemette said.
“What we found ourselves doing this year was going to various different organizations that we were hoping might sponsor us. And the economy being what it is, that kind of ability to support us wasn’t there,” he said.
Guillemete said One In Ten will screen three LGBT films this fall, including an award-winning film the group planned to announce soon. Beginning in November, One In Ten will resume a practice it previously discontinued: a monthly showing of an LGBT film in Washington at different theaters.
The group’s ability to hold the full festival in October was further hampered by last year’s resignation of Margaret Murray, who had served as One In Ten’s executive director since 2006, Guillemette said. He noted that it was Murray’s job to work on corporate and organizational sponsorships and other fundraising efforts for the 2010 festival beginning in the latter months of 2009.
“What that did for us on some levels is put us in a tiny bit of a period of flux and transition that we weren’t necessarily prepared for because that was the time of year that most festivals are putting together their proposals for funding for the following year,” he said.
Meanwhile, the group’s debt and general shortage of funds prevented the hiring of someone to replace Murray, who left to take a new job, he said.
At the time of Murray’s departure in November, Guillemette said, One In Ten had become nearly an all-volunteer organization, returning to its “roots” before its first executive director was hired in 2000.
Joe Bilancio, One In Ten’s programs manager and the person in charge of obtaining the films, is being compensated as a consultant, Guillemette said. Guillemette is serving as a volunteer and called his work on the festival “a labor of love.”
According to Guillemette, the funding problems were just one of several issues that prompted the One In Ten board to move the annual festival to the spring. He said other factors included competing LGBT events in October, such as the Human Rights Campaign’s annual national dinner and the Miss Adams Morgan drag pageant, a large event that attracts participants who might otherwise attend the film festival.
Guillemette said the problems associated with holding the festival this October led to long discussions on something the event’s organizers have contemplated for a number of years: the advantages of holding a film festival in the early months of the year.
Among other things, top-quality LGBT-related films made by independent filmmakers are usually released in the early part of the year and shown at other film festivals in the winter and spring, said Guillemette and Bilancio. The two noted that by the time One In Ten’s Reel Affirmations festival is held in the fall, some of the patrons of Reel Affirmations have already seen these films at other festivals.
In recent years, a number of films shown at Reel Affirmations and other LGBT film festivals also have been shown first on gay cable television networks, with others sometimes available through Netflix, said Guillemette and Bilancio.
“It’s significantly different than what it was when we started the festival in the early 1990s, when access to independent gay film was not that easy,” Guillemette said. “And we could count on a sold-out festival because there weren’t options like Neflix and Logo and Here TV and other things.”
Although moving the festival to the spring won’t counter the competing venues for gay film, Bilancio said holding Reel Affirmation in the early part of the year will at least ensure that it’s the first opportunity for most D.C. festival goers to see the films.
One source familiar with last year’s Reel Affirmations festival, who spoke with the Blade on condition of anonymity, said the One In Ten debt stemmed from a drop in revenue compared to previous festivals. Ticket sales were down as was advertising in the festival’s lengthy program booklet, the source said.
Instead of generating seed money for the 2010 festival, which was slated to celebrate Reel Affirmations’ 20th anniversary, the revenue shortfall resulted in debts to various vendors, including the graphic artist who helped produce the program booklet. At least $20,000 to $25,000 was needed to produce the booklet for this year, a sum the group apparently did not have, the source said.
Organizers were hopeful that a special town hall meeting that One In Ten held in April at the Human Rights Campaign headquarters would persuade people to make the donations that were needed to keep the event on track for October. But less than $5,000 was raised as a result of the town meeting, the source said, an amount far less than was needed to stage the festival in October.
Guillemette, who was not among the festival organizers last year, said still other factors were at play, including foul weather during several evenings of the October 2009 festival. He also noted that an earlier decision to discontinue the festival’s VIP membership program, which provided special benefits to large donors, made the festival more reliant on single ticket sales, which were down in 2009.
He said the board this year reinstated the VIP membership program and is taking other steps to better promote the spring festival.
“We’re not burying our head in the sand. We fully acknowledge there were things that needed to be changed in the way we did things,” he said. “And I think we brought back the right team to make those changes.”
Lisa King, One In Ten’s board president, declined to comment, deferring to Guillemette as the organization’s spokesperson. Murray could not be immediately reached for comment.
