Screening is believing

MINOR THREAT Latham Zearfoss’s To Make, To Catch Up played at Threat Level.

What if John McCain submitted a home video to a queer film event? According to the organizers at Threat Level, a bimonthly evening of diverse queer shorts, the presumptive Republican nominee could do just that—so long as he identified either himself or his video as queer.

The definition of queer, organizers say, is left to the artist. On April 17, Threat Level—launched last December by local queer artists-activists Sam Feder, Madsen Minax, Jules Rosskam and Simon Strikeback—returns for a third installment of yet-to-be-announced queer shorts at Wicker Park’s Elegant Mister Gallery. Proceeds benefit two queer, full-length documentaries, one by Feder and Rosskam, the other by Minax and Strikeback. Despite the fund-raising for the two works-in-progress, the event’s central aim—like that of fellow queer-film event Dyke Delicious, which screens The Children’s Hour on Saturday 12—is to create community beyond the bar scene.

Threat Level began when Feder—a media activist, producer and educator—was working at Reeling: The Chicago Lesbian & Gay International Film Festival and felt the need for something more representative of the queer community—and more community-based. Although Reeling has been going strong for 26 years and shows a wide breadth of films, it’s hard to deny that a white-collar gay male demographic fills the most seats. That socioeconomic reality in part prompted Threat Level. “We’re all really invested in queer work and building community spaces,” Rosskam says. “And most of us have been complaining since being in Chicago that there really isn’t a good, consistent queer-video screening space. So Threat Level seems like a natural progression.”

Shorts for each event are selected from submissions that are less than 30 minutes. Filmmakers can hail from anywhere: Threat Level offers audiences a taste of the local, national and international. And the work ranges from documentaries and features to animation, music videos and video art.

At the February event, which brought in a mixed crowd of more than 50 people, Threat Level showcased Chicago-based artist Amber Hawk Swanson’s video To Have, To Hold, and To Violate: Wedding Reception, Roller Rink, Tailgate, featuring the artist’s real-life doll replica (appropriately named “Amber”). It also screened Jean Genet in Chicago, by Montreal-based Frédéric Moffet, a visiting prof at SAIC; the film explores the French writer’s visit to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

“We’re trying to create this fluid dialogue between makers and artists and people in the community, to be able to just meet each other and hang out and network,” Rosskam says. “So it’s great when we do have local folks and they’re able to come.”

Meanwhile, in Andersonville, cofounder and programmer Sharon Zurek runs Dyke Delicious, a monthly screening at Chicago Filmmakers that brings in large crowds often numbering more than 100 people. For the Saturday 12 screening, Zurek decided to re-examine The Children’s Hour (1961), a historically significant lesbian film about childhood friends Martha and Karen. When the pair opens an all-girls boarding school, word gets around about their alleged lesbian affair, sending the school into hysterics. Zurek also adds a community element to help introduce newcomers to the scene; this month’s program will include speakers from the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. The event generally attracts women in their late 30s to 60s, but all are welcome.

Although the two events cater to different crowds, they both offer a much-needed socializing alternative to the bar scene for people, especially women. “It doesn’t matter if there’s three feet of snow or it’s 12 below zero,” Zurek says. “Women will come out to socialize and meet people in a place other than in a bar.” As Feder puts it: “We’re trying to create a space where we’re all hanging out, relaxed and not hungover the next day.”

Dyke Delicious screens Saturday 12.