MFAH presents 21st Annual QFest Screenings

Museum hosts international LGBTQ film festival screenings, Friday, July 28-Sunday, July 30, 2017.

Overview On the weekend of July 28-30, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, participates in the 21st annual QFest. The annual LGBTQ film festival, programmed by artistic director Kristian Salinas, includes screenings in venues throughout the city. This year, the Museum screens the documentary The Fabulous Allan Carr; the landmark indie film Desert Hearts; and a digital restoration of Merchant Ivory's Maurice. Visit www.mfah.org/qfest for more information.

Screenings The Fabulous Allan Carr

(Directed by Jeffrey Schwarz, USA, 2017, 90 min.)

Friday, July 28, at 7 p.m.

Armed with a limitless Rolodex and a Benedict Canyon enclave with its own disco, the flamboyant, openly gay Allan Carr (1937-1999) threw the Hollywood parties that defined the 1970s. A producer, manager, and marketing genius, Carr built his reputation around successes including the mega hit musical film Grease and the Broadway sensation La cage aux folles. Featuring interviews with Carr, as well as many of his famous friends and associates, this entertaining film chronicles the fascinating life and career of an entertainment industry legend.

Desert Hearts

(Directed by Donna Deitch, USA, 1985, 96 min

Saturday, July 29, at 7 p.m.

Professor Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver) arrives in 1950s Nevada to get a divorce. She rents accommodation on a ranch where she finds herself increasingly drawn to the ranch owner's daughter (Patricia Charbonneau), an open and self-assured lesbian. The chemistry between the two leads, a dead-on period soundtrack, and stunning landscape cinematography gives Desert Hearts a beautiful sense of romantic yearning and passion. This American indie, with its depiction of a romance between two women, broke new ground and paved the way for the New Queer Cinema

that followed.

Maurice

(Directed by James Ivory, UK, 1987, 140 min.)

Sunday, July 30, at 5 p.m.

Based on E.M. Forster's novel Maurice (1914), this film stars James Wilby (Maurice) and Hugh Grant (Clive) as two Cambridge undergraduates who fall in love. The film is set amidst the hypocritical homoerotic subculture of the English university in Edwardian society. After Clive rejects him, Maurice is trapped by the oppressive social customs of the day and struggles to accept his sexuality. Presented in a new digital restoration, this elegantly detailed period film was created by the storied Merchant-Ivory collaborative team.

Location The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Caroline Wiess Law Building / Brown Auditorium Theater

1001 Bissonnet Street

Admission Admission to QFest screenings is $10 for the general public, and $8 for MFAH members, students with ID, and senior adults. Visit www.mfah.org/films for more information or to purchase advance tickets.

Film Buffs is the Museum's patron group for movie lovers. Visit www.mfah.org/filmbuffs or call 713.639.7550 for more information.

Funding The MFAH film department is supported by Tenaris; the Vaughn Foundation; Franci Neely; American Turkish Association-Houston; James V. Derrick; Lynn S. Wyatt; The ILEX Foundation; L'Alliance Française de Houston; and the Turkish Cultural Foundation.