The future of Outfest addressed in town hall – summer film festival slated to return to DGA Theatre in 2025
Attended last night’s Outfest Town Hall meeting at Renberg Theatre with about 150 other people and will be writing a longer blog post in the next day or two. Outfest Executive Director Christopher Racster and Outfest board co-president Lucas Bailey took us step by step into what led to the “hibernation” of this beloved organization with a summer film festival that has been such a rich tradition for so many of us for so many years.
It was announced that the summer film festival will return in 2025 to the DGA Theatre and that, hopefully as soon as next month, Outfest will begin a monthly screening series.
“We want to rebuild trust,” Racster said. “We are coming back. … We have been torn down to the studs.” It was explained that an inexperienced board and mismanagement by the former executive director left Outfest $500,000 in debt. Since Racster was rehired last November to determine if the organization could find a way forward or have to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Racster, Outfest Executive Director 2015-19, decided they could find their way out of the crisis, fix the problems, and rebuild. Since then, half of that debt has been retired and arrangements are in place to pay off the rest. Racster, who is holding another town hall tonight at Barnsdall Theater, said any fundraising moving forward will go strictly to programming and staff.
The audience was filled with former staff members and volunteers, filmmakers, and regular Outfest members and at least one famous actor (Juan Pablo Di Pace). Chris and Lucas took all questions, seemed very transparent and there was a feeling of support for their efforts in the room. We very much want them to succeed but it is clear they will need the help of the filmmaking community, the LGBTQ community, the non-profit community, corporate sponsors etc. Mostly, they will need trust. Last night seemed like a good start.
Comments
(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)
Leave a Reply