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This year's Sundance Film Festival boasts more gay and lesbian movies than it has before. But will we ever get to see them?

As the 1997 Sundance Film Festival comes to a close on January 26, one of the more noticeable trends to emerge from this year's event is the increasing profile of gay- and lesbian-themed movies both in and out of competition. At least five gay-related films will vie for the festival's coveted jury prizes--including Alex Sichel's lesbian coming-of-age tale, All Over Me; Ira Sachs's gay romantic drama, The Delta; and Arthur Dong's documentary on gay bashing, Licensed to Kill.

Another half-dozen films with gay or lesbian content will have made their American premieres out of festival competition, ranging from Chasing Amy, a new comedy from Clerks director Kevin Smith about a man who falls in love with a lesbian, to the long-awaited film version of Terrence McNally's Tony award-winning play Love! Valour! Compassion!

But even as the sheer volume of lesbian and gay subjects continues to grow at the festival, the high profile that Sundance affords a movie doesn't always guarantee that audiences across the country will see it. In fact, many of the films featured at this year's festival may never make it to a movie theater.

"There is a danger that the lesbian and gay film genre will be eclipsed," says Sundance Institute founder and president Robert Redford, the famed actor. "It's a niche that could disappear simply because these films are beginning to join the mainstream or because they've begun to play by the same rules as mainstream films--the formulas, the marketing techniques. And I guarantee you, Hollywood will not support these films because of what they are and who they are about"

As much as Sundance is a platform for some of the industry's most talented directors, the festival also serves as a magnet for Hollywood executives in search of the next big hit. Within that high-stakes mix, it is often the smaller films--gay or otherwise--featured in the festival that get lost in the shuffle and never make it to local theaters. "Distribution is the key," says Redford of a picture's ultimate success. And for gay And lesbian films in particular, he adds, those distribution deals "may have to come from gay and lesbian groups, like financial entities that are exclusive to gay and lesbian product."

A case in point may well be the Canadian film Lilies, the third feature from gay director John Greyson. It is a lush and moody period drama chronicling a decades-old relationship between two men, and it has already won a slew of Genie awards--the Canadian equivalent of the Oscars--but has yet to secure a distributor in the United States. "Seeing what interest we get in distribution is a big reason for going to Sundance," says Greyson, whose movie was set to screen out of competition. "You just keep your fingers crossed."

Whether most of the gay and lesbian movies get picked up by distributors at Sundance, one thing is certain: The festival has provided a nurturing environment for gay filmmakers. Redford says his support for gay and lesbian filmmakers is unwavering. "We have always actively sought films by groups that weren't being represented," says the actor-director. "Voices that were, and still are, being snuffed out by society or quashed by rules that society has made to keep these voices unheard. That included African-American films, Native American films, films by women, and gay and lesbian films."

Redford's involvement with Sundance began in 1981, when--armed with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts--he started the Sundance Institute to provide development support for screen-writers and directors. In 1985, Sundance took over the ailing United States Film Festival, renaming it the Sundance Film Festival in 1991.

From the beginning Redford says he was never apprehensive about featuring films with lesbian and gay content. "If I had been affected by public opinion or anything like that, we never would have started Sundance," he says. "It's always been about finding the work and supporting the filmmakers."

The festival's support of gay and lesbian film dates back to 1986, when Bill Sherwood's Parting Glances first screened. In 1989, Sundance administrator Michelle Satter remembers a frantic call from film producer Lindsay Law about project titled Longtime Companion. "He was so excited," says Satter. "And so desperate to get this film made. He said, 'It's really important. It's the first film about the AIDS crisis. We need help."

The institute accepted the project's writer, Craig Lucas, into its screenwriting lab and premiered the film at its 1990 festival. Law recalls worrying about the movie's first screening in conservative, Mormon-dominated Utah. "The premiere was on a Sunday morning," says Law, now president of Fox Searchlight Pictures. "And we joked that at least most of the state's residents would be in church." To his surprise, Longtime Companion became the first gay or lesbian film to win a prize--the audience award for best dramatic feature film. This victory also surprised several others within the industry, not the least of whom is Sundance's associate director of programming, John Cooper. "I was completely shocked," says Cooper, who is openly gay. "Here's a bunch of guys dealing with death, and the audience voted for it."

Three subsequent years were particularly crucial for gay and lesbian films at Sundance. In 1991 Todd Haynes's Poison and Jennie Livingston's Paris Is Burning won the dramatic and documentary Grand Jury Prizes, respectively. It was an astounding moment: Not even one gay film had won top honors there up until that time. "We didn't design it that way," says Redford. "It just happened. The films found their own way."

On the heels of Haynes's Sundance triumph, Poison--and two other 1992 Sundance entrants, Tom Kalin's Swoon and Christopher Munch's The Hours and Times--were all picked up for commercial release in 1992. It was the first time that multiple gay features entered the commercial market. When freelance film critic B. Ruby Rich coined the phrase "new queer cinema" that same year, the industry--and the mainstream press--went berserk "It was really a generational thing," recalls Newsweek movie critic David Ansen, also openly gay. "There were all these new young talents, and they had a point of view that we hadn't seen before."

The final key year, especially for lesbians, was 1994. Rose Troche's lesbian comedy Go Fish took the festival by storm and helped pave the way for Maria Maggenti's 1995 festival hit The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love.

But despite the active role that Sundance continues to play in fostering both gay and lesbian film, some say the scales are still tipped toward the men. "What I've always noticed is that there aren't very many female directors in competition," says Sichel. Women have won various jury prizes, but only one woman (not a lesbian) has won the dramatic competition since 1989. What's more, gay male films at the festival have outnumbered lesbian pictures 2 to 1.

Along racial lines, gay white filmmakers at the festival outnumber other segments of the gay community by a ratio of 6 to 1. "They're not being turned away," says Cooper of this unseen work. "I just think it's probably not getting made."

Of course, critics of the festival disagree. "There are different forms of prejudice," says Wellington Love, an African-American who is executive director of the New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. "If something is missing, do you say, `It's not being made, so we can't show it,' or do you take an active role in getting production assistance to these filmmakers? Does Sundance bear all the responsibility? No. But they're in a position to do something about it."

How much more an institution such as Sundance can or cannot do is debatable. "You can't blame a festival for the society that its in," says former Sundance winner Livingston. "I met a lot of people as a result of my win, but I don't drink they were prepared to do anything about it," she continues, referring to Paris Is Burning, her groundbreaking documentary about a group of drag queens in Harlem, N.Y. "No one was going to pick up a queer documentary, especially one about black people."

Livingston notes that it was only after Poison and Swoon had demonstrated their box office mettle that Miramax Films released her documentary. "I don't see the industry responding yet and paying for our pictures to be made," she says. "Sundance doesn't have the money to finance my next work. But it's the industry, not Sundance, that needs to start fostering our work."

With other entrants at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival scheduled to include Su Friedrich's semi-documentary on lesbian childhoods, Hide and Seek; Monte Bramer's documentary Paul Monette: The Brink of Summer's End; and the latest movie from gay director Gregg Araki, Nowhere, Redford maintains that industry participation may occur only after gay and lesbian films such as these have proven their strength at the box office. "These films have earned a place in the market because they're good films," he says about the gay and lesbian films that have been featured at Sundance for the past decade.

"But finally the criteria has to be, `Does this film stand on its own? Does it perform?'" Redford says. He then states, well aware of the industry's bottom-line mentality: "Success can come only when the theatrical playability is there, and I don't think it is yet. Until that happens, it's going to be shaky out there."

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