Audio Interview, Larry Champoux, October 22, 2012
- EVELYN BAILEY: Make sure the volume is up.
- So today is Tuesday, October 22.
- And I'm sitting here with Larry Champoux,
- who is one of the founders of ImageOut twenty years ago.
- And I'd first like to have you share some of your background.
- Were you born in Rochester?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: I was born in Syracuse.
- And my family moved to Rochester when I was about ten years old.
- And like a lot of families, my dad got a job at Xerox.
- So like many Xerox families, we moved to Penfield.
- So I grew up in Penfield, New York.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And so you went to the Penfield School?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Penfield School District--
- EVELYN BAILEY: --district.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: And graduated in 1973.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Were you out then?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: I was a hippie then.
- So there was a lot of flexibility
- to maneuver within that framework.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Free love.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: And so I wasn't--
- I wouldn't say out, but I was surrounded
- by many open-minded people, so many of whom
- are still my great friends today.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And where did you go to college, Larry?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: I went to SUNY Binghamton, Binghamton
- University, and got a degree in English literature
- and studied art as well.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Were you always interested in art?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Yeah.
- I would say pretty much.
- And from the time I was a child, I was creatively
- engaged in one way or another.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Were you an artist or--
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Well, I started out after college
- writing poetry and studied poetry.
- After Binghamton University, I went to a university
- in Boulder, Colorado called Naropa University, Naropa
- Institute, which is a Buddhist accredited college,
- where I studied writing with people like Allen
- Ginsberg and William Burroughs.
- And it was the school that had been founded--
- the writing school founded by Allen Ginsberg.
- So I spent a couple of summers studying writing there also.
- So my background after college was
- in writing and worked at Writers & Books organizing readings,
- organizing writing workshops.
- And I got to meet a lot of writers and other artists
- at that time and became sort of entrenched
- in the creative community in Rochester.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So you never really left Rochester?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: I never really left.
- I was in college.
- And I've traveled a great deal.
- But this has been home base for quite a while.
- My partner and I also have a home
- in Vancouver, British Columbia, where
- we try to spend as much time as possible also.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Oh, wow.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: So I'm also sort of from Vancouver
- I consider myself now.
- EVELYN BAILEY: It's a great city.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: It's beautiful.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Beautiful.
- EVELYN BAILEY: How did you get into the Pyramid?
- My first introduction to you was through the Pyramid art
- gallery at Village Gate and your auctions
- and that sort of thing.
- How did you get into the Pyramid?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Well, Writers & Books
- was a smaller, medium-sized cultural organization
- as was Pyramid Art Center, which is now Rochester Contemporary.
- And so I knew a lot of the folks there
- and knew some of the board members.
- And the two directors there--
- Gina Mosesson and Tony Petracca--
- had left to pursue other things at that time.
- So the position became available at Pyramid Arts Center.
- And I had done performances and had participated
- in a lot of different activities at Pyramid Art Center,
- so I applied for the job of executive artistic director
- there.
- And I think I got the job because I could write,
- I could write grants.
- And if you can write grants--
- EVELYN BAILEY: You can get it.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: --you can do a lot of the job.
- So they hired me.
- And it was a wonderful opportunity.
- And as it turned out at that time,
- Pyramid Art Center was deeply in debt,
- which I was not quite aware of.
- So I spent a lot of time shoring up the finances
- there and getting new sources of income
- and getting rid of its debt.
- But it was a wonderful opportunity
- and broadened out my awareness of a lot of other arts
- and artists at that time.
- EVELYN BAILEY: As I recall, you had a very eclectic show
- all the time, very--
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Yeah.
- Pyramid Art Center at that time was
- considered an artist's space.
- And we had a couple of locations while I
- was director there-- one at Visual Studies
- Workshop and then a very large one at Village Gate.
- And we had two theaters.
- We had several different galleries.
- And as an artist's space, which was dedicated
- to support and presentation of artists,
- we had musical performances, dance performances,
- theater, a lot of performance art,
- in addition to painting, sculpture, crafts,
- installation art, whole range of visual arts.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So when did you meet Susan Soleil?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Well, that's sort of after Pyramid Art
- Center.
- Well, there's sort of a gap in there.
- Let me go back a little bit.
- After Pyramid Art--
- Pyramid Art Center had a board of directors.
- One of its board members was Martha Leonard,
- whose partner was Lee Andrews, I think her name was at the time.
- EVELYN BAILEY: OK.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: And they organized an event,
- which was a convention conference called
- Pink Flamingos and Purple Hearts, which
- had a wide range of workshops and performances.
- And Martha Leonard was on the board at Pyramid Art Center.
