Reeling 2013: The 31st Chicago LGBT International Film Festival
Festival Dates: November 7-14, 2013
NOW ACCEPTING ENTRIES!
ENTRY DEADLINES:
Early Deadline – June 10, 2013 ($20 entry fee/$15 online)
Regular Deadline – June 24, 2013 ($25 entry fee/$20 online)
Late Deadline – July 10, 2013 ($35 entry fee/$30 online)
$5 discount by entering online through Withoutabox.
Early Deadline – June 10, 2013 ($20 entry fee/$15 online)
Regular Deadline – June 24, 2013 ($25 entry fee/$20 online)
Late Deadline – July 10, 2013 ($35 entry fee/$30 online)
$5 discount by entering online through Withoutabox.
Reeling 2013: The 31st Chicago LGBT International Film Festival is now accepting film and video entries for this year’s festival!
Reeling is the second oldest LGBTQ film festival in the world and prides itself on showcasing the best LGBTQ films and videos from around the globe. From international feature films to social issue documentaries to experimental shorts, Reeling has always presented a range of genres that demonstrates the rich diversity of work being produced.
Reeling 2013 will screen approximately 75 independent films and videos over 8 days, from November 7-14, 2013.
Entries are eligible for audience awards in the categories of Best Feature Film, Best Documentary Feature, Best Narrative Short, Best Documentary Short, and Best Experimental/Animated Film. Juried cash awards are given for Best Narrative Feature, Best Documentary Feature, and Best Short.
Download an entry form and guidelines, or submit through Withoutabox. The entry form can also be emailed or mailed upon request. Please contact: reeling@chicagofilmmakers.org.
Reeling Announces Award Winners for Reeling 2011
JURY AWARDS
Best Narrative Feature
“Morgan”
Michael D. Akers (US)
Best Documentary Feature
“I Am”
Sonali Gulati (US/India)
Best Narrative Short
“I Don’t Want to Return Alone” (Eu Nao Quero Voltar Sozinho)
Daniel Ribeiro (Brazil)
Best Documentary Short
“Our Lips are Sealed”
John Gallino (US)
AUDIENCE AWARDS
Best Narrative Feature
“Pariah”
Dee Rees (US)
Best Documentary Feature
“The LuLu Sessions”
S. Casper Wong (US)
Best Narrative Short
“I Don’t Want to Return Alone” (Eu Nao Quero Voltar Sozinho)
Daniel Ribeiro (Brazil)
Best Documentary Short
“Difficult Love”
Zanele Muholi & Peter Goldsmid (South Africa)
November 3-12: Reeling’s 30th ANNIVERSARY Festival!
Reeling: The Chicago Lesbian & Gay International Film Festival celebrates its 30th anniversary as the second-oldest LGBT film festival in the world, showcasing innovative gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender films from around the world. This year, films are featured at six different Chicago area theatres. The festival runs Thursday, November 3 through Saturday, November 12, 2011 and will include 65 screenings.
Reeling is proud to kick off ten days of exceptional filmmaking with our Opening Night selection, The Wise Kids by Stephen Cone, marking the first time that the festival has opened with a film directed by a Chicago-based filmmaker. This critically acclaimed, coming-of-age drama follows three teenagers from a religious community in South Carolina as they come to terms with separating from each other and embarking on their new lives after high-school graduation. Featuring a “brilliant cast of young actors” (Variety), the film won Outfest’s Grand Jury Awards for Best US Dramatic Feature and Outstanding Screenwriting; Newfest’s Audience Award for Best Narrative Film; and Sidewalk/Shout Birmingham’s Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature. The Wise Kids screens at the Music Box Theatre (3733 N. Southport Avenue) on Thursday, November 3.
Reeling is also proud to present three Documentary Centerpiece films: We Were Here, Wish Me Away, and Vito. All Centerpiece screenings will take place at Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema (2828 N. Clark Street).
Saturday, November 5 In the intimate and moving 
Wish Me Away, filmmakers Bobbie Birleffi and Beverly Kopf follow country music superstar Chely Wright’s journey as she finds the strength to reveal she is gay to friends, family, and eventually, the public. The film won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival and Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at Frameline.
Sunday, November 6 Congruent with Reeling’s 30th anniversary, 2011 also marks 30 years since AIDS was first reported. Through the voices of five individuals, We Were Here revisits the epidemic and how it affected the city of San Francisco in the early 1980s. This impassioned documentary tells the story of how the beloved city went from a hotbed of sexual freedom and social experimentation to the epicenter of a terrible, sexually transmitted plague.
Monday, November 7 Vito is Jeffrey Schwarz’s heartfelt portrait of Vito Russo, well-known cinephile and author of The Celluloid Closet, and one of the earliest and most important voices in the struggle for gay rights. In 1986, Russo presented a captivating lecture and clips presentation at the opening night of Reeling’s sixth film festival. On this 30th anniversary of our festival, we are pleased to remember the man who pointed out the wrongs in LGBT representation that festivals like Reeling were founded to correct.
This year, Reeling will show two Closing Night films: Cho Dependent and Going Down in La-La Land.
Cho Dependent takes us front row center for Margaret Cho’s acclaimed live performance based on her 2010 Grammy Award-nominated comedy album. She’s still the brash and unapologetically politically incorrect Cho we’ve come to love. Cho Dependent features her barbed humor and scathing commentary on everything from her stint on Dancing with the Stars to Lady Gaga to the culture shock of moving to the South for her Lifetime TV series Drop Dead Diva. In typical Cho fashion, she touches on topics familiar to her fans – outrageous bedroom escapades, self-deprecating tales of being an outsider, and, everyone’s favorite, her mother’s latest antics. Come get a “ticket for gaywalking” with the only comedienne who is an equal-opportunity repeat “offender.” Humor like this should be prosecutable – but, thankfully, it’s not!
Closing the festival is the wildly funny satire, Going Down in La-La Land, by award-winning director/writer and festival favorite, Casper Andreas (Violet Tendencies, The Big Gay Musical). A sexy and uncensored depiction of what an aspiring actor can – and will – do to make it in Hollywood, Going Down in La-La Land screens at the Portage Theatre (4050 N Milwaukee Avenue) on Saturday, November 12.
Screenings for the 2011 festival will take place at Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema (2828 N. Clark St.), Music Box Theatre (3733 N. Southport Ave.), Chicago Filmmakers (5243 N. Clark St.), Instituto Cervantes (31 W. Ohio St.), the Block Theatre at the Block Museum (40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston), and the Portage Theater (4050 N. Milwaukee Avenue).
