GAZE, Dublin’s international LGBT film festival, returns for its 23rd year this August Bank Holiday weekend. To get us in the mood for the festival we spoke to Kieran Turner, director of Jobriath A.D., which won the documentary prize at GAZE in 2012 (Documentary prize winner at GAZE 2012), and creator of web series Wallflowers. Turner is the curator of In With the New Out, a project which aims to highlight web series as the place where LGBT storytelling is flourishing. Wallflowers will be shown at GAZE this year as part of the programme.

Why did you decide to make a web series, and what are the advantages and limitations of the medium?

When I was on the festival circuit with my documentary, Jobriath A.D, we were getting pushback from some LGBT festivals who loved the film, but declined to program it because they didn’t know how to sell it to their audiences. That frustrated me enough to say: if I can cut out the “permission granters,” even the LGBT-led ones who were being myopic in their views of what they think audiences want to see, I want in. Hence the web series. The freedom to make something and actually get people to see it without needing the permission of others was a huge draw for me. It is difficult to find an audience. You need marketing. And web series still have a bit of a stigma attached to them, so without a big name or some sort of genre hook, it can be tough to get noticed. The main advantage is, people aren’t creating web series in the hopes that they’ll get rich off them. They do it because they’re passionate about the stories they want to tell and they feel like there’s an audience out there who want to see them. It’s still a very new medium, and no one has really quite figured out how to make a profit from it yet. I fear once that happens we’re going to have the same issues we have in indie film.

Are there things you think the smaller budget should be spent on to keep the quality high?

Two pieces of advice. Don’t skimp on sound. People will forgive almost anything, but if they can’t hear your show they’ll turn it off. And don’t use anything you don’t have rights for, as you never know what will happen to your show down the line. You don’t want to have to say no to something because you don’t have rights to a song or a piece of film or a trademarked character. Plus, it’s great training ground to learn how to write around that kind of thing. You may think you need it to tell your story: you don’t.

Wallflowers is notable for how it treats the sexuality of its characters; no one is pigeonholed, and a variety of orientations are represented in a very naturalistic way. How do you think this compares to representations of LGBT perspectives in mainstream TV and film?

I have never written any of my characters as “gay characters,” in anything I’ve ever done, and that’s always been a very important distinction for me. My characters are people who happen to be gay or bisexual. You ask about representations of gay characters in mainstream TV and film, but I’m still creating these characters in part as a reaction to what I’m seeing in gay-themed, gay created media, and that is a lot of stereotypical, reductive, nonsensical characters that I find offensive. I’m not sure why we’re allowed to get away with it when if a mainstream director did it, they would be crucified. It’s a bit of a vicious circle. Gay media tends to perpetuate these stereotypes because it’s easy to slap up an article featuring a half naked twink or a drag queen, as if that’s all the LGBT community is. In order to get noticed, filmmakers are forced to adhere to these stereotypes. My theory is that gay media is terrified that, once the gay community is fully accepted into the mainstream, they will somehow cease to exist. I don’t think there’s an easy answer as to how to change this. I think the internet is definitely offering content creators who are passionate about offering an alternative a forum to get their work seen, but I wish the gay community would be more vocal in their support for these kinds of projects.

You’ve said elsewhere that Wallflowers is a show about the last generation of singletons to have had to navigate dating without the internet – do you feel that they are a bit of a lost generation?

That’s a tough question! I wouldn’t say a lost generation, but yes, they are definitely in a disadvantaged position. Let’s face it, the older one gets, the harder it is to make a connection in any way, even friends. The internet has only made it more difficult because people are having insta-relationships without ever even hearing each other’s voices. We explored that somewhat with the character of Daisy, who had a long-distance relationship of sorts with a director whose film she cast, and he was a little younger than her. They had the same experience, but she interpreted their interaction in a completely different way. So I definitely think the characters in Wallflowers are looking for something that could be deemed a little old fashioned, and that’s something I’m going to be exploring in more depth in future seasons should we get there.

Who’s your favourite character?

Saying you have a favourite character is very dangerous when you’re managing a large cast of actors, and you’re the only one writing the show. What I enjoy is writing with the actors’ voices in my head. It’s almost like an extra rehearsal period, since I can hear my actors saying the lines of their characters and I know already if something feels inauthentic. Some have suspected I’m basing the character of Bryce on myself, mostly because I’ve recast the role twice due to actors dropping out, but I really believed in the character of Bryce, in this gay man who is flawed and three dimensional and someone I rarely ever see on screen, and I wasn’t willing to abandon him.

Tell us a bit about the idea behind the web series programme at GAZE, In With the New Out?

I decided to make Wallflowers because I was impressed with the overall quality of certain web series. I was seeing some shows that were near television quality in their execution. I wanted Wallflowers to have those same standards and I worked hard to achieve that. After Wallflowers was up and running, I became acquainted with other LGBT web series who shared that same aesthetic and ambition. One or two had broken through, but the majority were getting lost in the shuffle, so I came up with the idea to package these series into a program that we could take around to LGBT film festivals, which can sometimes be a gamble, since all are readily available for free online, so that’s why I came up with the panel aspect of it. I really feel like these series can compete with the best of what’s being shown at film festivals in terms of production quality, writing and acting, and portraying compelling, well rounded LGBT characters. It’s time to start treating web programming as film and TV’s equal. Some festivals have been reticent about doing so, but I’m happy to say several have begun to come around, like GAZE, for one!

Currently we have about fifteen participating series, and the lineups are always different depending on who is available to attend and feedback from the festival programmers. For GAZE, which is In With the New Out’s international premiere, I was able to take advantage of being in Dublin to program two non-US based series and have the creators close enough that they could come be a part of the panel. Right now, I’m focused on getting these shows, and this genre of LGBT filmmaking, a wider audience, but we are beginning to branch out. This fall we’ll be doing our first workshop at a festival for aspiring LGBT content creators, and I’m looking to develop In With the New Out into a collective where we can support each other with our projects and maybe even develop into a programming platform in time.

What do you think is the importance of LGBT film festivals?

I’m concerned about the future of film festivals in general, but certainly the LGBT ones. Before the internet, festivals really were becoming some films’ distribution circuit. Since the proliferation of online distribution outlets, the urgency to see a film you might not be able to find ever again has waned considerably because, nine times out of ten, you’ll find that film somewhere online within a year if it doesn’t get more traditional means of distribution. If I do have a project making the rounds, I do my best to attend as many screenings as possible. I like hearing from content creators, hearing their stories and knowing what drives them and inspires them, and as a creator, I like sharing that with an audience and I want to give them a possible incentive to come out and see the film with an audience. I think it’s important for us to support the festivals that do show our work, so I will always come out and do that whenever I can.

I definitely think LGBT film festivals are a place to become aware of films being made for and by the LGBT community that have more to say than some of the more stereotypical, for-profit crap that’s being churned out. But it’s also a place for us to congregate and be social and have a sense of community, one that involves something different than sex and alcohol. And I don’t mean to sound like a prude, but there’s so much more to the LGBT community than that, and so I’m concerned about us losing that sense of community when it comes to culture or politics. I hope that’s what will keep people coming back.

Is there anything that you are particularly looking forward to seeing at the festival?

I’m very excited to get to see the Director’s Cut of 54, finally. I seem to keep missing it on the big screen. And I’ve heard great things about the documentary, Seed Money.

GAZE International Film Festival will be held at the Lighthouse Cinema from 30th July to 3rd August 2015. The In With the New Out screening and discussion will take place at 2.30pm on Saturday 1st August. For a full programme and to buy tickets visit www.gaze.ie.