Gay and Lesbian Film Fest Kicks Off This Week in Palm Springs

The seventh annual “Cinema Diverse: The Palm Springs Gay and Lesbian Film Festival” will get under way Thursday night.

The festival, which is organized by the nonprofit Palm Springs Cultural Center, will run through Sunday at Camelot Theatres in Palm Springs. It will open with a 7 p.m. screening of “Saugatuck Cures,” a comedy produced and directed by Matthew Ladensack.

“Saugatuck Cures” addresses such issues as religious freedom and same- sex marriage. Its cast includes Max Alder, who plays bully Dave Karofsky on the television show “Glee,” and Palm Springs resident Judith Chapman of “The Young & the Restless.”

Ladensack, Adler and most of the cast plan to attend the screening, according to festival spokesman Michael Green.

Other featured films include “Violence of the Mind,” a horror/thriller partly filmed in Palm Springs, the musical “Waiting in the Wings” and mystery “The Dark Place.” The festival will close Sunday night with feature film “Appropriate Behavior.”

“We are screening a total of 28 feature films and more than 30 shorts this year,” Green said. “This will be the largest number of feature films we’ve ever screened, and about the same number of shorts that we screened at last year’s festival.”

A pass good for six films is $69, and a pass for all films and after- parties is $149. Individual screening tickets are $13.

Tickets can be purchased at the Camelot Theatre box office, 2300 E. Baristo Road, by calling (760) 325-6565 or (888) 718-4253, or online at www.cinemadiverse.org or www.camelottickets.com.

— City News Service.

(Image via Shutterstock)