Louise Pohl: Out On Screen

A crowd gathers outside the Ridge Theatre for the 2nd Annual Vancouver Gay and Lesbian Film Festival Gala event on August 2nd.  President of the Out On Screen Society, Louise Pohl, is interviewed inside about the history of the Festival.

Pohl:  “Out on Screen is a non-profit society that was formed in 1989 with the express purpose of organizing a lesbian and gay film festival on an annual basis.

This year we’ve grown to a 10-day festival including an opening night at the Ridge Theatre, which is an 800-seat theatre, and also at Pacific Cinematheque for 10 days. So, we’ve actually expanded to 22 screenings which is twice of what we had last year. And our Board started at about 6 people last year and we’ve grown to approximately 9 people and with, I would say, a staff of about 30 volunteers this year. So there’s been an incredible expansion over the one year period which is largely due to Celebration ’90. We wanted to be in conjunction with Celebration ’90 and this was the way to do it. So. I think on our own we probably wouldn’t have expanded so quickly.

One of the reasons we have the film festival is to provide more places for women to show their films; more places for homosexuals, gays and lesbians to screen and therefore, there’s a market for their films; and the more market there is, the more incentive, it’s easier to get the money, etc.”