"POSE," JUSTIN SIMIEN AND SONY PICTURES CLASSICS TO RECEIVE
OUTFEST LEGACY AWARDS
Los
Angeles, CA
Outfest, the Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization
promoting equality by creating, sharing, and protecting LGBTQ
stories on the screen, announced that it will honor the producers
and cast of FX Networks “POSE” at the 2018 Legacy Awards on
Sunday, October 28th. Outfest will also honor writer/director
Justin Simien (Dear White People), as well as 39-time
Academy Award® winner, Sony Pictures Classics.
Merrill Lynch will return as the Presenting Sponsor. This year’s
awards dinner will once again take place at performing arts
venue Vibiana in downtown Los Angeles, with head chef Neal Fraser
(Redbird).
“POSE” has quickly become a historic piece of television with
its intelligent and empathetic exploration of trans people of
color in New York City in the 1980s, brought to the screen by
a deep bench of talented trans actors, writers and directors.
These are characters and stories that would have been unheard
of on television until now, but “POSE” has radically changed
the television paradigm and further advanced the diversity of
storytelling in the culture thus garnering it this year’s Trailblazer
Award.
Justin Simien is receiving the Rising Star Award in recognition
of his talent and support of LGBTQ stories and the community.
In just a few short years, Simien, as a storyteller, has skillfully
addressed issues relevant to people of color in and out of the
LGBTQ community but always in the context of sharp, observed
humor and empathetic characters in both the film and serialized
versions of Dear White People.
Sony Pictures Classics will be honored with the Corporate Trailblazer
Award in recognition for its role as a distributor in bringing
LGBTQ stories to a wide audience. Co-Founders and Co-Presidents
Tom Bernard and Michael Barker have given viewers the opportunity
to see important works such as Call Me By Your Name,
A Fantastic Woman, Love Is Strange, Kill Your
Darlings, Capote, and All About My Mother
on the big screen.
“Even today, it is often a battle for members of the LGBTQ community
to be seen, heard and acknowledged. Hatred and misunderstanding
still dominate the cultural and political landscape. In this
climate of intolerance, our community is now faced with the
eroding of our hard-earned rights and recognition. That’s why
our honorees - “POSE” and Justin Simien - are so incredibly
important. They demand attention and respect for LGBTQ communities
of color – our trans, black and brown family members who are
most often the focus of the intolerance and violence that our
community faces. We honor them to show that we stand with them
and that we are grateful for their work,” stated Outfest’s Executive
Director, Christopher Racster. “Sony Pictures Classics is to
be lauded for elevating the stories of the LGBTQ community for
decades, long before our community became a part of the everyday
cultural discourse. Sony Pictures Classics continues to ensure
that audiences around the world see our struggles, our victories
and our everyday lives on an equal footing with any other human
story.”
The Legacy Awards serves as a fundraiser to support the Outfest
UCLA Legacy Project, which celebrates its 13th anniversary this
year. Outfest and UCLA Film & Television Archive partnered in
2005 to create the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project, the only program
in the world exclusively dedicated to saving and preserving
LGBT moving images. The Legacy Project is aimed at the crisis
in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender moving image archiving.
Many of the landmark LGBT films produced over the last 40-plus
years are already in danger of fading away; their original exhibition
prints are in tatters and their negatives are in woeful storage
conditions, or even lost. For the last 13 years, the Legacy
Project is proud to have collected more than 40,000 moving image
items and to have restored 23 historically important film and
video projects.
Previous Legacy Award winners include Rita Moreno (West Side
Story), Laverne Cox (“Orange is the New Black”), Jill Soloway
(“Transparent”), Sean Hayes (“Will and Grace”), Tom Hanks (Philadelphia),
Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right), Armistead Maupin
(Tales of the City), Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry),
Lee Daniels (“Empire”), Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (Chicago)
Adam Shankman (Hairspray), Roland Emmerich (Stonewall),
Alan Poul (“The Newsroom”), Bruce Cohen (Silver Linings Playbook),
and Paris Barclay (“Sons of Anarchy”).
Other sponsors for the night include: Brown-Forman, Eco Terreno
Wines Inc., and Variety.
To buy tickets, please visit: https://bit.ly/2Iu7eZ4
About POSE
Set in the 1980s, “Pose” is a dance musical that explores the
juxtaposition of several segments of life and society in New
York: the ball culture world, the rise of the luxury Trump-era
universe and the downtown social and literary scene.
Making television history, “Pose” features the largest cast
of transgender actors in series regular roles, as well as the
largest recurring cast of LGBTQ actors ever for a scripted series.
The transgender cast includes Mj Rodriguez, Dominique Jackson,
Indya Moore, Hailie Sahar and Angelica Ross, who co-star alongside
Evan Peters, Kate Mara, James Van Der Beek, Tony Award® winner
Billy Porter, Charlayne Woodard, and newcomers Ryan Jamaal Swain,
Dyllón Burnside and Angel Bismark Curiel.
