Celebrating Queer Voices: Inaugural Silver Pride Cinema Festival to debut in Wilmington

Wilmington, NC- Cucalorus Film Foundation and the Silver Pride Circle of the Cape Fear are excited to announce the first-ever Silver Pride Cinema Festival, a one-day LGBTQ+ film festival to be held Saturday, May 10, 2025 at Jengo’s Playhouse in downtown Wilmington. Festival attendees can anticipate a full day of film and community, featuring four powerful screenings—three feature films and a shorts block—centered around queer lives and stories. Presented by the Silver Pride Circle of the Cape Fear, the festival uplifts and celebrates LGBTQ+ individuals, fostering community, connection, and education through film. “We’re energized daily by the joy of our young and diverse queer community here in Wilmington. We’ve built an entire day of queer films and we want to invite you to join us!” shared Ed Adams, Silver Pride Circle Director.The festival will kick off at 10:45 AM with a screening of 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture, a gripping documentary that uncovers how a single mistranslation of the Bible in 1946 ignited decades of anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric. Gear up for a genre-defying journey through love, loss, liberation, and line dancing with the Silver Pride Shorts Block, a bold collection of short films that celebrate queer lives lived out loud—on the road, in the city, and on the dance floor. The shorts block begins at 1:30 PM and is followed by a resource partners market in the backyard of Jengo’s. At 4 PM, Dreams Deferred confronts the tragic 2003 murder of 15-year-old Sakia Gunn, a young Black queer teen, and the homophobia behind it—while challenging the media’s silence around the loss of a life at the intersection of race, gender expression, and sexuality.The festival concludes with the buzzworthy historical fiction, Lavender Men, directed by North Carolina native, Lovell Holder. Bending time and reality, Lavender Men reimagines the relationship between President Abraham Lincoln and his legal secretary, Elmer Ellsworth, through a modern day queer lens. Taffeta, a contemporary queer person of color, summons Lincoln to perform an elaborate historical fantasia within her own head — only to learn that she can’t hide from her own present-day demons in the shadows of someone else’s past.An all-day festival pass is $35 and individual tickets for screenings are only $10. Passholders gain access to all of the screenings and an invite to the social hour in Jengo’s backyard. Tickets and passes are on sale now at silverpridecinemafestival.eventive.org/welcome.

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