29 Queer Film Festival Founders Jonathan Andre Culliton & Graham Kolbeins Talk Inaugural Year
This piece was originally published on Film Obsessive.
In the era of digital streaming services, there is still a demand to be able to see films on the big, silver screen. It’s a demand that exists even in a small California town that doesn’t have a movie theater, and that didn’t deter filmmakers-turned-festival founders, Jonathan Andre Culliton and Graham Kolbeins, from starting the 29 Queer Film Festival. In its first year, the festival seeks to create a space for movie-lovers of all ages in the desert to see queer stories exactly where they belong; on the big screen.
In preparation for the festival next month, Jonathan Andre Culliton and Graham Kolbeins sat down with Film Obsessive News Editor Tina Kakadelis, to explain what moviegoers can expect during the run of the festival and the essential need for queer spaces. The transcript has been edited for clarity and space.
Film Obsessive: How did you guys meet? When did you come up with the idea of this film festival?
Jonathan Andre Culliton: Well, this is a romance story as well as a film festival creation story. We’ve been together almost two years and we met three years ago. We just started chatting and we realized that we knew so many of the same people in the queer community. We never stopped talking. That’s our romance story, but then we also applied to the same mentorship in Twentynine Palms. We were going through that and they were like, you guys should do a program. There’s no filmmaking here except for what we’ve been doing with our own films. We got pushed to do it and we’re not sorry that happened.
Do you guys have any background in events planning or is that aspect of the festival entirely brand new?
Graham Kolbeins: We’re primarily both filmmakers, but I have curated some screenings in Los Angeles mostly through this organization called Dirty Looks LA that puts on a queer film festival in Los Angeles. I programed a screening of Greg Araki’s Nowhere at the Vista Theater. That was a big, sold out midnight showing of that great film. I’m glad I got to take what I learned there and to expand it in our festival. Bradford Nordeen from Dirty Looks is actually collaborating with us on one of the screenings here as well.
Jonathan Andre Culliton. Courtesy of Jonathan Andre Culliton
I love the Vista. That’s such a great venue. I lived in LA for four years and I would go to all those midnight showings at the Vista. It’s awesome. What was the most surprising part about building a film festival from scratch in a town that a lot of people probably haven’t heard of?
Jonathan: I guess it’s rallying people. Obviously, we’ve been supported by Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID), which is the tourist board out here. They get money through the wonderful California law that says that a percentage of hotel revenues and all the tourist stuff goes back into TBID. We got money from that, but, as you might assume, it’s really expensive to do something like this. It really is a community effort. It’s simply queer people that we know, who really want to see a program like this in an event like this in a place like this.
Graham: I would add that one of the big challenges putting of on a film festival here is we actually don’t have a movie theater in Twentynine Palms. You have to go all the way down the hill to Palm Springs if you want to go to the movies. We’re collaborating with our local stage theater, Theater 29, to put on screenings in their venue and working with a local retail space called Corner 62 to do a screening on their patio after dark. We’re just finding what’s available and using the resources at hand to try and make this festival as awesome as possible for our audiences.
Where did you find the films that would ultimately make up the program? How did you make sure that you are finding as much widespread representation in all aspects of LGBT cinema as possible?
Jonathan: What an experience to go from filmmaker applying to festivals and then suddenly be like, oh yeah, we do have to be on the other side now. We have to reach out to friends and get those submissions. To your point, we did that because of variety. To make sure we have representation for our queer communities and our communities. We reached out to our filmmaking friends and then we wanted more international submission.
Graham: We put our festival on Film Freeway with free submissions. Immediately, we got dozens of submissions. We put a $10 rate and that slowed down the submissions. I think it produced better quality submissions because people were thinking about like, what is this festival? Does my film work in a context like this?
Jonathan: Lastly, we made sure that our filmmakers out here in the desert had submitted their latest work. We’re really excited to celebrate them.
Graham Kolbeins. Photo by Paul Mpagi Sepuya, courtesy of Graham Kolbeins.
The festival has a shorts block that’s horror themed. There seem to be a lot of queer stories that always exist in the horror genre. What do you think it is about horror that really lends itself to LGBTQ stories?
Jonathan: My film Spookable is in that block. It’s a horror comedy, starring Alexandra Gray. Talking about horror and comedy is a huge conversation, but I’ll whittle it down to the facts. We were studying horror and comedy and how the reactions are really similar. It puts the viewer on this in a mental state that leads to a lot of vulnerability. That was one reason. Another is that horror fans that don’t care if things are queer. They’re mainly looking for the gore, etc. I think horror is just fun. It’s true that you can have fun in this genre, whether it’s serious or funny. I think that leads to a lot of opportunity for queer filmmakers. I had the most fun just lampooning and making a queer version of Scary Movie.
