In 1979, John Ramirez and
Stuart Timmons, two students at the
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), founded a gay film festival on campus. By 1982, it had become known as the "Gay and Lesbian Media Festival and Conference." The name was changed to Outfest in 1994. In 1996 Outfest began a relationship with
Sundance, another film festival. 2004 Was the first year the idea of a queer film festival curating around people of color came about. Outfests then executive Stephen Gutwilig and Kirsten Schaffer are the name behind the idea. In 2005 UCLA Film & Television Archive and Outfest teamed up to save movies and videos made by LGBTQ people. They called this project the Outfest UCLA Legacy Project. Since, Outfest and UCLA have continued to grow their collection making it one of the biggest attainable resources for moving images. In September 2016, Outfest held its first traveling film festival in
Northampton, Massachusetts, at the
Academy of Music Theatre. The 2018 Outfest film festival was held at the
Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles, California. In 2019 the executives of the Outfest film festival decided it was time for a change in location once the Directors Guild of America began renovating. Outfest was also one of the key partners, alongside the
Frameline Film Festival, the
New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival and the
Inside Out Film and Video Festival, in launching the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film. In January 2022, Outfest celebrated its 26th queer brunch at Sundance. ==Programs==