The Cleveland International Film Festival is helping to launch Kent State’s new Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality with a series of LGBTQ-related films.
The series, titled “10 Percent Cinema,” will screen two shorts starting this Thursday: “Sign” and “The Candidate.” The showings are sponsored by the Kent State Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, which was created late last year and is run by Professor Molly Merryman. She says “10 Percent Cinema” is a way to formally announce to the public that the center is up-and-running.
“We want to be taking our academic program successes – obviously, further developing those successes – but taking them out into the community more.
“What we’re able to do is to reach hundreds of people in a matter of a couple of weeks’ time [and] to have messages about LGBTQ lives that are disseminated through these quality films. Also, we introduce the films and we have literature related to our program – including our scholarships – at the Cleveland Film Festival.”
Merryman says the partnership with the Cleveland Film Festival is a perfect example of the kind of outreach that is planned in the future, and tthe center is already working with other groups on events such as an Akron Pride Festival for this summer. She adds that the Center has created an LGBTQ Living-Learning area in one of the school’s residence halls.
