Summary
Graham Kolbeins and Jonathan Andre Culliton, founders of the 29 Queer Film Fest, discuss their backgrounds as filmmakers and the inspiration behind the festival. They talk about the films being showcased, including world premieres and queer horror shorts. The festival is designed to create a space for queer stories and foster the filmmaking community in the high desert area. They also discuss the acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community in the area and the support they have received from local businesses and organizations.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
04:10 Inception of the 29 Queer Film Fest
06:01 Film Highlights and Gala Events
08:35 Festival Schedule and Venues
11:31 Attending the Film Fest: Tips for Newcomers
13:46 Future Plans and Fostering the Filmmaking Community
15:01 Acceptance and Support in the High Desert
17:28 Closing Remarks and Event Details
Danny (00:01.779)
All right, Graham Cole Beans and Jonathan Andre Coliton. Coliton, thanks for being on the Highway 62 podcast. How are you guys today?
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (00:02.208)
Yeah.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (00:10.902)
Thank you for having us. great. Yeah, we're doing good.
Danny (00:16.915)
Awesome. And you guys are the founders, right, of the first ever inaugural 29 Queer Film Fest that's happening in September the 20th and 22nd. Before we get into a little bit about the actual Film Fest and kind of what it's all about, give me just a brief little background on each of you.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (00:24.214)
Thank
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (00:40.758)
Sure. So we're both filmmakers and I'll just start talking about myself. I'm mostly a documentary filmmaker though I've recently started doing some narrative filmmaking. I shot a short film here in 29 Palms in June called Outage that I'm currently in post -production on.
Danny (00:50.707)
Ha
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (01:07.688)
I'm pretty deeply involved in film and when we came out here... Can I roll that back a little bit? Okay, great, I just lost my train of thought. Sorry. Yeah, so I'm a filmmaker, a videographer.
Danny (01:20.669)
Sure. I can edit anything too, it's fine.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (01:33.654)
and I'm a queer person in 29 palms and those all informed co -founding this festival. I'm also... Sorry? Where are you originally from? I was born in Vancouver, Canada.
Danny (01:43.315)
Where are you originally from?
Danny (01:48.648)
Where are you originally from?
Danny (01:53.467)
Okay. Right on. I love Vancouver. I was just, I was just in, I've been to Canada a lot lately. I was in Toronto last weekend and the weekend before I was in Edmonton. So I spent a lot of time in the Kenyatta.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (01:57.504)
Yeah, that's a great place.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (02:06.143)
I'm cool.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (02:10.142)
Nice. What were you doing in Toronto?
Danny (02:13.043)
I play in a band, so we're playing some festivals up there. But yeah, we do a lot of Canadian shows. Graham, what about you?
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (02:16.319)
Awesome.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (02:21.11)
me? You mean Jonathan, yes. That's okay. No, I'm a born and bred Bostonian with all the details. But yeah, I'm also a filmmaker. Currently I'm rolling out a couple of films.
Danny (02:24.967)
Jonathan, I'm sorry, your buys are both Canadian.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (02:43.542)
Spookable which played at the Maryland Film Festival in frame 48 and is about to play at Prism 37. And then I have Will It Justice Drag Queen Private Eye which is showing, both of those films are showing actually at the 29 Queer Film Festival and that film stars Lady Shalane who is the premier high desert drag queen of our current timeline.
Danny (03:12.083)
Yeah, Yeah, she was one of my first guests on the podcast, like second or third episode ever. Right on. How did you guys how did you guys end up settling in the 29 Palms area?
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (03:13.462)
Amazing. She's really special.
Yeah, so I moved out here four years ago from Los Angeles. It was during the pandemic. I had lost work and I had always wanted to move to the high desert but never really thought that it was feasible. But in that moment an opportunity became available. A friend said, hey, I have a cabin that just opened up and I moved into that cabin in July 2020. And I've
just loved living here ever since. Yeah, and then I followed Graham because I fell in love with them so I just followed. I just came out here to be closer to them.
Danny (04:01.949)
Right on.
Danny (04:10.449)
Very nice, very nice. So tell me about kind of the inception and the idea and how it came to be that you put this film festival together.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (04:20.438)
Yeah, well we both were mentees in Workshop 29, which was a program out of PAC, the Arts Council here. And we both were encouraged to do programming. They wanted people to think about all ages programming and
programming for different identities basically. So we were encouraged to do some sort of event which isn't really natural to our filmmaking careers except for film festivals. know, that's sort of the place that Archive gathers. So we thought, you know, this is an opportunity not only to make an event here, which is the first of its kind here.
but also to create a film festival from the perspective of being filmmakers who have been at film festivals and had varying experiences. And as you know, we have such a beautiful place to offer, but no movie theater here. the idea of sharing film...
