Roland Emmerich,
the gay director of Hollywood blockbusters The Day After
Tomorrow, The Patriot, and Independence
Day, has pledged $150,000 to help support gay and
lesbian film preservation through Outfest, the Los
Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.
The largest gift
in Outfest's 24-year history, this is the lead donation
toward the Legacy Project, a three-year, $1.5 million
campaign supporting the festival's new LGBT film
preservation collaboration with the UCLA Film and
Television Archive.
"These
images have saved countless lives and shaped the LGBT
communities we know today," said Emmerich in an
official statement. "As a filmmaker, I know how
important it is to protect my work. The independent gay and
lesbian films of the last 30 years have had no one to save,
restore, and protect them until now."
Outfest and the
UCLA Film and Television Archive have already collected
over 3,300 LGBT films, including archive-quality
35-millimeter prints of modern gay classics like
Desert Hearts (1985), Edge of
Seventeen (1998), Wild Reeds (1994), and many
others. (Advocate.com)