District of Columbia
HIV/AIDS activists block intersection near White House
World AIDS Day provided backdrop for calls to fully fund PEPFAR
Upwards of 100 HIV/AIDS activists on Monday blocked an intersection near the White House and demanded the Trump-Vance administration fully fund PEPFAR.
Housing Works, Health GAP, Treatment Action Group, AIDS United, ACT UP Philadelphia, and the National Minority AIDS Council organized the protest that took place at the intersection of 16th and I Streets, N.W. The activists then marched to Lafayette Park.
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
Activists since the Trump-Vance administration took office in January have demanded full PEPFAR funding.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio Jan. 28 issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze on nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending. HIV/AIDS service providers around the world with whom the Washington Blade has spoken say PEPFAR cuts and the loss of funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which officially closed on July 1, has severely impacted their work.
The State Department in September announced PEPFAR will distribute lenacapavir in countries with high prevalence rates. The first doses of the breakthrough HIV prevention drug arrived in Eswatini and Zambia last month.
The New York Times in August reported Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought “apportioned” only $2.9 billion of $6 billion that Congress set aside for PEPFAR for fiscal year 2025. (PEPFAR in the coming fiscal year will use funds allocated in fiscal year 2024.)
Bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Senate prompted the Trump-Vance administration in July withdraw a proposal to cut $400 million from PEPFAR’s budget. Vought on Aug. 29 said he would use a “pocket rescission” to cancel $4.9 billion for HIV/AIDS prevention and global health programs and other foreign aid assistance initiatives that Congress had already approved.
“Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, has defied the appropriations authority of Congress, slashing the budget for the program despite full funding enacted by lawmakers, stealing $1.6 billion despite the direction of Congress that PEPFAR be fully funded,” notes a press release that detailed Monday’s protest. “As a result, lifesaving treatment and prevention programs have closed across dozens of sub-Saharan African countries, while Vought has refused to release money ringfenced by Congress to save lives.”
Monday’s protest coincided with World AIDS Day.
The White House has not publicly acknowledged World AIDS Day. A State Department directive the New York Times obtained last week mandated employees and grantees “to refrain from messaging on any commemorative days, including World AIDS Day.”
“Trump thinks by banning commemoration of World AIDS Day, he can hide from the death and destruction that he’s causing around the world,” said Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell in Lafayette Square. “But we’re here to say, we can see him. We see him stealing medicine, stealing support services, stealing HIV testing, stealing life-saving care from communities all around the world suffering and dying without access.”
The Clinton Health Access Initiative in a report it published last month said more people with HIV or are at risk of contracting the virus because of “HIV treatment and prevention cascades” during the first half of 2025. Specific figures include:
• 3.4 million fewer adults tested for HIV
• 24,000 fewer infants tested for HIV
• A 22 percent decline in new HIV diagnoses due to a reduction in testing among the most vulnerable, highest-risk people
• An 8 percent decline in people living with HIV receiving CD4 tests to diagnose advanced HIV disease
• 2,000 fewer infants and children with HIV started on life-saving medication
• A 37 percent reduction in PrEP initiations for people at risk for HIV
• 26,000 fewer infants and children on antiretroviral medications
• A 5 percent reduction in adults starting antiretroviral medications
• A 10 percent increase in people living with HIV disengaging from treatment
The Clinton Health Access Initiative also said more children around the world will die “due to undiagnosed and un- or under-treated HIV infection” if “these trends persist.”
The Human Rights Campaign Foundation in its 2025 Annual LGBTQ+ Community Survey notes more than 20 percent of adults said “policies the federal government have made accessing HIV prevention and treatment care more difficult in the last year.” The report indicates 30 percent of respondents identify as LGBTQ.
The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].
Congratulations to RODRIGO HENG-LEHTINEN on his new role as Trevor Project Senior Vice President of Public Engagement Campaigns. On accepting the position, he said, “My mission has long been to stop LGBTQ, and especially trans, people from being perceived as political footballs and start getting us seen as real people – your friends, your families, your neighbors. Now I get to focus on that 100% at The Trevor Project.”
Prior to this, he was executive director, Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE), where he co-led the merger of two national transgender rights organizations, NCTE and TDLEF, to create the new organization. He had served as executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, leading that organization through a period of growth, restoring organizational size and stability. He had served as deputy executive director prior to that. Previously he served as vice president of Public Education, Freedom for All Americans, where he led a successful campaign for transgender nondiscrimination protections in New Hampshire. He oversaw a full range of legislative lobbying, field organizing, and communications strategies and oganized a leadership coalition, established structure, and divided roles for key committees of 17 state and national partner organizations and local activists.
