Stamped Film Festival in Pensacola celebrating 10-year anniversary – Pensacola News Journal
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correctly identify Stamped Film Festival President David Newton and board member Laynie Gibson.
Fiona Dawson grew up in a small village called Swineshead, about 100 miles north of London, and had never met a gay person while growing up.
When she moved to Texas in 2000 and was involved with HIV/AIDS advocacy and LGBTQ+ groups, she began transitioning from identifying as straight to bisexual as she became comfortable with her sexual identity.
Now she is coming to Pensacola for the Stamped Film Festival to discuss her new book, “Are Bisexuals Just Greedy?,” which addresses key concepts about gender and sexuality and is an introduction to all questions about the LGBTQ+ topics for those wanting to learn more.
“Each year the festival grows and I very much appreciate having a book event this year as well because it just adds to the different layers of visibility that we can give to LGBTQIA+ people,” Dawson said. “I think it’s especially important to go to places like Pensacola and the Gulf Coast and all across Texas where I live, because it’s not unless you see people like you that you can kind of come to know yourself as well.”
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Stamped Film Festival is celebrating its 10-year anniversary Nov. 10-13 at the Pensacola Little Theater. Stamped is a vibrant cultural experience using films centered on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community to foster awareness, inclusion and diversity.
In addition to films and the book discussion, entertainer Todrick Hall will be the keynote speaker on Friday.
Stamped Film Festival President David Newton, who has been a part of Stamped from the beginning, views it as a “gay miracle” to be able to pull off the event in the city in which he was born.
Newton envisions himself as a 12-year-old boy growing up in Pensacola who would have loved to have the same opportunity — how valuable it would have been while growing up to be exposed to a community who has a similar, if not shared, story and experience.
The festival would not happen without the help and support of the community, from the Pensacola Little Theater to Sunday’s Child and the many other sponsors that help make the festival the way it is, Newton said.
“What’s happening for people as they come is that there’s a growth opportunity in some way and there’s also a rest, relaxation or a big sigh of relief,” Newton said. “Wherever they are in their part of the journey where a movie, a film or the presence of someone or somebody else at the festival just makes them understand that they’re loved, cared for, supported and that they’re not alone in their journey.”
Board member Laynie Gibson appreciates the work that Stamped and its committee does in reviewing, screening, rating and making decisions on what films are shown and in what order.
The films communicate the human experience where everyone sits in a room together and feels something together, Gibson said.
“How we operate as a festival is that of these submissions that we get from both nationally and internationally, choosing films that represent a wide array of lived experiences of emotional experiences and things that highlight the challenges of holding LGBTQIA identity, but then also things that celebrate the triumphs and the joy of taking up space in that identity,” Gibson said.
Stamped will be a place where people will leave understanding another aspect of humanity that they didn’t know before, organizers say.
“My personal and professional mission is to do my best to decolonize the world view of gender and sexuality,” Dawson said. “And when you look back in history, we never used to live in these binary worlds. Colonization primarily brought it over to put people in buckets for men and buckets for women and everyone’s straight. I think that people refusing to stay in these binary buckets is a political act.”
For the Stamped Film Festival’s full schedule, visit stampedfilmfest.com. For more information on Fiona Dawson, go to nowwithfiona.com