- So in talking with them about their plans for it,
- we discussed the possibility of having a film festival
- as part of that.
- So Lee and Martha hired me as a curator in Pyramid Art Center
- to develop this film festival for Pink Flamingos and Purple
- Hearts, a lesbian and gay film festival.
- And I had been at Pyramid Art Center,
- I'd been working with a lot of gay artists through the years
- and presented--
- well, presented a great deal of gay artists,
- including some of the most notorious ones,
- like Holly Hughes, lesbian theater artist
- defunded by the NEA; and Karen Finley, very not a lesbian
- but extremely gay-friendly, performance artist,
- perhaps the most notorious performance
- artist of the late '80s and early '90s, also defunded.
- These were sort of the sorts of performance artists
- that we brought, which were popular in New York,
- and at the top of their field actually,
- which was why we brought them in.
- It wasn't that they were gay or lesbian or gay
- or lesbian supportive.
- They were doing some of the most incredible performance
- work of the late '80s and early '90s,
- tops of the field at a time when performance art was really
- blossoming and blooming and where
- there was an extremely vital period of time, driven partly
- because of support from places like New York State
- Council on the Arts and the NEA, which in New York state
- were extremely supportive.
- So I had done some film festivals
- at Pyramid Arts Center before this.
- I presented Todd Haynes' work at Pyramid Art Center
- several times and had done many film festivals.
- So the time came when Pink Flamingos and Purple Hearts
- came around to expand that a bit and develop a film
- festival for that, which essentially was the first film
- festival of ImageOut, was this festival.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- That was in 19--
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Gosh, I'm trying to remember now.
- I was looking through some old issues of the--
- EVELYN BAILEY: 1990.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: '91 or '92?
- EVELYN BAILEY: '91.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: '91 or '92, something like that?
- And--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Now, let me stop you for a minute.
- Do you recall why--
- what was the purpose in having you develop this--
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Well--
- EVELYN BAILEY: --film festival?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: to understand that, it's a little bit
- important to talk about what was happening with gays
- and lesbians as it related to the federal government
- and the state government.
- In 1989, controversies erupted regarding funding
- for lesbian and gay, LGBT artists,
- and allied or allied artists due to what
- was considered controversial nature of their artwork.
- In 1989, Alfonse D'Amato, our New York state senator,
- denounced Andre Serrano's photographed Piss Christ,
- if you remember that, which was--
- EVELYN BAILEY: I do.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: And that opened up
- a wide range of conservative backlash
- against artists, particularly those working
- in the avant-garde or experimental ways, which
- gay and lesbian artists have been lumped in with avant-garde
- and experimental artists because of their outsider status
- for so long.
- And that extended to the National Endowment for the Arts
- eventually.
- It sort of blew up there with defunding of some gay artists,
- like Holly Hughes and, again, Karen Finley.
- Now, some of these artists were ones
- that we were supportive of and actually ones that we
- had helped get NEA grants.
- So Pyramid Art Center was embroiled
- in much of the controversy there,
- because while this was happening,
- we had grants for some of these our same artists that
- didn't get defunded, like some of their other grants did,
- fortunately.
- But it was a very strange time.
- And we were under a lot of heat and a lot of pressure
- in some very strange ways.
- During that time frame sort of out of the blue,
- the Internal Revenue Service audited us,
- which in the middle of all of this,
- we really viewed as a harassment and intimidation that
- was coming down from the federal government,
- though there's no way to prove that.
- EVELYN BAILEY: No.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: But these were tactics--
- EVELYN BAILEY: But coincidences don't count.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: These were tactics
- that were not unheard of.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: And the audit turned out perfect.
- Our books were totally in order.
- But it was a small arts organizations,
- so it was very difficult to be audited.
- So we were embroiled in all of that.
- And I spent a lot of time actually on the phone
- with lawyers at the National Endowment
- for the Arts trying to ensure that this funding was secured.
- And like directors of a lot of artist's spaces
- around the country, we organized in order to try and fight
- this oppression and censorship.
- It became this issue of censorship of artists
- mostly impacting LGBT artists.
- And so then my last couple of years at Pyramid Art Center
- were taken up largely with this issue of censorship,
- which I felt a responsibility to respond to.
- And in many ways, that over a course of time blew over.
- But there was what was called the chilling effect, which
- meant that, while specifically LGBT artists were not not being
- funded, there was a movement away from addressing
- those issues, a chilling effect, where we can talk
- about all sorts of other things, but we
- don't need to talk about LGBT issues
- or be supportive of LGBT artists.
- And it's not that we're not funding them.
- It's just our interests are over here.
