Queer films are more vital now than ever, and Chuck Wheeler knows that as coordinator of the OUTSOUTH Queer Film Festival, one of the largest LGBTQ+ film festivals in the southeast. The festival attracts thousands of attendees yearly. While COVID presented a signifcant setback, Wheeler and his team have been wildly successful at rebuilding the event and helping it flourish.
The festival, which ācelebrates a worldwide glimpse of todayās LGBTQ+ life,ā according to its website, has been going on for 29 years in Durham, N.C., and Wheeler has been a part of it since the beginning back in 1996, when it was called the North Carolina Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.
āThe festivalās existence in 2024 was more important than ever, as it provided the LGBTQ+ community a chance to gather as one, especially in the face of growing political adversity and escalating violence against us, particularly towards transgender members of our community,ā Wheeler says.
āI was 16 when Stonewall occurred, I lost most of my friends during the AIDS epidemic, I was violently struck in the face by a guy who called me a āf****tā in 1982, I marched in Washington for our rights in 1993, I celebrated the legalization of gay marriage in North Carolina in 2014, I married my longtime partner two weeks later, and I heralded the long-overdue arrival of gay marriage throughout the U.S. in 2015,ā he continues. āThat is, Iāve witnessed and lived through the good and the bad. Now in 2024, however, I feel as if it is pre-Stonewall again, and I am deeply saddened and angry that having come so far, everything we have accomplished is again being challenged.ā @outsouthqueerfilmfest
