Conversion Therapist, Short Film, Review

Conversion Therapist is a short film that packs a lot of punch. And it will strike you right in solar plexus, knocking the air out of you. Bears Rebecca Fonté takes on a topic out of the headlines and brings to light what is really being considered behind the niceties of titles used to describe what is happening.

This is a film needing to be watched by every adult to get a better understanding of what is happening. Remember it is brutal, because, yes, it is brutal what has been happening to people.

I saw Conversion Therapist at the 2019 FilmQuest film festival (website).It was nominated for Best Horror Short, Best Actress (Sara Fletcher), and Best Supporting Actor (Michael Dickson).

Synopsis: A pansexual, polyamorous trio kidnap a 'pray-the-gay-away' evangelical conversion therapist and torture him until he sees the light.

This is part of the inspiration for making Conversion Therapist.

This very passionate film was the outlet for Bears to come out as trans to their friends and family. After the shootings at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Bears was determined to be true to their self and take to the front lines in their own medium, film. Conversion Therapist follows a pansexual, polyamorous trio as they set out to kidnap and convert a 'pray-the-gay-away' preacher, using some of the same methods he used on queer youth, and some that are maybe a little more extreme.

Director Statement

On June 12th, 2016, I woke up to coverage of the Pulse nightclub shooting and felt my heart being ripped out. Even worse, I was due to moderate a Q&A of the Sandy Hook shooting documentary Newtown that night. What world were we living in? In the aftermath of Pulse, I couldn't believe the bigotry of certain "ministers" who did more than hint that they believed the terrorist had done the world a favor. I poured my anger into this script and project.

But I also had started a ticking clock. I realized that I wasn't going to be able to bring this story, with its transgender character, into the world and honestly discuss the story with the actors, crew and audiences without first being honest about myself. When I launched our Kickstarter campaign, I also announced to the world that I was Transgender.

A filmmaker has to realize they are on the front line at festivals, represent these issues as they represent their film, understand what is "in play" with their film and be ready to defend it. For my film, in addition to conversion therapy, I know the discussion will be about my own journey and the character of Salina, on whom the entire plot hinges. The most important thing about making any film is casting—you can't fix that in post. With Conversation Therapist, this was especially important; I refused to cast a non-trans actress. Films and series like Transamerica, The Danish Girl and Transparent have been great for trans-visibility, but the casting of cisgender actors in these roles has been increasingly offensive to the trans community. Transgender actors should be able to tell their own stories. After a 9-month search, I found my star in Evalyn Jake, a young trans woman from Michigan who had never acted before. She is going to be a star if given the chance.

Filmmaker Bio

Bears Rebecca Fonté is a transgender filmmaker, festival programmer, and journalist. They founded Other Worlds Film Festival after two years as the Director of Programming for Austin Film Festival. They also program midnighters for SF Indiefest and consult on festivals around the country. Their short, ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE, was selected for 70 festivals including Fantasia International Film Festival, Dances With Films, Sci-Fi London and Boston SciFi. Other shorts PRENATAL, THE SECRET KEEPER and SMURF #47 played at a combined 80 festivals. Bears Rebecca was a producer on Sundance Jury-Award Winning short THE PROCEDURE and the documentaries CLOSER THAN WE THINK and ARTIST DEPICTION. Their feature thriller iCRIME, which they wrote and directed, was released on DVD by Breaking Glass in 2011. Bears Rebecca serves on the board of the All Genders, Lifestyles, and Identities Film Festival (aGLIFF) in Austin and represents District 6 on the Austin Arts Commission.

You can find out more about Conversion Therapist on IMDb (link).

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UCLan Games Design Alumni, Saija Sipila Interviewed On Linkedin.

Checkout this interview on Linkedin with our Alumni, Saija Sipilä.
We're very proud of her and her achievements in the games design industry!

Saija Sipila is a Senior Artist at Rebellion Games in Oxford, having worked on Sniper Elite 4, Sniper Elite 3, Hunt the Grey Wolf (DLC), Save Churchill Part 3: Confrontation (DLC) and Zombie Army Trilogy.

Saija is a 3D Environment artist.
See examples of her beautiful work at:

http://www.saijamaririna.com/

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OLD EDWARDIAN MIND SPORTS CLUB NAMES ITS COMMITTEE FOR 2020

Colin Webster, three times world wargames champion, is chairperson of the Old edwardian Mind Sports Club.