- So there was a chilling effect that actually persists
- to this day, when you look at the Smithsonian Institution
- just recently taking down an exhibit of portraits
- of LGBT individuals.
- And that was just like last year that that happened.
- So we still are experiencing this.
- And Andre Serrano's work is still
- controversial to this day.
- And even right now, Mitt Romney is threatening
- to defund the National Endowment for the Arts
- as one of his priorities.
- So we still live with these issues today.
- So after that involvement, it became
- important to figure out what are some long term
- strategies for dealing with this issue in my own community.
- And one of those strategies was empowering--
- how do you empower a community to take control
- of their own cultural expression in a way
- so they're not dependent upon the bestowing of funds
- to do that?
- EVELYN BAILEY: To do that.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: And the film festival
- early on became a vehicle, not only
- for telling of the wide range of stories of our community,
- but for our community to take control of it also,
- to not have it controlled by other forces
- or a conservative agenda, to set our own agenda.
- And Pink Flamingos and Purple Hearts
- was an opportunity to step into that water of a larger film
- festival than Pyramid Art Center had done before.
- And I viewed it as an opportunity also
- to let it be something of a focus group as well,
- because the audiences were much smaller at that point.
- And we talked after each film, not only about
- the films, but about, what do you think?
- Could a film festival of a larger scale work here?
- Should we move forward with this?
- And so those discussions became very important
- in developing the larger festival that at that time
- was called the Rochester Lesbian and GAY Film Video Festival.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So it was because of Pink Flamingos and Purple
- Hearts that the opportunity arose
- to create this film festival that was larger
- than what you had done before?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Well, what happened
- at that point is, after that conference,
- I left Pyramid Art Center and spent about the next eight
- months to a year working pretty much exclusively
- on some other issues but also in the development of a film
- festival.
- It was like, OK, well, go for it.
- I had an opportunity to just devote time and energy to it.
- So I did that.
- But that allowed the--
- that was an opportunity to bring resources together
- around a larger film festival at a time when I was also
- making a transition of being director of Pyramid Art Center.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And so the Alliance
- was your kind of umbrella?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Well, at that time,
- I was on the board of the Gay Alliance.
- And I was also vise president of the Rochester Lesbian and Gay
- Political Caucus.
- So the Alliance was well aware of the success
- of Purple Hearts and Pink Flamingos, which sort of was--
- I look at it in many ways as sort
- of a new era for how the community began
- to identify itself.
- There was a lot going on at that time.
- And there was-- like the Alliance is always reinventing
- itself to a certain extent.
- I approached the Alliance, said, look,
- here's a really great idea for a fundraiser,
- a way to raise some funds.
- And initially, my consideration for the film festival was--
- because I was in the cultural community
- and in the political and social community,
- it was that a film festival could
- be a vehicle to raise funds and support for the Alliance.
- It's bring so many people into it.
- And they said, well, let's go for this,
- let's see what we can do here.
- And I immediately set to raising funds,
- immediately because I had worked with NYSCA for so long,
- I was able to get NYSCA support for the film festival.
- So the first film festival, in the first couple of them,
- I believe, were under the auspices of the Gay Alliance.
- And actually, the very first one was also
- cosponsored by the Rochester Lesbian and Gay Political
- Caucus.
- And the first one made money.
- And those dollars were split between the Alliance
- and the Political Caucus.
- At that time in the Political Caucus,
- the major issue was domestic partnership benefits
- in the city of Rochester, which had been there now
- for about twenty years.
- So the funds raised from the first film festival--
- the first full film festival under the Alliance, part
- of those funds where the educational opportunities
- regarding domestic partnership benefits
- and educational materials.
- So it was really a wonderful sort
- of like fusing of the community in many ways
- that had multi-fold benefits.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And that was--
- it was shortly after that that the city passed
- domestic partnership benefits.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: It was just about the same time,
- because really, it was all sort of at the same time
- that the city passed those domestic partnership
- benefits at the city of Rochester,
- which I was involved in also because I
- was involved with the Caucus.
- And Bill Pritchard was very involved in that
- also at that time.
- So the film festival from the get-go was largely successful.
- But it also didn't--
- I spent a lot of time in those early months between Pink
- Flamingos conference and the Gay Alliance supported
- film festival going out to community groups
- and talking to everybody-- and out to bars
- and like selling the story and say,
- I want to do this, what do you think about this.
- And there was a great deal of sort of skepticism that I met--
- interest, but it's kind of like, can we do that here?
- Can we do something that big here?
- And so some of them were saying, well, I think we can,
- we just sort of did this.