Danny (05:36.326)
Yeah, right.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (05:40.678)
and making a place for it, a literal physical place where you can sit in a comfortable chair and watch it in a dark room as it's intended is something we thought was really special that we could give the entire community.
Danny (06:01.023)
on. Sounds great. What tell us a little bit about some of the films maybe I know there's quite a bit on the agenda there I read through the press release but maybe give us what you think is going to be a few of just sort of the highlights of the you know the Cup multi -day event.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (06:16.182)
Yeah, so we're showing 30 films over three days, including three feature films. Yeah, the features are sort of can't miss. You've got a world premiere of Poppy's Pregnant, which is the story of our friend, trans -MAC non -binary person getting pregnant. Then you've got People's Joker, already an iconic film from Vera Drew.
And then we've got Off Ramp to Cabot Off, which is a film with a trans actor, but it's about juggalos, if you know anything about insane clown posse. So these are unusual queer stories. So the features are really can't miss to me. And then what else do we have? We have a queer horror program full of shorts from around the world. We have
Danny (06:59.955)
Yeah, yeah.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (07:11.104)
Bears, Lesbians, and Queers, My, which is an eclectic program with all kinds of different representation. And one of our other gala events is the premiere of Willa Justice Drag Queen Private Eye, along with a performance by Lady Shalane and Drag Bingo, which she does all around the high desert. And Free Eye Fall to Pizzas. Pizza.
Danny (07:37.247)
yeah. Give us a little bit of just kind of like the schedule, because I know there's different events. There's a couple different venues involved. I've attended a film festival. went to the Yucca Valley Film Festival this year. you know what, it's something that I'm really enjoying about living out in the area there is, I mean, first of all, when I moved out there,
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (08:04.115)
It was.
Danny (08:06.463)
I just didn't expect there to be so much arts going on. know, even though I knew like other drummers and other musicians that had moved out to the area, but it's been so great to just kind of get involved with, you know, the community. And I think because it's a little bit smaller area, it's easier to attend these different events and, you know, versus like going to like a big film festival in Austin or in L .A. or, you know, any of those kind of things. So I'm really enjoying that. And
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (08:22.602)
you
Danny (08:34.451)
If you've never been to a film festival, I mean, I've been a movie film fanatic ever since my cinema study class in high school in 1984 back in Chicago. And I never went to a film fest until I went to the Yucca Valley one this, this year, you know, so it's a really cool experience. And if you haven't been to one before, I would just really recommend people to, to check something like that out. But anyway, give us kind of a rundown. Where is it happening?
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (08:35.871)
you
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (08:43.722)
Thank you.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (09:02.186)
Anyway.
Danny (09:04.347)
a little rundown of like the schedule and how it all works.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (09:07.51)
Sure, yeah, to your point we're making it so it's like everything's within like 10 minutes of each other and that makes a really great film festival experience and in my experience so yeah we have theater 29 as the main hub of the festival 99 % of the programming happens there we have an after dark 18 plus show
on the night of Saturday the 20th, 21st, that is at corner 62 and then out on the patio. And then we have a after party on the 20th at Out There Bar which is totally free and cross event with Tits and Palms. So it's mostly at Theater 29.
and that's a great venue for theater out here. We have a projection situation there that's really comfortable and beautiful. So it's mostly there and the food vendors will be there as well. So the fun will be brought to there and people can kind of hang around there for hours. Yeah, and unlike bigger festivals that have like maybe three or four different screenings happening simultaneously,
Everything's happening like in a linear fashion so you could go to every program if you wanted to and we're trying to make the Theater 29 experience really cool so there's going to be a prop exhibit with props from a bunch of the different movies and themed snacks and all kinds of fun stuff. Yeah, every day has a gala event, a feature, and a shorts block so there's something really big happening every day.
Danny (10:32.935)
Gotcha.
Danny (10:55.717)
Wonderful. All right. And this might seem like almost like a silly question. But again, this is my experience, you know, like when I go to a website to check out a film fest and I think this is something for somebody who's never been to one before, it can be a little confusing, like, OK, what do I pay for? What day should you know, like how is it organized? What day do I go to? You know, obviously this is, as you're explaining, a little bit more condensed.
running linear like you said makes it a lot easier. Give like the simplest explanation to an absolute total film fest newbie and maybe even a recommendation of how they should go about doing it.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (11:31.414)
We'll right back.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (11:38.07)
Well, you do want to go to all of the programming, you want to buy the pass and you want to wait for the pass because we have a little small town glitch that made the passes not go up immediately. So I'd say wait for the pass. The passes are limited because we have a limited capacity venue. So we have to limit the amount that we can block out for that.
