LGBT Point Foundation honors Focus Features

"Point Foundation (Point), the nation’s largest scholarship-granting organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students of merit, will honor global film company Focus Features on Monday, April 16th at this year’s Point Honors New York gala."

According to the San Francisco Sentinel, Focus Features will be the recipient of recognition from the Point Foundation at its annual Point Honors New York gala.

One of the reasons I respect the productions of Focus Features is the daring risks they take with many of the picture releases. This is especially true of the films with an LBGT story line that so desperately need to be told. We are a world (slowly) working towards acceptance of all, and Focus Features is definitely a front runner in this journey.

 “Films like Milk and Pariah speak to the values of diversity and empowerment Focus shares with Point and the LGBT community.  It is so important that young people have an opportunity to watch films like these, where maybe they can for the first time find representations of themselves on the screen, and come away awed and inspired.” 
-Jorge Valencia, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of The Point Foundation.

Focus Features has produced films like Brokeback Mountain, Milk, and last years The Beginners, which is up for an Oscar this year for best supporting actor, Christopher Plummer. Focus Features' newest production, Pariah, is a coming of age story about a 17-year old African-American lesbian. 

For more information on Focus Features or the Point Foundation Honors gala, click here.

Why I loved "The Beginners" (and why Christopher Plummer deserves the Oscar)

The Beginners is a testament to the fact that life is unpredictable, unreliable, and at times unbearable. And by life, I euphemistically mean the people around us. 

People are social by nature and therefore go to great lengths and pains to be together, even if it feels like misery. Sociability made sense as a survival instinct for most of our species's history. Over time, we have remained instinctively social even though it is not immediately necessary for the sake of our survival. 
It makes sense to be social if the relationship is beneficial, especially if the benefit is symbiotic. But what if its not?

Why do we stay anyway? Whats in it for us to do something that does not provide an clear benefit (or in fact, strips other benefits from us?)?