- And I also said that we have a really strong community that
- had organized so strongly and so dramatically
- around the issue of HIV and AIDS just a decade earlier
- or so, that we had a strong network of volunteers
- and a strong sensibility of community involvement
- and self-sufficiency, that the film festival was
- able to build upon.
- And that self-sufficiency is critical.
- That, again, the community taking charge and control
- of its own culture is similar to the community taking charge
- of its own health issues.
- And that has been a hallmark of our community
- and of the gay community nationally
- that we are able to do that.
- EVELYN BAILEY: We take care of ourselves.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: We take care of ourselves.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And our own.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: And our own.
- And that, whether its cultural issues or political issues
- or social issues, I think has been
- the most critical component to the success
- that we've had over the past few generations in securing
- LGBT rights, is that self-sufficiency and mutual
- support that we always ultimately come back to.
- So Susan Soleil was one of the members
- in the audience at that conference Pink Flamingos
- and Purple Hearts and was extremely enthusiastic
- audience member and early on became
- one of the strong supporters and originators in the film
- festival and workhorses of the film festival.
- And at that time, it was like I didn't want to be--
- we called them producers early on--
- I didn't want to be the only producer,
- and there wasn't a woman involved.
- And I said, geez, would you want to be a coproducer?
- So Susan came out as a coproducer
- for when we worked with the Gay Alliance
- and then for many years afterwards worked
- in that capacity.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Who were the members of the core group?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Oh, gosh.
- Well, I can remember some of whom were early on.
- Scott McCarney was early on.
- And Jamie and Sally Whitbeck have been there
- from the beginning.
- Interestingly, at the time that ImageOut was beginning,
- Jamie was working on a film festival,
- I think for the Unitarian Universalist Church,
- or I don't remember what church and simultaneous to that.
- And I was sitting up in Bill Coppard's office
- making plans for the film festival.
- And Jamie called up on the phone at the same time
- asking Bill Coppard.
- And Bill Coppard goes, well, maybe you
- should speak to Larry Champoux.
- And Jamie goes, huh?
- Well, he's sitting right here.
- So Jamie came in and has been a really a
- vibrant, strong support.
- Early on, David Emert, Susan Soleil, and many others.
- And what happens is there's been such strong volunteers,
- so many different volunteers have
- come through the film festival at this point,
- that there are audience members.
- There are former board members.
- There are former volunteers.
- There are supporters.
- So there's a whole, large, sort of inner-mixed community that's
- emerged around the film festival.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And how--
- so the first film festival was held where?
- I mean, where were the films shown, The Little?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Most of them were at The Little, as I
- recall, The Little.
- And I think perhaps that first year, we also
- had The Dryden as well.
- So The Little was a major resource.
- And I can't recall, we may have had some other locations
- as well.
- EVELYN BAILEY: How did you get the connection with The Dyrden.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Gosh.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Do you remember?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: That I don't recall.
- But you know, interestingly, at that time, The Dryden's film
- selection was a lot more spayed, if you remember back
- a number of years.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: They appealed to an older audience.
- And so we came in with this OUTlandish Film Festival
- early on and brought audiences in.
- And I think it's part of the way that ImageOut has had a larger
- impact on the larger film, the media community,
- is that we sort of, I think, showed The Dyrden
- and the Eastman that they can broaden out
- their film selection and get audiences to come in for that.
- They don't have to rely on all Fred Astaire films.
- And so the ImageOut Film Festival
- has had an impact, not just on the gay community,
- but on the larger film and media community--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Oh, absolutely.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: --as well.
- And we continue to to this day.
- And I think what's most notable is that it's been administered
- so well, which is a skill Susan Soleil brought to the film
- festival clearly with strong administrative skills
- to develop the sort of structural components
- that it could have some of that longevity.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Who took over after Susan?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Gosh, you know, I--
- I don't have the whole history.
- I don't recall then.
- EVELYN BAILEY: It must have been Kevin.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Because I sort of have come in and out of it.
- I come in and mostly do fundraising
- and some special programs.
- And then I go away for a few years.
- So I don't really recall.
- I don't really recall.
- One thing that Susan did and David did
- is they created, which is a lot of work,
- its own nonprofit organization.
- And that's a monumental feat.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So Susan was responsible for that.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Susan and David, I think,
- were responsible for creating it as an independent--
- EVELYN BAILEY: 501(c)(3).
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: --501(c)(3) organization.
- And with that comes a whole range of responsibilities.
- But early on, even from the first film festival--
- I mean, I'd worked in nonprofit organizations
- and had dragged Pyramid Art Center out of debt
- to profitability.
- And so from early on, there was an insistence
- that it had to be financially successful also.
- Because there are so many projects that look great
- and people have ambitious ideas, but they--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Fall short.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: --lose money.