Heng-Lehtinen conducted English-language interviews with outlets such as The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and Politico. He planned a Transgender Leadership Summit for the Transgender Law Center and served as Development & Donor Services Assistant, Liberty Hill Foundation. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies from Brown University.
Local
D.C., Va., Md. to commemorate World AIDS Day
Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle will hold a Mass, candlelight prayer vigil
The D.C. area will observe World AIDS Day on Dec. 1 through a variety of community events.
Established by the World Health Organization in 1988, World AIDS Day aims to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and honor the individuals affected by the epidemic. The global theme for 2025 is “overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response.”
Washington
DC Health will host a World AIDS Day event at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library from noon to 9 p.m on Dec. 1. Attendees can expect live performances, free food and free HIV testing.
The all-day event will also feature community resources from DC Health, DC Public Library, DC Health Link, Serve DC, and the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs.
The Lily and Earle M. Pilgrim Art Foundation is partnering with Visual AIDS, a New York-based non-profit that uses art to fight AIDS, to reflect on World AIDS Day with a film screening on Dec. 1.
The David Bethuel Jamieson Studio House at Walbridge in Mount Pleasant will premiere “Meet Us Where We’re At,” an hour-long collection of six videos. The free screening highlights the complexity of drug use in intersection with the global HIV epidemic.
The videos, commissioned by artists in Brazil, Germany, Nigeria, Puerto Rico and Vietnam, showcase the firsthand experience of drug users, harm reduction programs, and personal narratives. The program intends to showcase drug users as key individuals in the global response to HIV.
In addition to streaming the videos, the event will include an evening potluck and conversation led by Peter Stebbins from 6-8 p.m.
The Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle will hold a 5:30 p.m. Mass and candlelight prayer vigil at 6 p.m. in honor of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. The event is open to all and includes a subsequent reception at 6:30 p.m.
The Capital Jewish Museum is hosting a speaker series on Dec. 2 from 6:30-8 p.m. that explores the response to AIDS within the Jewish community. Speakers include LGBTQ psychiatrist Jeffrey Akman, physician assistant Barbara Lewis and Larry Neff, lay service leader at Bet Mishpachah, a synagogue founded by LGBTQ Washingtonians. Heather Alt, deputy director of nursing at Whitman-Walker Health, will moderate the event.
The program is free for museum members. General admission is $10 and Chai tickets, which help subsidize the cost of general admission, are $18. Tickets include access to LGBT Jews in the Federal City, a temporary exhibition that collectively explores Washington, Judaism, and LGBTQ history. The exhibition is on view through Jan. 4, 2026.
Virginia
Alexandria Mayor Alyia Gaskins and local residents will commemorate World AIDS Day on Dec. 1 at the Lee Center.
The event, which is free to attend, will include music, choir performances, educational moments and more. The commemoration will be held from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Maryland
The Frederick Center will host talks, tabling and a raffle in honor of World AIDS Day. The Frederick County Health Department will conduct free HIV testing.
The event, which is free to attend, will be held on Nov. 30 from 1-4 p.m. The Frederick County Health Department always offers free, walk-in HIV testing on Tuesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The Prince George’s County Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority will host a community day of awareness in honor of World AIDS Day on Dec. 6 from 1 a.m. to 2 p.m. The free event will feature free, confidential HIV testing, private talks with medical professionals and health workshops.
The event will be held at Suitland Community Center in Forestville and will include breakfast and snacks.
Damien Ministries is commemorating World AIDS Day on Dec. 1 through the grand opening of the We the People Community & Wellness Collaborative. The event, held at 11:30 a.m. at 4061 Minnesota Avenue, N.E., is free to attend.
Damien Ministries is a faith-based non-profit committed to supporting those with HIV/AIDS.
Begin Anew, a Baltimore non-profit that provides education, outreach and resources to improve public health, wellness and economic stability, is hosting its 4th Annual World AIDS Day Community Celebration on Dec. 1 alongside community partners.
Hosted at the University of Maryland BioPark from noon to 3 p.m., the program will feature keynote speaker Jason E. Farley of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The celebration will also dedicate awards to local heroes focused on fighting HIV/AIDS and promoting health equity.
The free event includes lunch, live entertainment and networking opportunities with health advocates and partners.
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Comings & Goings
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Calendar: November 28-December 4
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