QWFF 2016
The 6th Annual Queens World Film Festival was a wonderful experience for me in more ways than one. It began by reading a post on LinkedIn from VolunteerWatch placing an ad for Volunteers for the festival. I had recently Moved to Queens and set up my home studio so i decided to register for the event. I met with Executive Director Katha Cato in the QWFF office. Katha outlined the scope of our work in our respective roles. She welcomed the new volunteers and introduced us to the QWFF team. This was 2 weeks prior to the festival. One of our first tasks was to do some flyer distribution in the areas in the vacinity of the venues. I was assigned to the street team canvasing the area surrounding The Museum of The Moving Image in Astoria Queens. I was paired with a fellow Photographer Jing Jing. A very friendly and cheerful film school graduate with a keen eye for a great shot.
Before i go further let me state that the festival ran from March 15th - March 20th at four Venues. The Museum of The Moving Image (Astoria, Queens), PS69 Jackson Heights, The Secret Theatre (Long Island City) & the All Saints Episcopal Church (Sunnyside, Queens). I had the pleasure of working at three of the venues mentioned. My venue managers were Julio Castillo and Anita Raswant two of the best people to work with and very helpful. The Museum of the Moving Image is a a photographer's dream. Brightly lit with flourescent lights through the main assembly area. There was a display of a DVD of the Godfather Playing on a screen meanwhile the musical entertainment was an accordion player smartly dressed. As the filmmakers, guests, sponsors and VIP's started gathering outside for the opening of the festival i arrived wearing my #MrchubsPhotography trucker cap. Katha pulls me aside and asks " what happened to your hair why do u have on a hat and a durag?" I explained that i had washed my hair the same day. she asked to see how it looked. rustled it with her fingers smiled and said. now that's the Andrew i met the other day. u look much better lets go".
And in 15 mins the festival was underway. i was working the room from food and abstracts to candid shots of guests and festival staff. The event was moved to the large movie theatre for the opening ceremony and first screenings. the opening ceremony was informational, insightful and friendly. The positive energy in that room was overwhelming allowing me to capture some candid images of persons having a good time. We were treated to 1 block of films. the block featured 3 short films and i feature film or documentary.
The night of the opening we were treated to Golden, a movie depicting the struggles of a boy growing up seeing himself as being golden as a symbol for him being gay. He moves to the city and sees his match, another golden guy and they kiss. after the kiss he sees many of the other people he thought were black and white were actually golden too. this movie was directed by Kai Stanick, Germany. The second short was "Perfect house guest", an animated short about a mouse living in a house but has mini features built into the home down to the mini mailbox and doormat to matching bedroom slippers. a rather funny and enlightening film.Directed by Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata. The next film was probably the most talked about film of the festival, if just by name or content, i give to you "Fucking Him" by Moed @ Adrian Garcia Gomez. This film was in the form of artistic imagery with clips being overlay with the narration on screen gave it a graphic and unforgettable effect. The feature film of the evening was "Oblivion Season" Directed by Abass Rafei and shot in Iran. A former prostitute, Farida, finds herself sold to pay off a debt incurred by her mother and finds herself in an abusive relationship with her husband locking her inside the house one fateful day. Her husband comes home early from work early and she was not home, as soon as she arrives He beats her accusing her of cheating and locks the door then the grill then proceeds to chain the grill shut and podlocks it. Farida then gets a call that her husband got into an accident and is in the hospital. She is told he has spinal injuries and cannot walk again. Farida has to pay his bill off by first fixing the wrecked old truck her husband was driving when he got into the accident. she also has to work in a trade traditionally reserved for men. her perils get so great that she is eventually forced back to work in the streets. This is the first in a 3 part blog series on the just concluded 6th Annual Queens World Film Festival of which i was a Festival Photographer. Do check out the entire gallery of images in this collection.