- And people, as soon as the money is, people lose interest.
- So from early on--
- and even the first one where we made money
- for the Alliance and the Political Caucus,
- there's been the intention that we
- need to ensure that there's a positive bottom line, which
- it has had almost every year.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: And because it has been successful,
- people want to be involved with a successful organization.
- And so it continues to attract really
- a wide range of talented people who come through there
- and contribute to it, a lot of time, energy,
- and love and passion.
- So I'm not sure who-- like, I don't recall exactly--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Who.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: --who turned--
- I don't recall all of that.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Susan will know.
- Susan will know more of that.
- EVELYN BAILEY: And Jamie Whitbeck.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: And Jamie would know that too.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Larry, where do you get your passion?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Well, I'm sort of the type that is--
- I am sort of driven to kind of makes things happen.
- I kind of like--
- I sort of look for where is there a void,
- and how can you fill it.
- Because it sort of is like, when you begin to fill a void,
- there's all sorts of energy that starts to formulate around it.
- The film festival is kind of like that.
- I'm sort of-- I like ideas and encourage and enthuse
- people around ideas.
- But I'm not the person to carry it through after that.
- I like the spark.
- I've always loved the spark and the spark of creativity
- and the spark of the inspirational moment.
- What I've always sort of beyond that have been interested in
- is how does that play out in a community.
- How do you-- like at Writers & Books, it was--
- when I was there, working with poets,
- it was like we generated a community of poets.
- And there was like creating an energy around that.
- So where does that come from?
- I don't know.
- I'm a Buddhist.
- And I sort of like am driven in different ways
- sometimes and sort of make different determinations
- about what's success is or what is successful.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Well, you certainly are a connector.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Mm-hm.
- EVELYN BAILEY: You present an idea or capture an idea.
- And people tend to gravitate toward you
- to initially get involved.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: You know what I think
- it is, if it's a skill that I have,
- it's because I have been a writer and a poet,
- I'm an articulator.
- So I think I bring words and voice to things that people
- are already feeling.
- And that's what it is.
- It's kind of like--
- this was precisely, I think, with the film festival,
- it was like, don't we all sort of need this or really
- want this?
- And don't you see how this can sort of happen in this way?
- So I don't think it's--
- I think it's just articulating a community's needs
- and bringing voice to them that then people respond to,
- because there's words then that express something
- that they might be feeling.
- That's to me, if I'm looking at my own self,
- if there's a skill I have, that might be it.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.
- Well, you certainly have it, because you've
- been successful doing that in a number of endeavors.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Yeah, mm-hm.
- EVELYN BAILEY: What happened with Susan Soleil and you and--
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Oh, I think that I had sort of fulfilled
- the part of--
- I mean, I had been working for a number of years
- on this sort of an issue.
- It wasn't-- You know, I didn't sort of just like pop off.
- I'd been supporting lesbian and gay artists
- and doing many film festivals and organized this Pink
- Flamingos thing and carried it through.
- But then I sort of had done my component of that.
- And David and Susan were very interested in formulating it
- as a nonprofit at that point.
- And that was not sort of what was most interesting to me.
- And it was also kind of like, if you
- want to encourage a community and teach a community how
- to do a film festival, which was like here it is, here's
- the tools to do it, here's the distributors,
- here's how you get in touch with filmmakers,
- here's how you present it in a theater,
- here's the equipment that you need,
- you lay that all out as I did, then it sort of was
- important to me also, although difficult for me,
- was just to step back.
- And it's like, I'll let the community sort of do it.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: And I think it's been a hallmark of the film
- festival that it isn't identified with leadership so
- much as it's identified with community.
- EVELYN BAILEY: I would agree.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: The community is the leader.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: And so therefore,
- as the founder of this film festival,
- I thought the best thing in many ways to do
- is to step back and let the community do it.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Do it.
- Who originally chose the films?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: I did originally.
- And then we worked with a committee.
- Earlier on, it's been sort of a committee of folks.
- And then eventually, it became more specialized,
- because the film festival grew and became more sophisticated.
- But originally, I had been the person
- that had had that experience.
- But quickly-- again, it's not about--
- it wasn't about a curator.
- It was about community engaged in it.
- So it was important for other people to do that too.
- It wasn't about me being a power broker,
- selecting films, as much as it is a community with programmers
- and a committee of people sharing in that endeavor
- and defining it themselves as much as possible.
- And now Michael Gamilla has been the chair of that
- and done such a wonderful job with that for several years
- now.
- But so many others, like Rachel Brister
- did a wonderful job too.
- And what's sort of interesting to note
- is that the explosion of LGBT media
- and film over the past 20 years is incredible.
