A (Brief) History of the Connecticut Gay & Lesbian Film Festival  AlteRnaTiveS (as it was originally known) was founded in 1987 by Bill Mann as a gay and lesbian cultural organization in Hartford.  With Terri Reid as co-chair, the organization explored a variety of different activities including theater, film, a gay history project and a literary journal, Invert, which produced four issues.  During the organization's busy early years, the first Film Festival was held in June of 1988 at Cinestudio.  Because of a lack of publicity and the organizers' relative inexperience at running such an event, the first Festival was not a big success.  This was, after all, Connecticut's first-ever Film Festival, and at the time, a gay & lesbian event such as this was quite unusual.  Also, the films themselves tended toward the experimental and gloomy (Kenneth Anger and lesbian vampires).  These nascent years saw the committee struggle with programming issues and attracting an audience.  By the fourth year attendance was the poorest yet, and the Festival was in debt.  1992 marked a turning point, when, under the new leadership of Tyler Polhemus, several changes were made to reinvigorate the Festival.  Tyler insisted on previewing all films shown (something not previously done) and focused on Festival publicity. That year brought Quentin Crisp to the opening night for the screening of The Naked Civil Servant. Having such a queer icon come to Hartford was a real coup. During Tyler's tenure as director, the Festival was also extended from one weekend to two.  Hartford native Jennifer Miller came back to her hometown for the screening of Juggling Gender to discuss her life as a juggler and gender rebel.  In 1994, the Festival presented a rare screening of Viktor und Viktoria, the 1930’s film that was the basis for Victor and Victoria.  In 1994 Jason Plourde and Suzanne Shayer accepted the nomination as co-directors.  That year saw the sold out Connecticut premiere of The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love fresh from it’s Sundance success with director Maria Maggenti in attendance.  The iconic lesbian documentarian Barbara Hammer visited Cinestudio to discuss her work and time in South Africa the same year.  Another first in 1995 was a program devoted to the gay deaf community, with a sign language interpreter featured.  In 1997 Festival leadership changed once again as Dan Millett stepped in as director. That year the Festival was extended from five days to its current nine days of programming.  Opening night brought actor Guinevere Turner (The L Word, American Psycho) to Hartford for her film, The Watermelon Woman.  The closing night featured It’s in the Water with director Kelli Herd in attendance.  As the Festival's finances stabilized, Alternatives was able to host its first benefit event for another organization; 1997's closing night raised funds for AIDS Project Hartford.  Since then, the Festival has hosted many benefits for several other community organizations, such as Cinestudio, the Hartford Gay & Lesbian Health Collective and the Hartford Gay & Lesbian Community Center.   In October 1999, Alternatives began collaborating with the Trinity College gay-straight student organization EROS (Encouraging Respect of all Sexualities) to present the EROS Film Festival.  This event held every fall brings more queer films to Hartford with an emphasis on youth, history and classic films.  In recent years, the Festival has continued to bring in exciting guests including: filmmaker/writer Lawrence Ferber, actor/writer David Drake, director Johnny Symonds and musician June Millington, to name just a few.  In 2003 the Connecticut Gay & Lesbian Film Festival donated its papers to the archives at Central Connecticut State University.  As presenter of Hartford's biggest Pride month event, the Festival organizers are committed to bringing outstanding gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer film to our New England community. --Dan Millett, Festival Director, 1997-2007