Atlanta’s LGBTQ Festival returns for 32nd year

ATLANTA - Reverend Duncan Teague can only guess how he’ll feel on the afternoon of Sunday, October 6th:  “Probably proud, first.  And then all those other feelings.”

That day will mark the local premiere of Making Sweet Tea, a documentary centered on researcher and performer E. Patrick Johnson.  The film follows up Johnson’s 2008 book, Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men in the South – An Oral History¸ for which he first interviewed longtime Atlanta resident Teague. 

“He’s really good at what he does, as a performer, as a professor, as a respecter of our culture.  And so the stories are real,” says Teague of Johnson.  “And they’re all across the spectrum of gay life in the South.”

The documentary is just one of nearly 130 screening at this year’s Out On Film, Atlanta’s LGBTQ Film Festival.  This is the festival’s 32nd year, and the lineup is all over the movie map.  “10 years ago…the films we would get would be coming out stories, or AIDS documentaries.  Now we have comedies, dramas, just a wonderful diversity of films,” says festival director Jim Farmer.  "We really want to represent Atlanta.  We want this to be about all Atlanta…all races, men, women, the transgender community."

Making Sweet Tea will screen on the festival’s final day, and Reverend Teague is scheduled to attend, along with E. Patrick Johnson and others featured in the documentary.  For a full list of movies and venues associated with this year’s Out On Film, click over to the festival’s website here.