Sacramento’s oldest film festival and an LGBTQ celebration, BENT to end after 30 years
BENT, Sacramento’s only LGBTQ film festival and the region’s longest-running film festival of any variety, will soon come to a permanent end after a 30-year run.
BENT Sacramento LGBTQ+ Film Festival in a recent social media post announced it would close down after a pair of free, online-only screenings next month.
“When the film festival was started, not a lot of LGBT content was out there,” said Scott Brozek, president of BENT for nearly the past decade. “So it was a gathering of people in different parts of the community to be together under one roof.
“It was a place where people could come and enjoy a film and be in a safe place around other people, that you weren’t judged for who you were.”
Brozek said the pandemic contributed partially to the decision to end the festival, but that interest and turnout had been waning even before COVID-19.
“It was going in that direction. Even with our virtual platforms, they were not as well received.”
He said the festival’s virtual presence saw a bit of an uptick the first year of the pandemic in 2020, then a downtick last year.
Local film festivals in general, Brozek said, are becoming tougher to put on, as moviegoers opt instead to simply stream movies online.
BENT got its start in 1992, founded by Allen Cole and initially known as the Sacramento International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. It was born after the Delta Lambda Phi fraternity chapter and other LGBTQ organizations at Sacramento State took inspiration from a similar student-run festival at Fresno State.
Brozek worked his way up from volunteering and handing out programs to becoming the event’s president. He described putting on a film festival as a surprisingly labor-intensive undertaking, likening it to a second job, and noted that BENT now has only four board members in charge of the event.
“You don’t appreciate the gravitas of a film festival, until it’s explained to you how much goes into it.”
BENT, a nonprofit, wrote in a letter posted Tuesday on Facebook that last year’s hybrid festival “was not as successful as we had hoped despite all of our team’s efforts at planning and advertising.”
BENT hosted the in-person portion of that hybrid festival last October at the Crest Theatre.
Brozek said turnout was disappointing, likely due at least in part to COVID-19. The festival’s letter on Facebook said COVID-19 has caused “problems for so many families, businesses, and nonprofits, including us.”
“It wasn’t the numbers we were looking for, but we understood some people weren’t ready to come out yet,” Brozek said. “We had all the social distancing and masks in place.”
BENT in this week’s letter said it decided at a recent board meeting to “start the process of closing down.”
“The unfortunate truth is that it’s time to say goodbye.”
The festival will wrap up virtually amid Pride month, streaming showings of the comedy “Cloudburst” and the romantic comedy “Big Eden.” Both will be available June 18 and 19 at bentlgbtqfilmfest.festivee.com.
Brozek said he’s happy he was able to become a part of BENT, and that he made many “close and dear friends.”
“I hope it is reinvented,” he said. “I hope that someone picks up the mantle, because it’s desperately needed.”