- The quality has risen dramatically.
- The funding availability for films to be done,
- the subject matter has broadened in many ways.
- And earlier on, because it came from an avant-garde
- garde and experimental background, a lot of it
- was not as mainstream oriented as it has now, which
- there's pluses and minuses too.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Well, and there's a huge international thrust.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Yes.
- EVELYN BAILEY: It does appear that the energy has
- broadened to the world.
- And there's this desire or a need for everyone
- to see on the screen who we are.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Yeah.
- And I think, you know, what related to that,
- I think what's most important right now is for those of us
- here in the United States to see the stories that are being told
- in some other countries now, where the issues are far more
- critical and life-threatening and dramatic and dire
- than we face in the United States,
- so that we don't become complacent with our own success
- and presume the world is changing,
- when only our neighborhood is.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: And so that international focus
- is really important to maintain.
- And the film festival continues to do that.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.
- Now, when we first talked on the phone or by email,
- you said you really wanted the real story
- to be told about ImageOut.
- Have you told it?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: I think that the major point for the gay
- community to understand always for the foreseeable future is
- that our capabilities to have free speech are really tenuous
- and to not take for granted that the opportunities we have,
- like the ImageOut Film Festival, and not to presume that those
- rights of free speech cannot be taken away in a second.
- And while it may not be defunding of a film,
- it may be legislation in the South demanding that
- schoolteacher's cannot even say the word gay.
- These issues of free speech, free assembly
- continue to haunt us to this day.
- And the film festival is a beacon, perhaps,
- that can shine light on how tenuous that can be.
- A change in administration, a change in Congress,
- a change in the Supreme Court can dramatically
- impact our current entertainments and enjoyments
- and quality to organize.
- So the film festival for me going into what is,
- again, a way to provide a self-sufficient
- means for the cultural community to tell
- these stories to each other, to the world,
- and to see their stories expressed on the screen.
- And that can't be forgotten.
- It can't just become an entertainment.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Talk to me a little bit
- about the forms of censorship.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Well, in the era when the film festival was
- created, that censorship involved pretty clearly issues
- of defunding lesbian and gay artists or organizations,
- like Pyramid Art Center, which didn't get defunded,
- but similar organizations being defunded
- for presenting these issues.
- So one of the forms of censorship
- is not only defunding, but not funding anyway.
- Let me give you an example of how it is that defunding
- is more dramatic.
- But I spent a year--
- and this was maybe seven years ago or more pretty recently--
- doing development work for the film festival.
- And I approached Monroe County to fund the film festival.
- And at that time, the county had a category of mid-size arts
- organizations with budgets over $100,000 that
- could receive county funds.
- And there was a pool of these organizations,
- similar size to ImageOut, receiving this funds already.
- And for a year, I spent contacting Maggie Brooks'
- administration and was put off.
- For a year, I pursued them, till finally I
- had a meeting with a couple of her assistants,
- where they said they just don't have the money
- to do that though.
- So we weren't defunded by the county,
- but we were not funded, even though we
- fit the parameters of other similar-sized arts
- organizations.
- So when you are a nonprofit organization,
- funding or not funding is a primary means of censorship,
- although legislatively, it can happen as well.
- At the time of the NEA crisis, there
- was a decency clause created about what
- could be funded by the NEA.
- So there was legislation that I think eventually the Supreme
- Court shot down, because decency is such a broad term.
- So legislatively, it can happen.
- EVELYN BAILEY: What about the rating system?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Rating sys-- well, ratings
- are sort of an explicit way.
- But the problem we are up against in our community
- is that there are people who not only consider our movies to be
- controversial or indecent, they consider our very lives
- to be controversial and indecent.
- So if you are up against individuals
- who do not believe the integrity of your own being,
- they are not going to be supportive of art
- that expresses that either.
- So the rating system--
- our lives are always controversial on some level
- and despite the fact for many of us our lives--
- our watching our children, picking them up from day care,
- taking them to soccer practice, going to work--
- our lives are, for the most part, a moment to moment basis
- are not controversial at all but our being is.
- And so we are always up against that.
- And we are always up against the argument
- that our relationships are indecent
- and our lives are indecent.
- Now, with marriage equality, which many in the gay community
- are supportive of and others are not,
- one of the clear benefits of that is that it has given
- our relationships credibility at a governmental level,
- that our relationships are as decent as anybody else's.
- And that is a major impact.
- Regardless of whether you want to get married,
- you like marriage, it is monumental, see change for us.
- So when we have enemies who consider us indecent,
- censorship as at every corner.