The Old Edwardian Mind Sports Club (OEMSC) was founded in 1982. Originally known as the Johannesburg Wargames Club the club moved to the Old Edwardian Society in 1989. As such OEMSC is the oldest member club in Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA) and is probably the oldest club in the world that caters for board games, esports, and wargames.

The club has produced a number of Protea team members as well as having produced four world champions.

Thus a club steeped in history and excellence remains at the cutting edge of development of esports in South Africa - and the world!

At OEMSC's recent Annual General Meeting (AGM), the following were elected into office to steer the club forward:

• Colin Webster - Chairperson
• Terence Allwright
• Donald Mullany
• Desmond Schoeman

The committee can boast of having over 82 years of experience between the four committee members. The experience is tempered with knowledge at all levels from grass-roots through to international.

OEMSC is determined to embark on an exciting programme to add value to all the games which it hosts.

For further information, you may contact the club on wargames@iafrica.com or on WhatsApp on 073 593 9451.

Also read:

• Why schools and universities should invest in esports.
• Entry fees for Provincial and National Championships
• How school clubs affiliate for the 2020 season.

• 2020 Calendar of Events
• The various events held by Mind Sports South Africa.
• Why schools and universities should invest in esports.
• New National Team Selection Criteria
• Selecting the national Protea teams for Mind Sports South Africa.
• The road to Eilat

Austro-Hungarian Vindow Vasher

I finished up the gun barrels and windows this week. Just the funnel, colors and touch ups left to go.

Tottenham Vs RB Leipzig Live Stream: How To Watch Champions League 2020 Football Online From Anywhere - TechRadar

Tottenham vs RB Leipzig live stream: how to watch Champions League 2020 football online from anywhere

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE?

When we last lest off on this rather rambling discussion, we had addressed the issues regarding manufacturing plastic miniatures, the costs involved and some of the challenges a small manufacturer faces, regarding time to market, the supply chain, the customer base and profit margins. 

You can view the other conversations here:

Part 1: Well, hello there.

Part 2: A little catching up may be in order.

Part 3: The state of DFG as a business 

This is part 4: Where to go from here.

This is the last in that series of rather frank discussions. This conversation will be about the direction DreamForge will take and how I would like to handle new releases and how to keep the train rolling as much as possible while limiting delays as much as possible.

Where have I been since my last post? Working on prints, testing a few theories about mold manufacturing with an eye to efficiency, repeatability and quality.

Where to go from here…. Well, that is a rather large question with some fairly complicated moving parts. I love doing what I am doing but at the end of the day, this is a business and all paths forward must be manageable, efficient and profitable. With the other conversations behind us I can address my path forward.

•  Production will be moved in house, for cost, quality control and to allow for ease of movement from one product to the next. Should one flop, the investment will be minimal, and the next release more easily moved into, as I will be controlling the manufacturing aspects and it facilitates a far more inventory on hand friendly option. Manufacturing just what you need when you need it keeps 'dead stock' issues to a minimum. The obvious down side is that this does impact my design time as I am elbow deep in the manufacturing process.

• I will be releasing product in waves, making enough for the anticipated first product push and not returning to that product until there is a production slot open to deal with the extra run. This may cause issues where the supply does not meet the demand, but it is a necessary evil. Every kit setting on a shelf, is money tied up, money that could and should be used for the next release.

•   New kits and re-issues of older kits will be in resin, the costs to tool and run the product are far more manageable and I went over in the previous paragraphs, it allows me far more financial freedom and the ability to tailor my production and keep a more fluid release schedule on hand. Having a 500 unit minimum and a 4-6 month lead on restocks simply does not work for a company my size.)       The plastic kits are limited to stock on hand, if you want them, you might want to pick them up   while they are available, once they are gone, they are gone. They will be replaced by the resin versions in the future. The infantry will not be discounted as the supply is very limited. Any kit in stock that has too much excess inventory will see some great sales until the stock levels reach a minimal level.

