Outfest’s Damien Navarro & Faridah Gbadamosi On The 2022 Sundance Film Festival, Future Outfest Event Plans & More

Founded by UCLA students in 1982, Outfest is the world’s leading organization that promotes equality by creating, sharing and protecting LGBTQIA+ stories on the screen. Outfest builds community by connecting diverse populations to discover, discuss and celebrate stories of LGBTQIA+ lives. For 40 years, Outfest has showcased thousands of films from around the world, educated and mentored hundreds of emerging filmmakers, and protected more than 40,000 LGBTQIA+ films and videos. The Outfest Screenwriting Lab, established in 1997, has mentored nearly 150 screenwriters, propelling both films into produced feature films and establishing writers into writers’ rooms. The Outfest UCLA Legacy Project, a partnership with the UCLA FIlm & Television Archive, is the only film archive in the world exclusively dedicated to preserving LGBTQIA+ images and has restored over 25 films.

Outfest participated in the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, delivering the virtual return of the annual Outfest Queer Brunch and three filmmaker panels, as presented by Acura. The panels launched on Saturday, January 22, 2022 yet remain available to stream for free through Outfest’s virtual platform, the OutMuseum. Launched in December 2021, the OutMuseum is reportedly the first LGBTQ+ arts and media virtual museum of its kind, available free of charge to the public. Meanwhile, the OutfestNow app is easily accessible via nearly every set-top TV and mobile platform.

On January 27, 2022, I had the pleasure of speaking with Outfest’s Executive Director Damien Navarro and Artistic Director Faridah Gbadamosi via Zoom, as embedded below. More on Outfest, its upcoming event and its excellent team can be found online by clicking here, here and here.

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Tags: Damien Navarro, Faridah Gbadamosi, Film Festivals, Los Angeles, Outfest, Park City, Sundance, Utah

About the Author

Darren Paltrowitz Darren Paltrowitz is a New York resident with over 20 years of entertainment industry experience. He began working around the music business as a teenager, interning for the manager of his then-favorite band Superdrag. Since then, he has worked with a wide array of artists including OK Go, They Might Be Giants, Mike Viola, Tracy Bonham, Loudness, Rachael Yamagata, and Amanda Palmer. Darren's writing has appeared in dozens of outlets including the New York Daily News, Inquisitr, The Daily Meal, The Hype Magazine, All Music Guide, Guitar World, TheStreet.com, Businessweek, Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, and the Jewish Journal. Beyond being "Editor At Large" for The Hype Magazine, Darren is also the host of weekly "Paltrocast With Darren Paltrowitz" series, which airs on dozens on television and digital networks. He has also co-authored 2 published books, 2018's "Pocket Change: Your Happy Money" (Book Web Publishing) and 2019's "Good Advice From Professional Wrestling" (6623 Press), and co-hosts the world's only known podcast about David Lee Roth, "The DLR Cast."