- I'm particularly concerned about it
- as it relates to young people, whether they can express
- themselves as an openly gay, LGBT individual
- in their school, or whether children can hear the word gay
- and not presume, again, that it's
- indecent or terrible or dirty, and that teachers have freedom
- to say that word, to speak.
- And we're not there yet.
- EVELYN BAILEY: No.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: We're not there yet.
- EVELYN BAILEY: No, we aren't.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: And it's not a proselytizing.
- It's not, because it--
- but it's to prevent young people from hurting themselves
- and to give those young LGBT kids an opportunity
- to grow to adulthood without any unusual fears about their world
- that they live in.
- It's a safety issue.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Very much so.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: So censorship, bullying,
- intimidation is a means to quiet someone in ways
- that are almost so difficult. How do you tell a young lesbian
- to not be so dykey or a young kid
- to get punched or shoved because he's too faggy.
- Where does that child go, except inside to a world of fear.
- So currently, bullying is understood
- to be bad because it's violent.
- But bullying is an intimidation of young people
- at a critical point in their age-- and adults, and adults.
- So it happens on a lot of different levels.
- But there's a connection there.
- It's quieting.
- It's putting people back into the shadows where you belong,
- where I don't have to deal with you and your flaunting
- of your life or whatever.
- So the film festival is an explosion of celebration
- in the opposite direction.
- Publicly in our community at broad, we say, we're big,
- we are diverse, there are many, many faces in our community,
- and here's a whole bunch of them.
- Some, you will agree with.
- Some, you're going to hate.
- Some, you're going to love.
- Some, you're going to embrace.
- Some, you're going to model your life after.
- But here they all are.
- Let's all look at it as a community at large
- and as a LGBT community and move forward.
- So the value of it, it brings it all wide open and out there.
- And it's so beautiful, it's so gratifying to me
- to see so many people work so hard in this festival
- every year, looking back twenty years ago
- and just see so many people embrace this now and embrace
- that notion of let's celebrate this and hug each other,
- when they see each other at the film festival and say,
- I haven't seen you since last year, and here we are again.
- I love that.
- It's a wonderful celebration.
- It sort of is a celebration that is an antidote
- to that sort of hatred.
- So I guess that's sort of what I wanted to say.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Well, I have a couple more questions.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Sure.
- EVELYN BAILEY: One is, when you first began this work,
- did you have any idea of the impact that it might have?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: I think so, yeah.
- I think I sort of did.
- I think I sort of read the tea leaves in the community.
- And I thought, this is something that we are sort of really
- ripe for and we have the skills here
- to do that and the financial wherewithal to pull this off,
- largely based, again, on the fact
- that our community had organized so strongly
- around HIV and AIDS.
- I said, yeah, we can have an impact here.
- We can take that further still.
- There's more we can do with this.
- And I think I did.
- And particularly after Pink Flamingos and Purple Hearts
- conference, I had a sense then that this could really happen,
- that there could be something really good here that
- could happen.
- And I knew at that point I sort of
- had enough knowledge on how to organize a film festival, which
- was sort of a new skill for our community.
- And so I thought that if enough people could be taught
- how to do that, it could have--
- If it had been sort of a leadership-driven organization,
- as opposed or community-driven organization,
- I don't know that it would have survived,
- because those sorts of organizations
- are so dependent upon a person.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Individuals.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: And then you hire a whole staff of people.
- You've got to pay everybody.
- And you've got to maintain your infrastructure.
- Then you're spending money on maintaining payroll and health
- insurance.
- And the film festival has bypassed a lot of that
- by being a community-based organization.
- And so I think it's the community that does that.
- It's a lot of work, but it's a low maintenance,
- non-profit model.
- EVELYN BAILEY: It is.
- That's very true.
- One part-time paid staff is--
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Yeah, for many years, for many years
- and generally a positive fund balance for many of those years
- and money in a endowment actually.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Right.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Which is pretty amazing.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Well, it has grown exponentially
- in terms of people involvement.
- An it has grown consistently in terms of funding and money
- coming in.
- And the community more and more has taken it on as its own
- and really supported it much more than it has in the past.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Well, you know, a few years back,
- it was in the Arts and Cultural Council's Cultural Organization
- Award.
- I think it was at its 15th anniversary.
- Maybe it was five years ago.
- And that was really important for our organization,
- because it was a recognition that this was not
- just an organization important to the LGBT community,
- that it has been important to the cultural landscape
- of our community, and that it has
- had an impact beyond even just the LGBT community
- and to other realms.
- Its impacted, I think, programming at The Dryden.
- It has been a model for High Falls Film Festival.
- Other smaller film festivals have spun off
- or have looked to ImageOut for support and knowledge
- and skills.
