NYC LGBT+ Film Festival Talks Big Releases, Corporate Sponsors, and SAG Strike: “Studios and Distributors Are Taking NewFest Very Seriously”

New York City’s largest presenter of LGBT+ film and media, NewFest, is celebrating its milestone 35th-anniversary festival from October 12-22, and the line-up is better and bigger than ever. With anticipated movies like All of Us Strangers, May December, and Rustin screening during the event, executive director David Hatkoff says it’s evident that studios and distributors are taking the organization “very seriously.”

But it hasn’t been all fun and games. The festival was founded in 1988 in response to the AIDS crisis and has navigated tough conversations and discriminatory political environments since its conception.

Just this summer, the organization’s Pride festival had lost the public support of a corporate sponsor, with Hatkoff telling Decider at the time that the sponsor fully honored their financial commitment, but declined to “utilize any of the public brand visibility benefits that came with their sponsorship.”

Looking back at the incident now, Hatkoff provided us with a statement via email, “NewFest is so grateful for the generous support of more than 35 sponsors for this year’s festival and our year-round programming. NewFest’s exponential growth over the last few years would not have been possible without the support of our sponsors.”

He continued, “Companies that proudly stand alongside us send a loud message of support not just for NewFest, but also for the LGBTQ+ community and their queer employees.”

But now, with NewFest’s buzzy line-up, who wouldn’t want to be publicly associated? How about people who are currently part of the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike?

When asked if programming has been affected by the strike, Hatkoff said, “The studios, the streamers, and the distributors all have their own release strategies. There are a million things they’re considering when deciding what festivals to play and when to open their films in theaters, or when to go straight to on-demand.”

He added, “We are one part of that. We try to try to work with them as best as we can to make sure they understand the benefit of the platform that we’re providing.”

Ahead of the flagship festival, we spoke with Hatkoff about the movies he’s most excited for audiences to see this year, NewFest’s evolution into what it is now, and much more.

DECIDER: NewFest is showing over 130 films this year and the lineup includes many anticipated movies, like All of Us Strangers and May December. Which movies are you most excited for audiences to see?

DAVID HATKOFF: That’s such a hard question to answer because I’m excited about all of them, really. This year, some of the high-profile films will be up for awards consideration, and I think that’s a real testament to the growth NewFest has experienced in the past several years. Studios and distributors are really taking NewFest, the platform we provide, and our audiences very seriously. We open the festival with Rustin, which is an incredible film from Netflix, in which Colman Domingo gives a monumental performance as Bayard Rustin, a gay civil rights activist who’s not well-known by a lot of folks in the queer community. 

We are also closing with All of Us Strangers, which is a film that is going to destroy audiences in the very best ways. Andrew Haigh is an outstanding filmmaker. He actually had his very first short film – a three minute short film – premiere at NewFest in 2003. So, this is a full circle moment. May December is another film that we’re so excited to show. The film itself is incredible, but we are also giving Todd Haynes a Queer Visionary Award and having a conversation with Todd prior to the film about what queer film means.

Our understanding used to be that queer films were either coming-out stories or AIDS stories, and over the years there’s been a real evolution in thinking about genre, tone, and perspective. Todd has really encapsulated that by bringing a singularly queer aesthetic to his work. So, to be able to show this film, in a queer space for queer audience… I think it’s going to land very differently than it has at other festivals that it’s played in.

NewFest is hosting the New York Premiere of an upcoming Lily Gladstone movie, which is exciting because she’s having such a big moment with Killers of the Flower Moon. Talk to me a bit about this movie and what attracted your team to it?

Nick [McCarthy], our director of programming, and I saw this film, Fancy Dance, at its world premiere at Sundance. It’s so good. Lily Gladstone is such an incredibly soulful performer, which the world is going to really catch wind of in the coming months with Killers of the Flower Moon. [Fancy Dance] is a quiet film about the indigenous experience, and it’s moving. It’s about family, it’s about justice, and it’s about identity. For folks who are aware of Lily or who are going to become aware of Lily, to see these two performances in a short span of time is going to be a real gift. She is an actor who is going to be killing it for decades to come.

With NewFest celebrating its 35th anniversary, how would you describe the festival’s evolution into what it is now and what are your greatest achievements?

I’ve been doing a deep dive into what I can find about the founding of the organization, which has been moving. The organization was founded in 1988 at the height of AIDS crisis when the community was literally in crisis. The members of our community were dying and we were being defined by a disease, and the political rhetoric was terrifying and our rights were in jeopardy. In some ways, over the past 35 years, there has been some unimaginable growth, but there are also new challenges and the political rhetoric is still terrifying. There are certain members of our community who are still in a fight for their lives and whose rights are in jeopardy, and so the battlefronts have shifted, but the importance of using our voices to fight back and to say, “We matter, we have value, we are worthy of dignity and respect” has remained consistent.

I’m so proud to be a part of a team that takes that responsibility seriously and has stayed laser-focused on our mission to provide a platform for queer stories and storytellers, and providing a space for the community to gather together in celebration of those stories. We’ve been able to expand in ways that, I think, the founders of the organization probably could not have even imagined. On a personal level, I get to work with such incredibly talented, passionate, queer folks, whether that’s our filmmakers, our staff, our board, our audiences, or our sponsors.

Has the festival been impacted at all by the ongoing SAG strike? When it comes to talent availability and access to upcoming movies, how are you navigating the ongoing situation?

It’s definitely been tricky. We have a lot of directors who are going to be at the festival participating in Q&As. We’re really excited about that, and now that the writer’s strike has been resolved, we have some writers who are going to be able to join us. It’s definitely disappointing that actors are not able to show up to promote their projects. Negotiations are happening literally as we’re speaking now. Because the festival is two weeks, we’re keeping our fingers crossed the strike might lift during the festival, and actors might be able to join us, but it’s definitely something that’s been a consideration as we’ve done the planning.

Fortunately, we have directors. So, we’re still going to be able to have robust conversations with the folks who made these films. We wish the actors could join us. There are a couple of projects that have gotten SAG waivers, like Nico Tortorella from Younger and The Walking Dead, is in a film that we’re showing, The Mattachine Family, so he’ll be able to join us.

The main reason I ask about programming is because Problemista screened at NewFest Pride, and then it got delayed, unfortunately, because of the strikes. Does that play a bigger role when you’re pulling together programming? Have you found any pushback from studios or streamers when you’re doing outreach?

The studios, the streamers, and the distributors all have their own release strategies. There are a million things they’re considering when deciding what festivals to play and when to open their films in theaters, or when to go straight to on-demand. We are one part of that. We try to work with them as best as we can to make sure they understand the benefit of the platform that we’re providing. The fact that we’ve had Problemista and Bottoms, and the world premiere of Fire Island, and this year will be May December, NYAD, All of Us Strangers, Rustin, and Eileen, I think the studios and the streamers have really, really come to understand when it makes sense within their strategy.

I would not pretend to understand the complexities that go into these decisions when there’s, in some cases, tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, and lots of variables outside of their control. We try to focus on the things that we can control and make clear. There’s a couple of films like… for example, Pedro Almodovar has a short film, Strange Way of Life, opening in theaters this week and we would have loved to have had that film at the festival, but they made their decision about their timeline and that’s what it is. We have to keep moving and focusing on the things we are able to provide and let those folks in that part of the industry manage their piece of the pie.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

NewFest takes place October 12-22 in-person, and virtually through October 24.