Press / Media

ABOUT THE PRIDE FILM FESTIVAL

Bloomington’s annual PRIDE Film Festival is a cinematic celebration of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community hosted and presented by the historic Buskirk-Chumley Theater. Founded in 2004, the Festival was an immediate success. Each year the festival screenings and audience have expanded so that we now present more than 20 movies including shorts, animation, documentaries, and full-length feature films with awards given to outstanding films. PRIDE 2005 brought nearly 1,200 people and featured films from all over the world. In 2006, more than 20 movies were shown to 1,500 people over three days, and a panel discussion, art exhibit at the Kinsey Institute, and a live performance by the Quarryland Men’s Chorus were added to the festival. PRIDE 2006 also included a dance party, which concluded the festival and took over the entire theater, generating a queer space where creativity, acceptance, vitality, and the carnivalesque were available to everyone. PRIDE 2007 was another showstopper with amazing films and a party featuring live acrobatics from the stars of Audience Favorite winner, The Gymnast ! The community support received by the Festival paired with nearly sold-out screenings prompted the Herald Times — Bloomington’s largest newspaper — to say, “Give it a few more years until PRIDE becomes the Cannes or Toronto of the Midwest.” In 2009, the Indiana University GLBT Alumni Association organized a “GLBT Homecoming” during the weekend of the Festival, bringing people back to their alma mater from all over the world.