As the founder and chief executive of San Jose, California-based Wolfe Video, Kathy Wolfe helms the largest exclusive distributor of gay and lesbian films in North America. Armed with a staff of 11, Wolfe has acquired the distribution rights to hundreds of titles, including a Peruvian film about a married fisherman's affair with a male artist, Contracorriente (Undertow) -- this year's Sundance Film Festival winner of the Cinema World Audience Award in the dramatic category. It can be a challenge for her company, which has been operating for 25 years, to break into mainstream culture, and many movie-watching outlets cater to more conservative tastes, so Wolfe is constantly hunting for new ways to distribute her films. In addition to purchasing distribution rights, Wolfe has also worked with national retailers, such as Virgin Megastore and Amazon, to launch sections featuring gay and lesbian merchandise. She was awarded the 2010 Frameline Award at the 34th San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival last week for her impact on gay and lesbian cinema.
TAP spoke with Wolfe, 62, about increasing the visibility of gay issues through cinema.
What was your motivation behind founding Wolfe Video in 1985?
There was just a tremendous need. The landscape of a lesbian or gay person has completely changed in the past 25 years. Years ago, a person could be fired from their job if people knew they were gay, and that resulted in a lot of people being in the closet. When a lot of people are in the closet, it's very difficult to have any kind of reassurance that you're OK.
Film is one way that really helps people find community. It's almost incalculable what kind of impact a film can make. The opportunity to see images that reflect your own life is very empowering. They're not only empowering for individuals who may find the strength to live an authentic life for themselves, but also for the world at large -- people who maybe have a gay person in their family who want to understand more about what the lifestyle is like. It's very good for them to watch movies we have on our label.
Wolfe Video is known for being both a socially responsible and commercially successful enterprise. Is it difficult to balance these two sides?
I would say no. It's how you set your goals. Making money is important, of course, but it's never been our driving force. We put out a lot of movies that represent various subcultures of the lesbian and gay community, like Native Americans. We don't expect to make a lot of money on that, but we do feel that it's important.
How does your approach contrast with traditional movie distribution methods?
We use the same model as other independent distributors. We are just exclusive to the lesbian and gay product. What has been different is that we've identified our brand in that way, so people know we're the company that carries the highest lesbian and gay product that there is.
What kind of qualities do you look for in a film that you would be interested in purchasing the rights to?
First of all, it needs to be just a quality story. The other thing is that we really need to feel that we can perform well with it. We feel we have to do the very best for the filmmaker that is possible.
Wolfe Video distributes to retailers as varied as Netflix, Amazon, Best Buy, and iTunes. In terms of the mass market, have there been particular customer demographics that you've been pushing to break?
We try to be representative of different kinds of lesbian and gay people of all ages. Lately, we've had a couple of films about youth, and so I think we've brought a new demographic for ourselves -- people who probably weren't even born when I started the company.
What is your take on the state of gay and lesbian representation in the media, and how do you envision it changing in the future?
You know, the fact that we've had success doesn't represent success throughout the media. I think, as gay people, we don't really have proportional representation on television. Maybe there's a couple of shows, like Will and Grace or something, but 99 percent of TV viewing and acting has been all straight. We're making headway in terms of people understanding that being lesbian and gay is just a part of life, but I think we still have work to do.
