aGLIFF Announces New Artistic Director
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Motley Crew Media for aGLIFF
Nicole Shiro | 512.740.6665 | nicole.shiro@motleycrewmedia.com
aGLIFF ANNOUNCES NEW ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
PRISM to become the official event name of the annual film festival
(AUSTIN, Texas) – Austin’s oldest film festival, aGLIFF (The All Genders, Lifestyles, and Identities Film Festival) announces Bears Rebecca Fonté as the new Artistic Director. Fonté has served on aGLIFF’s Board of Directors since 2016 and has been a part of the fabric of Austin’s film and arts scene even longer with highlights including Director of Programming for Austin Film Festival, and Founder and Creative Director of the SciFi themed Other Worlds Film Festival. She has also recently taken a seat on the Board of Directors for the Film Festival Alliance, a global community for mission-driven film festivals. Fonté begins her role as Artistic Director this month.
“aGLIFF is such a fundamental part of my own personal coming out story – it was the first place I saw my internal self on screen. I couldn’t be more honored to step into the programmer’s seat,” said Fonté. “I’m sure when Scott Dinger founded this festival, he could never have imagined how much it would mean to so many people. I can only aspire to live up to all the great programmers who came before me.”
Board President Casandra Alston discusses Fonté’s new role within the organization. “Our new Artistic Director, Bears Rebecca Fonté will do an amazing job curating our festival line up for 2021. Bears Rebecca has not only been on the Board since 2016, but she has also been a fan of the festival for years and brings knowledge from both a participant and organizer. We know with her leadership we will continue to have diverse, high quality, and unique programming from Bears Rebecca in the coming months and during our 34th Annual Festival.”
aGLIFF will also continue to brand its annual LGBTQIA+ festival under the name PRISM. Fonté has played a major role in the development of this name and reshaping aGLIFF over the years. “Since I joined aGLIFF as a board member, my primary focus has been on our branding – working with my colleagues on redefining the acronym aGLIFF to be more inclusive of the entire community, redesigning our logo, and our identity as a film festival,” explained Fonté. “I have always wanted us to be a ‘one word’ fest - a festival who can declare who they are in a single statement. PRISM encapsulates the spirit of aGLIFF just like a prism captures light, splitting it into many colors. We take the light of film (or a cinema projector) and reveal the many voices that make up our community. And prisms work both ways, if you put one in front of separate colors it combines them into one fused beam. As aGLIFF presents our official PRISM Festival in 2021, I am flattered to get to be the first programming director to work under the light of that vision.”
Alston expands on the revitalization, “We felt PRISM more accurately described and represented the large spectrum of LGBTQIA+ stories told at our festival. Our goal is to create positive and visible film programs that are relevant in our lives and the only way to do that is to tell everyone's story. The festival's purpose is to educate the community to help them learn, grow, and evolve through storytelling. We are confident that Bears Rebecca will do an amazing job incorporating that vision into the festival’s line up. We know she will continue to push boundaries, and with her leadership the festival will continue to evolve and ensure important stories from every aspect of our community are told through film.”
Film submission information and dates for PRISM, aGLIFF’s 34th Annual Festival will be announced in the coming weeks.
aGLIFF MEMBERSHIP: Memberships get the best access, support aGLIFF’s year-round programming, and include festival badges and an array of other perks depending on the level. Memberships start for as low as $25 a month and are available for purchase now at agliff.org/.
PRESS: aGLIFF logo and assets can be found HERE.
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SPONSORS: aGLIFF is made possible by the generous support of our annual partners Whole Foods, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, and City of Austin Cultural Division.
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About aGLIFF:
aGLIFF was founded as the Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival in 1987 and became a 501(c)3 in 1995. The festival began as a four-day event with just four films primarily focused on coming out and the AIDS epidemic. It has grown into a multifaceted nonprofit organization with year-round community programs and events culminating each year in the annual film festival. The organization changed its name to All Genders, Lifestyles, and Identities Film Festival in 2018 to reflect the changing landscape of how queer people identify. In 2019, the Board of Directors selected PRISM as the festival theme to highlight the way the festival can refract a single beam of art into multiple viewpoints, showcasing all the voices in the spectrum of our LGBTQIA+ community through film.
The organization’s mission is to create positive and visible film programs relevant to the lives of LGBTQIA+ identified people, to educate the community about LGBTQIA+ issues, to produce and promote the best in LGBTQIA+ community building events, and to support and partner with other organizations to enlighten the public.
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