Matthew Breen: I Advocate...

  …Outfest Legacy Project
I’ve been involved with Outfest, L.A.’s gay and lesbian film festival, for many years, but only recently have I gotten involved with the Legacy Project. Legacy, a collaboration with the UCLA Film and Television Archive, raises money to preserve and repair classic queer films in dire straits. I cannot state how important it is for us to tell our own stories and record our own histories — yet many of the films in which we did so are crumbing into dust. Some of these queer celluloid classics, including Desert Hearts, Edge of Seventeen, Wild Reeds, and Saturday Night at the Baths, have been acquired by the archive and tucked away in climate control to preserve forever. Other films, including the oldest known gay film, Different From the Others (1919, Germany), are being painstakingly restored. Outfest.org/Legacy