Graham: It’s fun and at the same time, there’s a film called PIECHT in that program that is a very serious look at the horror of being queer in a small town. It was made in Germany, but we related to it as also being queer in a small town here. We think that audiences can really tap into this material on multiple levels.
Jonathan: Opportunity for analogies, that’s for sure.
Another one of the events that you guys are hosting is an all ages world premiere of Willa Justice: Drag Queen Private Eye. All ages events at film festivals are quite hard to find. Why did you want to put on an all ages event gearing toward younger people? Do you think it’s important that kids get to be a part of the festival? Not even from an LGBT point of view, but just being included in a film festival atmosphere.
Jonathan: We did have feedback from people that do programing for kids around town. There’s a lack of filmmaking and acting activities for kids. These kids live 2.5 hours from Los Angeles. If they want to build some sort of idea of where they’re going to go to college, what they’re going to study, we should have arts programing here. Parents of queer kids, too, told us a little bit of the experience of being a queer kid in a conservative, army town. Not the greatest stories that we heard from that. So, we said it is an imperative for us to have a welcoming program where they can see a drag queen, solve crimes, not ever shoot a gun, not ever say a curse word, not ever have sex. These are three things that I usually put in my movies. Willa Justice is my movie, too. (laughs) I don’t know why, but she’s really family friendly. Drag is family and family friendly. It’s just an opportunity for us to do all of that in one fell swoop. The kids program is a drag program. We think that kids of all ages can appreciate that movie and find it funny.
Graham: This is also our first year doing this festival, but we we’re looking forward to the future. Doing things like workshops with local youth would be amazing. We’re just trying to lay the foundation for that. Theater 29, our venue, is also very kid friendly. They have a summer youth acting program, so we’re trying to make spaces that are inclusive of the kids in that community as well.
Jonathan: One of those kids just starred in Graham’s debut narrative short, Outage. A leading role in a movie. That’s a small way we’re starting and the festival is the big way.
That’s awesome! This is the peak time of streaming services and it’s so easy to stay at home and watch a movie. What do you think the festival experience brings to filmmaking that makes it essential and enduring?
Jonathan: We had such a good time at the Maryland Film Festival. It’s just really the community, friendships, and working relationships that are formed there. I think it’s invaluable to get together and talk about the art. It might be considered a smaller scale here, but you could find filmmakers to make a film with at this festival that are local. We’re hoping to find more PAs, more carpenters out here because we do bus people out here, but half our crew is usually local. Making those connections is something that we really are looking forward to.
Graham: As a filmmaker, just having the chance to see your work screened with an audience in a theater, if it even if it’s a short film or a music video, is really special. You don’t get that opportunity a lot outside of film festivals. We’re trying to bring that experience to local filmmakers here and to filmmakers from around the world who are going to be a part of this festival.
Jonathan: We do not care who you are. (laughs) There’s no weird barrier like that. We really looked at all the films and said, what is an amazing program? We’re really looking forward to those people who may not have been celebrated at other festivals. We really, truly believe that story comes first.
Courtesy of 29 Queer Film Festival
My last question for you guys is looking ahead to the future. What’s the dream dream version of the 29 Queer Film Festival?
Graham: There’s so many different directions this could go in. I think even if we just keep it as a festival, it’s an exciting thing to have on an annual basis. But, you know, I have had dreams of opening a micro cinema in Twentynine Palms that could show programing year round. There’s just a lot of opportunities like the ones we were talking about before like doing workshops with the local community, with local youth, training people to make films out here and supporting the local filmmaking community.
Jonathan: We love the idea that this could be more infrastructure for local filmmakers as well. We could train people to be PAs and give them specialized skills that could allow people to make more films out of here. If you watch the local films, you can tell it’s not green screened. This is one of the most beautiful places you’ve ever seen. When I came to Twnetynine Palms for the first time, I said to Graham, this is a movie set, why don’t we make a bunch of our movies here and find excuses for the story to be here. I really do think that this could be a major place for movies and the economy here would definitely benefit from that. Always keeping it art focused, which is also something that’s really part of the community. That’s my vision for it too.
That’s awesome. Congratulations on building this festival. Sadly, I can’t go, but I can’t wait to hear how it is!
Jonathan: Thank you so much for your time!
Graham: Yeah, we really appreciate you taking the time to spotlight what we’re doing, and hopefully you can come out to a future festival and we’ll keep it going.
Absolutely, I would love to!
The inaugural 29 Queer Film Festival will be held at various locations in Twentynine Palms, California from September 20-22, 2024. For more information, visit the festival’s official website!
Follow me on BlueSky, Instagram, Letterboxd, & YouTube. Check out Movies with My Dad, a new podcast recorded on the car ride home from the movies.