Los Angeles, June 6, 2013 – Outfest – the Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization that promotes equality by creating, sharing, and protecting LGBT stories on the screen – has announced the complete programming lineup for its 31st Outfest Los Angeles LGBT Film Festival. The nation’s leading LGBT festival will be held July 11 to 21, 2013.

As previously announced, Outfest 2013 will open with Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s “C.O.G.,” based on the short story by David Sedaris, on Thursday, July 11. Prior to the opening night screening, the organization will honor writer-director Kimberly Peirce with its 17th annual Achievement Award.

The festival closes on Sunday, July 21, with Darren Stein’s comedy “G.B.F.,” written by Outfest Screenwriting Lab Fellow George Northy, and starring Megan Mullally, Natasha Lyonne and Andrea Bowen.

Other gala screenings include: “Pit Stop” (U.S. Dramatic Centerpiece), Yen Tan’s quietly powerful Sundance darling, in which the Outfest alum provides an evocative glimpse into the lives of two Southern gay men; veteran Brazilian filmmaker Bruno Barreto returns with “Reaching for the Moon” (International Dramatic Centerpiece), a steamy tale of an unlikely romance between two extraordinary lesbian artists, set against the backdrop of political upheaval and a clash of cultures; ”God Loves Uganda” (Documentary Centerpiece), in which Academy Award–winner Roger Ross Williams provides powerful insight into the ignorance (cloaked in religion) exported by the United States to the rest of the world; and Pratibha Parmar‘s “Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth” (Fusion Centerpiece), a compelling and inspirational documentary about Alice Walker’s extraordinary journey from sharecropper’s daughter to activist, journalist, poet and Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist of The Color Purple.

“Our line-up celebrates a powerful new generation of storytellers, as well as Outfest alumni and veteran filmmakers, who pave the way to an even brighter future for the LGBT community,” says Kirsten Schaffer, Executive Director of Outfest. “This year’s program confirms Outfest as a leader in LGBT rights and cultural expression, ensuring that our stories are created, shared and protected.”

Other highly anticipated titles in this year’s festival include Travis Mathews and James Franco’s “Interior. Leather Bar.”, a provocative re-imagining of the lost 40 minutes of “Cruising”; the James Franco-produced  documentary “Kink,” in which director Christina Voros takes us into the painful but oh-so-pleasurable world of five San Francisco–based BDSM workers; Linda Bloodworth Thomason’s award-winning “Bridegroom,” a powerful and poignant feature about love, loss and the courage of one young man to stand up for same-sex equality; Jeffrey Schwarz’s “I Am Divine,” a documentary about the legendary drag performer Divine; “The Battle of amFAR,” a triumphant short film by Outfest Achievement Award winners Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, which focuses on the landmark AIDS advocacy group; and world premieres of “Igloo,” the feature film directorial debut by Chilean actor Diego Ruiz, and Del Shores’ hilarious and heartbreaking screen adaptation of his hit play “Southern Baptist Sissies”.

“The films in this year’s festival feature a variety of heroes and role models from around the world who fought tenaciously to create a more enlightened society. These movies highlight the humanity, hilarity and honesty of the LGBT community,” said Director of Programming Kristin Pepe (KP).

The Ford Amphitheatre will once again host the Under the Stars series, kicking off with our annual sing-along, featuring the hit musical comedy “Pitch Perfect,” starring Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson. Other screenings include the sexy and provocative “Test”; “Hot Guys with Guns,” a hilarious thriller that marks the debut of actor Doug Spearman (“Noah’s Arc”) as writer-director; the Hitchcock-inspired thriller “Breaking the Girls,” directed by Outfest alum Jamie Babbit and written by Guinevere Turner (“American Psycho”); as well as the Closing Night Gala “G.B.F.” directed by Darren Stein (“Jawbreaker”). This event is part of the Ford Theatres 2013 Summer Season, a multi-disciplinary arts series produced by the Los Angles County Arts Commission in cooperation with Los Angeles County. For a complete Ford Summer Season schedule, directions to the theatre and parking information, visit www.FordTheatres,org

This year, Outfest is proud to feature three graduates of the annual Outfest Screenwriting Lab that are returning to the festival as completed motion pictures: U.S. Centerpiece “Pit Stop” by Yen Tan and David Lowery, “Hot Guys with Guns” by Doug Spearman and Closing Night Gala “G.B.F.” by George Northy.

As part of its Outfest Forward program, Outfest will present OutSet shorts – a screening of five short films written, produced and directed by a new generation of storytellers, the 2013 graduates of OutSet, the Young Filmmakers Project from LifeWorks and Outfest, created to empower and educate LGBTQ youth to tell their stories through film.

Five in Focus: Outfest spotlights the exciting new talent, on both sides of the camera, behind a quintet of powerful films. The 2013 selections include: Drew Denny (Writer-Director-Actress, “The Most Fun I’ve Ever Had with My Pants On”), Stacie Passon (Writer-Director, “Concussion”), Lisa Biagiotti (Journalist-Filmmaker, “Deepsouth”), Michael Mayer (Writer-Director, “Out in the Dark”) and Rhys Ernst & Zackary Drucker (Filmmakers-Artists, “She Gone Rogue”).