Ten years ago, Laura Petrie planted what she was told was an acorn. This week, the festival that grew from it opens its tenth edition at Maiden Alley Cinema — still the only lesbian film festival in the United States.
Cinema Systers runs from May 21st through May 24th in downtown Paducah, featuring more than 20 films made by and for women with sapphic perspectives. The festival occupies two venues within walking distance of each other: Maiden Alley Cinema and the Yeiser Art Center. An opening soiree takes place Thursday evening at Barrel & Bond, and a reception runs Friday from 7 to 10 p.m. The 10-year anniversary party is Saturday at the 1857 Hotel, headlined by comedian Julia Nance.
The festival began on Petrie's farm in 2016, the year after Michigan's Womyn's Music Festival closed after nearly four decades. Organisers at that final festival handed out acorns and asked attendees to go home and create their own spaces. Petrie, from Paducah, took the instruction literally. The farm screenings outgrew their original venue within a few years and moved to Maiden Alley Cinema as attendance expanded.
This year's programme includes a featured documentary, "Parallel," by filmmaker B. Danielle Watkins, who chronicles her experience as the only African American filmmaker at the festival's inaugural 2016 edition. A Q&A with Watkins, Petrie, and Betty Dobson, executive director of the historic Hotel Metropolitan, follows the screening.
Paducah has developed a reputation as an unlikely hub for arts programming. The American Quilters Society holds its national convention here. The Yeiser Art Center draws regional and national exhibitions. Cinema Systers fits that pattern — a niche festival that has found its audience precisely because it fills a gap no other city has bothered to fill.
"There're very few lesbian festivals in the world, to be honest with you," Petrie has said, "and we happen to be the only lesbian film festival in the United States." After ten years, the acorn has become something genuinely its own.