Notre Dame Queer Film Festival - 2005

2005

The second Notre Dame Queer Film Festival was held from February 10, 2005–February 12, 2005. The venue of the festival moved to the state-of-the-art Debartolo Center for the Performing Arts Browning Cinema. Dacey shifted his role from student chair to director of operations and media relations for the festival. Joanna Basile was the student chair and GALA ND/SMC Chair Gus Hinojosa remained the alumni chair.

The second festival featured Saved! on February 10, 2005 with a talkbalk with director Brian Dannelly. On February 11, 2005, the documentary In Good Conscience: Sister Jeannine Gramick's Journey of Faith screened preceded by a panel on gay marriage with producer Brendan Faye, director Barbara Rick, Rick Garcia, Notre Dame Proefessor Gail Bederman, and Sister Jeannine Gramick. The panel was moderated by GALA ND/SMC member David Pais. A second documentary entitled Gay Pioneers also was shown that day with a talbalk by the late longtime gay and lesbian civil rights activist Barbara Gittings(1932–2007). The film adaptation of Angels in America was shown on the evening of February 11 and afternoon of February 12 while Love! Valour! Compassion! screened on that evening with a question and answer session by director and Tony award-winner Terrence McNally.

Matthew Storin, University of Notre Dame Vice President of News and Information, said of the 2005 festival: "There are people who object to it and we respect those opinions. But if we attempted to stop the culture of the United States of America in the year 2005 at the gate on Notre Dame Avenue and on Juniper Road, not only would that be a fruitless exercise, but we really wouldn't be preparing our students for the world they're going to enter into."

Bishop John D'Arcy of the Ft. Wayne-South Bend, IN diocese condemned the festival as "an abuse of academic freedom." Storin responded in a written statement, which said: "within reason, we would prefer that our students encounter the secular American culture, with all its faults, in the context of their Catholic education rather than attempting to cloister them till the time they graduate, only then to confront reality."