Danny (11:51.377)
Hahaha
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (12:03.26)
So if you don't want to go to quite all of them, would say go on the website and choose those four programs. It's going to be less than the past, but you'll only be paying for what you're actually seeing. Yeah, check out 29qff .com for the full event listing and links to buy tickets to each of the programs.
Danny (12:31.677)
sounds good. Ali will make sure that I put in the show notes here on the podcast, all those kind of links and everything for people to check it out. It sounds like it's going to be a fun event. What do you guys got planned in the future? Are you thinking that far down the road yet with this stuff?
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (12:38.336)
Thank you.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (12:48.212)
Yeah, we all, yeah, they really encouraged us to do that at the mentorship to really think about this as a start of more programming. we envisioned that not only will the film festival be a banner for more filmmaking programming, for film, more film going programming, but also filmmaking, because that's what we sort of started doing out here anyway.
You know, we walked out to all these beautiful, like, mountains and stuff, and we were like, why aren't we shooting? Why are we finding excuses for stories to happen here more and more? So as we work through the festival and as we, you know, get more youth programming going in the high desert, I think it's an invaluable thing for us to bring filmmaking into that, to give people a great skill if they want to leave the area to go.
to Los Angeles to make with what is left of the industry there. They have that opportunity too, but there's plenty starting to happen out here and in different communities all over the country with independent filmmaking. So that's my personal vision for it. don't know if you... Yeah, we really want to encourage and foster the filmmaking community here in the high desert.
Danny (14:02.983)
Yeah. Yeah.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (14:15.67)
Hopefully we'll be doing this festival every year. We were really grateful to receive a grant from the T -Bid, the Tourism Bureau here in 29 Palms. Hopefully they'll continue to support our efforts. We've received a number of amazing sponsorships from local businesses, including Son of the Desert.
Danny (14:28.401)
Mmm
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (14:43.562)
We've got Ace Desert Hardware, Maso Menos, The Station. So it's been really just encouraging to see the amount of support in the community.
Danny (14:49.554)
Woohoo!
Danny (15:01.083)
Wonderful. You know, I wanted to ask you guys just as a personal note for you, you know, from your perspective, moving out to, you know, the high desert area, Murongo Basin, how do you find the area as it relates to, you know, being queer or, you know, the LGBTQ plus community, the acceptance level and just because it's an interesting, wide ranging mix of people, right? There is, you know, like
filmmaker and then the next, you know, plot of land over could be like, you know, a guy with a prepping bunker, you know, with Trump flags out or whatever, you know, which is fine. But it's a wide mix of people.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (15:40.042)
Yeah, that was a great one. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely, there is a strong, perhaps underserved queer community in this area. We've met so many incredible people and we try to support all the events that we can that happen locally. Out There Bar does,
a number of queer events like Tits and Palms. So we try to go out and just be in community with the other queer people whenever we get a chance. And we're really lucky to have some best friends living next door who are a queer couple. So it feels like we have... It's like a sitcom vibe where it's like, you know, there's all these cookie cutter houses around us and then we both have the weird houses.
Danny (16:28.211)
Ha
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (16:38.304)
There's like, you know, a couple of non -binary people, couple of trans -masse people, four queer people total on the end of this street. know, so that's been a unique experience for me to have our neighbor be a fellow trans man. Like, it's not something that I had in Los Angeles. I'd have to go to meet all my trans man friends, you know, someplace in Silver Lake, so.
Danny (16:39.612)
Ha ha ha ha.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (17:06.238)
I feel like out here I have way more of a community in some ways because you reach for it more. But you're right, we have the people with the flags down the street. It is right around the corner. So yeah, safety in numbers and community always.
Danny (17:08.262)
Right, right.
Danny (17:28.467)
Awesome. Guys, thank you so much for being on the show with me here. I look forward to hearing all about the event. I don't know. I think I'm going to be out of town during that weekend, unfortunately. But I will make sure for all the listeners, I put everything in the show notes where they can buy tickets, get more information, go to the website, read more about all the different films and everything that's happening on the weekend program.
And again, if you've never been to a film festival, I highly recommend the experience. It's super fun. I love it. So, yeah, I hope you guys have a really successful event and I'll be looking forward to future projects.
Graham Kolbeins & Jonathan Andre Culliton (18:10.016)
Thank you so much for your time. Thanks, Danny. We really appreciate it. Have a good one. See you around the desert.
Danny (18:13.949)
Thank you. My pleasure.