Evan Peters and Kate Mara play New Jersey couple “Stan” and
“Patty Bowes,” who get sucked into the glamour and intrigue
of New York City in the 1980s, as epitomized by “Matt Bromley”
(James Van Der Beek), Stan’s boss. Mj Rodriguez stars as “Blanca
Rodriguez,” who breaks from the House of Abundance and her former
house mother “Elektra Abundance” (Dominique Jackson) to form
her own “house,” a self-selected family that provides support
to LGBTQ youth rejected by their birth families. Indya Moore
plays “Angel,” a streetwalker who develops feelings for her
new client, Stan. Ryan Jamaal Swain plays “Damon Richards,”
a dancer who joins Blanca’s house. Together they compete in
the Balls—where house members challenge each other in various
categories and are judged on their outfits, attitude, or dance
skills. Under the watchful eye of “Pray Tell” (Billy Porter),
Grandfather to all the children who compete in the house balls,
Elektra’s House of Abundance and Blanca’s upstart House of Evangelista
face off in what may develop into a legendary rivalry.
“Pose” was co-created by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Steven
Canals, with Murphy directing the first two episodes. The series
is executive produced by Murphy, Falchuk, Nina Jacobson, Brad
Simpson, Alexis Martin Woodall and Sherry Marsh. Canals and
Silas Howard serve as co-executive producers, and Janet Mock,
Our Lady J and Erica Kay also serve as producers. The eight-episode
first season is produced by Fox 21 Television Studios and FX
Productions.
About Justin Simien
Justin Simien is a writer, director, and producer of both television
and film based in Los Angeles, California. In 2014 he wrote
and directed his first feature film, the critically acclaimed
Indie Dear White People, which premiered at the Sundance Film
Festival. After being called “timely and important” by critics
and audiences alike, the project won him the Special Jury Award
for Breakthrough Talent and was picked up by Lionsgate/Roadside
Attractions.
After the theatrical release of DEAR WHITE PEOPLE in the Fall
of 2014, Simien was awarded Best First Screenplay and nominated
for Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards. The
film also earned him a nomination for the Bingham Ray Breakthrough
Director Award at that year’s Gotham Awards, along with a nomination
for the Audience Award. Actress Tessa Thompson also garnered
a Breakthrough Actor win at the Gotham Awards for her leading
performance as the fearless and controversial Sam White. Simien
was included in Variety’s “10 Directors to Watch” roundup for
that year.
Simien adapted DEAR WHITE PEOPLE into a series for streaming
giant Netflix, which debut in 2017, with many of the original
cast returning to continue the story. The show, which recently
debuted its second season, remains at a coveted and rare 100%
on Rotten Tomatoes for both the first & second seasons.
Simien’s next project will be writing and directing his second
feature length film entitled BAD HAIR. Paralleling the rise
of New Jack Swing in 1989, BAD HAIR is a horror satire that
follows an ambitious young woman who gets a weave in order to
survive the image obsessed world of music television. Her professional
success comes at a higher cost than anticipated, however, when
she discovers her new hair may have a mind of its own…
About Sony Pictures Classics
Michael Barker and Tom Bernard serve as co-presidents of Sony
Pictures Classics—an autonomous division of Sony Pictures Entertainment
they founded with Marcie Bloom in January 1992—which distributes,
produces, and acquires independent films from around the world.?
Barker and Bernard have released prestigious films that have
won 39 Academy Awards® (35 of those at Sony Pictures Classics)
and have garnered 169 Academy Award® nominations (147 at Sony
Pictures Classics) including Best Picture nominations for CALL
ME BY YOUR NAME, WHIPLASH, AMOUR, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, AN EDUCATION,
CAPOTE, HOWARDS END, AND CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON.
About Outfest
Celebrating its 36th anniversary Outfest was founded by UCLA
students in 1982. Outfest is the world’s leading organization
that promotes equality by creating, sharing and protecting LGBT
stories on the screen. Outfest builds community by connecting
diverse populations to discover, discuss and celebrate stories
of LGBT lives. Over the past three decades, Outfest has showcased
thousands of films from around the world, educated and mentored
hundreds of emerging filmmakers, and protected over 40,000 LGBT
films and videos. The Outfest UCLA Legacy Project is the only
program in the world exclusively dedicated to protecting LGBT
films for future generations.
About UCLA Film & Television Archive
UCLA Film & Television Archive is renowned globally for its
pioneering efforts to rescue, preserve and showcase moving image
media—and is dedicated to ensuring that the collective visual
memory of our time is explored and enjoyed for generations to
come. cinema.ucla.edu