Celebrating diversity and sporting the tag line "Awakening culture, uniting communities," the third annual Snakebite Film Festival will run from January 30th to February 2nd, 2020 at Penticton's Landmark Cinemas. And last night in the brewery room of Bad Tattoo Brewing, they held a fundraiser.
Photo Credit: NowMediaJenna Telz
And what a fundraiser.
Photo Credit: NowMediaSparkle (left)
Featuring the talents of two of the Okanagan's premier drag queens, Jenna Telz and Sparkle, the eleganza extravaganza attracted a huge crowd of supporters – at fifty bucks a pop – for a evening of music, dance, lip-sync, and Bad Tattoo realness.
As one might expect, the crowd was just as diverse as the 2020 festival expects to be. There were politicians, there were leaders of business. There were community activists, artsy types, and pillars of the community. There were long hairs, short hairs, the ultra-flamboyant, the substantially more conservative, and every colour of the rainbow.
Photo Credit: NowMedia
Photo Credit: NowMedia
But amongst this highly varied group, one person stood out in a purely physical sense. Standing nearly seven feet tall in heels and with his mountainous, equally yellow wig, Carl Meadows made a rather lasting impression. Just as he'd planned.
Photo Credit: NowMediaCarl Meadows, looking positively radiant
Meadows is the executive director of South Okanagan Acute Hospitals. But he's also an activist (he calls himself a "persistent activist") for inclusivity. The affair last night was Meadows' idea, as is the film festival. And as the fully dragged-up host/hostess, he ran the show with expected flair.
"The festival," he said just prior to his evening-opening lip-sync, "is really just exposing the culture that's already in Penticton. Indigenous, LGBT, straight – it doesn't matter. It's really about getting people to think about the issues that are close to home."
Photo Credit: NowMediaCarl Meadows
"The 2020 festival is five films and one short film. This year because of the fundraiser and last year being so successful, we're focusing on some of the access issues. So American Sign Language, we're going to have a few of those translations during the festival."
Photo Credit: NowMediaSparkle
"The other thing we're able to do is have a panel. One of the films is called Us and Them and it’s about homelessness and addiction and just around the 'not in my back yards,' and how that's balanced with social compassion. So these are important films we're going to be showing and tonight will really set the stage for us to have a proper funding phase for the actual festival in January."
Photo Credit: NowMedia
Sparkle and Telz performed twice during the evening, and changed costumes once. Each time up they had the place going nuts, which is to be expected of queens at this level.
Photo Credit: NowMediaJenna Telz
Bopping along with the music and occasionally interacting with the queens as they danced, Bad Tattoo partner Marley Gravely was clearly in her element.
Photo Credit: NowMediaMarley Gravely chatting with a dancing Sparkle
"This is my favourite event of the entire year," she said. "I love working with Carl, I love working for the community, and I think that the Snakebite Film Festival is becoming a premier event in Penticton. And being able to help with that is just something I really want to get behind."
Photo Credit: NowMediaJenna Telz
"I think when you walk in here tonight and see the cross section we have here – older people, younger people, middle-aged people – it's such a diverse group that supports this. And I think it speaks to different ages, sexuality, whatever. There's really not anyone that this fundraiser and this festival doesn’t speak to."
Photo Credit: NowMedia
For more information on the 2020 Snakebite Film Festival as it becomes available, go here.
Photo Credit: NowMediaSparkle
