Three Dollar Bill Cinema Programs
The Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
Our chief program is The Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. The festival has been a part of the Greater Seattle LGBT community and beyond since 1996 and has become the largest festival of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. The festival has garnered national recognition for showcasing extraordinary and award-winning work. The festival is also an important venue in the local Seattle film scene, and inspires members of our community to express their creativity through film and video.
Translations: The Seattle Transgender Film Festival
This groundbreaking film festival provides the Pacific Northwest a venue for films by, for, and about transgender people, encouraging visibility and positive representations of transgender issues. Launched in 2006, Translations is one of only a few transgender film festivals in the world.
Three Dollar Bill OUTDOOR Cinema
Since 2007 we have produced Three Dollar Bill Outdoor Cinema, a free series of films in Capitol Hill's Cal Anderson Park. Three Dollar Bill Cinema is dedicated to producing a fun and distinctive film series that appeals to a diverse audience. We take pride in programming films not often seen at other outdoor movie venues. This community event draws audiences from all corners of Capitol Hill, and beyond. By screening films rated PG-13 (or less) we attract audiences of all ages and create a fun, family-friendly environment.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
In July of 2011, we produced the first full year of our Reel Queer Youth Program. (In the Fall of 2010, we produced an abbreviated version of the class for 5 youth.) Reel Queer Youth is a week-long video production and media literacy training for LGBTQ youth and their allies ages 13-20. The program was very successful with 14 youth participating including two youth from San Francisco and two from Bellingham. Within a span of five days, youth with limited or no prior filmmaking experience, conceive, draft, direct and produce a short film. The films they produce are later screened as part of a youth program at The Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. Since then these films have traveled to various film festivals including: the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, National Film Festival for Talented Youth, and the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. We received great feedback from the participants and instructors. One participant stated, "It's totally helped me - I would definitely not be where I am today without the opportunities that have come because of being a queer film filmmaker."
Three Dollar Bill Cinema's programming has grown significantly over the past five years, especially with the addition of a film festival dedicated to the Transgender community. However, our staff has not grown and we are now at a critical point of needing to add additional marketing and fundraising staff to meet the needs of our growing programs and the growing population they serve. We do not have enough funds to add additional staff because so many of our other costs (venues, film rental, health insurance, etc) increase every year.