GLAAD, Frameline, and NewFest Host a ‘Cheers, Queers’ Event at Sundance

River Gallo, Alok Vaid-Menon, Alex Hedison, and more attend “Cheers, Queers,” an event to celebrate and promote queer cinema and filmmakers at Sundance Film Festival.

The event was hosted by GLAAD, Frameline, and NewFest and co-presented in partnership with Acura and IMDbPro on Friday, January 19. GLAAD, a nonprofit focused on cultural change and encouraging fair and inclusive representation in media, joined forces with Frameline and NewFest, two of the largest LGBTQ+ film festivals to elevate queer voices in film. Frameline and NewFest both provide funding to queer filmmakers and present them at the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival and the annual New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival respectively. 

“Cheers, Queers” featured a “Queer Film is Activism” panel moderated by Anthony Allen Ramos, the Vice President of Communications and Talent at GLAAD. This panel included Alok Vaid-Menon, Alex Hedison (filmmaker and director of ALOK),  David Hatkoff (Executive Director at NewFest), DaShawn Usher (Director of Communities of Color and Media at GLAAD), and Natalie Jasmine Harris (Director of Grace).

After the panel, there was a mixer to celebrate the LGBTQ+ filmmakers and community members in attendance which included River Gallo and Jari Jones from the cast of Ponyboi, an extended version of the short film of the same title created by River Gallo in 2019 that is debuting at Sundance this year. 

Other notable filmmaker attendees include João Dall’Stella, a Brazilian director known for his short films, Ally Pankiw, a writer and director of a variety of TV shows and movies such as “Feel Good” and “I Used to Be Funny,” Julian J. Walker, known for his role in “Blackbird,” Fawzia Mirza, a director and writer known for “Hidden Canyons” and “The Queen of My Dreams,” and more. 

Several executives and journalists also attended the event, such as Kirsten Schaffer, the Executive Director of Women in Film, Shar Jossell, host of the We See Each Other podcast, Gabe Dunn, host of the Just Between Us podcast, and Chet Mehta, founder of PR Dept.

Photo courtesy of the press release