- And so it's moved to have a broader impact as well, which
- has been great for our community,
- to show we have a political infrastructure that
- has made monumental contributions to our community.
- And we have a cultural infrastructure
- that has made contributions.
- We have a health and social structure
- that has made monumental contributions.
- We have The Empty Closet.
- We have media that has made an ongoing, dramatic, huge impact
- on our region and on New York state, I think.
- And we still have an Alliance that
- continues to function and serve new people
- and to adapt to the time.
- So really, there's a maturing-- really,
- a maturing of us as people who have
- been involved for a number of years and of our community.
- The trick is going to be, as it has always been,
- where will young folks take us?
- And how do we maintain our integrity
- as a community at a time when we're
- being rapidly integrated into our workplaces and into--
- How do we--
- EVELYN BAILEY: Mainstreaming has, for a long time,
- been the goal, to not be separate,
- to not be thought of as different or distinct.
- Yet, when we do that, we lose some
- of that individuality that is required
- to maintain our own existence.
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: You know, and as an artist
- and as someone who has developed cultural programs,
- it's one of the reasons why I always
- have loved those artists that are outside the mainstream
- and even outside the mainstream of the LGBT community, who
- are going to dare to be transgressive a little bit
- and challenge all of us on who we are and what we do.
- And we still have to continue to nurture all of those folks
- to be able to express themselves.
- We've always been a--
- we have a long history of being creatively, outlandish,
- experimental, and avant-garde.
- Many of the geniuses of the last several centuries
- have been of our community.
- And we need to continue to support
- the most outlandish of us, as well as the most mainstream.
- And that's a little bit of--
- I share a little bit of that fear
- there, that that's a vitality that keeps informing us
- all the time.
- EVELYN BAILEY: So what would you identify
- as the biggest challenge ImageOut has for the future?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: Some years ago, we
- showed a film called Orlando, which
- dealt like with gender issues than specifically lesbian
- and gay issues.
- And it starred Tilda Swinton, as I recall.
- And there was some confusion there.
- It was like, how can this-- that's not a lesbian.
- It's about somebody that's androgynous.
- And I think that the challenge is
- going to be maneuvering through the sexual politics
- of the twenty-first century, which
- were some of the issues of gender
- are emerging as larger and broader issues
- than even LGBTQ, or however many letters we add onto that, which
- is of broadening out of our issues.
- So I think it's going to be finding
- how it's going to maneuver through that, because I think
- that issues of gender are going to emerge as larger.
- As we get more of our specific rights related in the workplace
- or to associate or to marry, I think issues of gender
- will emerge larger and how our gender identity inhibits
- or enhances our lives.
- So I think it's going to be that--
- how it formulates its identity in the world.
- And I could see it even broadening to being
- inclusive of heterosexually identified films
- that deal with some of those same issues
- also, so that we don't become isolated away
- into what gay men think the experience is
- or what lesbians think the experience is but to the larger
- issues of how gender issues determine where
- we go in our world, as a female executive
- or what she can do versus what a male executive can
- do versus that gender ceiling versus what
- an effeminate man can achieve in the workplace
- versus a masculine man in the workplace.
- So I think that that's sort of where I wonder.
- It's an area of wonderment for me about it and a challenge.
- EVELYN BAILEY: When all is said and done,
- what are you most proud of?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: It's to me, it's sitting--
- I feel a great deal of pride when I go to a film
- and I sit in the audience and I feel so much warmth expressed
- for the film festival, towards each other,
- to me, to our community.
- It's that moment, just sitting in the audience
- with many people I've known for years
- and enjoying being together, enjoying assembly, enjoying
- our rights of free assembly in the film festival
- watching our stories be told.
- It's that moment.
- It's just like, it's always sort of thrilling to me to do that,
- just sitting as an audience member in a corner there.
- That's really gratifying.
- EVELYN BAILEY: One final question--
- what would you say to youth today
- to encourage them to be who they are?
- LARRY CHAMPOUX: I would say--
- and it's probably the same thing I would say to any kid--
- is, don't be afraid, don't be afraid to stand
- outside whatever norm or group you may
- be pressured to be a part of.
- Don't be intimidated and know that inside of yourself,
- you have the capabilities to make a difference
- in your own life and the lives of the people you love
- and in your community.
- And don't be afraid no matter what the group is.
- Whether it's on the athletic field,
- whether it's in church, whether it's in the gay community,
- stand free to be who you want to be.
- And don't be afraid.
- That's it.
- Fear inhibits us more than it really needs to.
- Don't be afraid.
- EVELYN BAILEY: Thank you.
- And I'm going to turn this off but--