Outfest to Honor Film Director John Waters

Filmmaker John Waters will receive this year’s Achievement Award during opening ceremonies at Outfest.

The annual LGBT film festival which runs July 12-22 will honor the openly gay director of such films as Pink Flamingos, Hairspray and Serial Mom with the its highest honor for his body of work that has made a significant contribution to LGBT film and media.

Outfest, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, will also honor the late AIDS activist and Celluloid Closet author Vito Russo by screening a new documentary about his life. Vito will be the opening night movie that follows the presentation to Waters.

“Honoring two legendary figures Vito Russo and John Waters is the perfect way to launch Outfest’s 30th anniversary,” Outfest executive director Kirsten Schaffer said in a press release. “Over that past three decades, Outfest has had a global impact on LGBT lives by promoting understanding, launching world-class talent and preserving our filmed history for generations to come.”

The Achievement Award presentation to Waters and the Vito screening will take place on Thursday, July 12 at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles.

For the nine days after that, Outfest will present hundreds of LGBT-themed shorts and feature-length films at several locations throughout Los Angeles. The vast majority of those screenings will be at Directors Guild of America building at 7920 Sunset Blvd in West Hollywood. The Ford Amphitheater in Hollywood also hosts several nights of screenings.

Waters will also perform his one-man show “This Filthy World: Gayer and Filthier” on July 11th at 7 p.m. in the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever cemetery. That show focuses on Waters’ early negative artistic influences and his fascination with true crime, exploitation films, fashion lunacy and the extremes of the contemporary art world. Tickets for this screening are available at HollywoodForever.ticketfly.com.

Russo died of AIDS-related complications in 1990. He is best known as the author of The Celluloid Closet, a book published in 1981 (revised in 1987) examining gay and lesbian portrayals in Hollywood movies. A documentary film based on the book was released in 1996. Lily Tomlin, a longtime friend of Russo, served as that film’s narrator.

Outfest is the longest running film festival in the Los Angeles area. It began as at UCLA in 1982. It has grown to be one of the leading LGBT film festivals in the world. In addition to the annual film festival held every July, Outfest also sponsors LGBT film preservation through its Legacy Project.

For more information about Outfest, visit the Outfest website.