• I know some of you may not have had stellar results from resin kits, I will do my best to control quality and have been experimenting with a few techniques to minimize the gate and vent size down to 1/16" (about 1mm) to help get rid of the issues with massive cleanup and destroyed details due to overly large pour gates. This process does have some drawbacks. The resin I use cannot be fast setting, which means a mold may not see more than two casts per day. To address this issue, I have worked out a means to make many copies of the same molds, quickly and efficiently. There is simply no way to match the production speed of injected plastic but considering its tooling costs and the lead time needed, it is not an option within this niche market where the 'new shiny', it what sells.  I much prefer being able to continually release great products than hope a kit has staying power to pay for the initial investment.

Would I ever consider a plastic release? Yes, given the right kit, it is still a better means of production. Having the experience, I have gained so far, I have a good feel of what will and what will not survive a long release, the only questions is whether the community will have moved on to the next game/product in the meantime.

 So, now you know the direction… What's next?

Hover StuG!

I will be doing a bit more mold testing and refining of process and then the initial run of the StuG can begin. The initial run will be 200-300 kits 

Here you can see a pre-production test!

Shadokesh!

Ferals and troopers, really cool kits, fun as hell to model these, but without a game or other driving force to push sales and no obvious 'counts as' the sales on these may be a little soft. I will keep my initial run fairly small while keeping an eye on my customers reactions.

The Ferals are shown here with all five poses, the Shadokesh trooper is one of the five, just working on the prints for the other four.

Re-Release 

Panzerjager!

These have been OOS for some time and will be the first re-release, followed closely by other infantry lines. The re-releases will be roughly in the same format, separate arms and chests, etc, but I may join up some components that were split to ease manufacturing, assembly and part count issues.

After that? The Protectorate! Honestly not doing these in plastic is a blessing and a curse. I know they would sell with enough initial volume but the freedom of not needing to respect the 'direction of pull' of a hard too means I can start to really flex some modeling muscle and make them as cool as possible.

And after that? Buildings, terrain, other vehicles, races, etc.…..

My intent is to get far more interactive with the community regarding those future releases, asking for feedback and taking critiques to make every kit the best I can. The re-releases, StuG and Shadokesh are basically done from the modeling aspect, so, they are what they are…. But I look forward to flexing the old grey matter with all of you for the future lines. Its going to be fun, its going to be cool and I hope to see many of you helping to shape the products you want!

TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2019

The new year is here, and so Top 10 season is upon us. The tradition is to rank media in a seemingly arbitrary fashion so here's my oh-so personal list of moves faves that came out 2019. What will be number 1? Read on to find out...

Read more »

Brave Browser the Best privacy-focused product of 2020

Out of all the privacy-focused products and apps available on the market, Brave has been voted the best. Other winners of Product Hunt's Golden Kitty awards showed that there was a huge interest in privacy-enhancing products and apps such as chats, maps, and other collaboration tools.

An extremely productive year for Brave

Last year has been a pivotal one for the crypto industry, but few companies managed to see the kind of success Brave did. Almost every day of the year has been packed witch action, as the company managed to officially launch its browser, get its Basic Attention Token out, and onboard hundreds of thousands of verified publishers on its rewards platform.

Luckily, the effort Brave has been putting into its product hasn't gone unnoticed.

The company's revolutionary browser has been voted the best privacy-focused product of 2019, for which it received a Golden Kitty award. The awards, hosted by Product Hunt, were given to the most popular products across 23 different product categories.

Ryan Hoover, the founder of Product Hunt said:

"Our annual Golden Kitty awards celebrate all the great products that makers have launched throughout the year"

Brave's win is important for the company—with this year seeing the most user votes ever, it's a clear indicator of the browser's rapidly rising popularity.

Privacy and blockchain are the strongest forces in tech right now

If reaching 10 million monthly active users in December was Brave's crown achievement, then the Product Hunt award was the cherry on top.

The recognition Brave got from Product Hunt users shows that a market for privacy-focused apps is thriving. All of the apps and products that got a Golden Kitty award from Product Hunt users focused heavily on data protection. Everything from automatic investment apps and remote collaboration tools to smart home products emphasized their privacy.

AI and machine learning rose as another note-worthy trend, but blockchain seemed to be the most dominating force in app development. Blockchain-based messaging apps and maps were hugely popular with Product Hunt users, who seem to value innovation and security.

For those users, Brave is a perfect platform. The company's research and development team has recently debuted its privacy-preserving distributed VPN, which could potentially bring even more security to the user than its already existing Tor extension.

Brave's effort to revolutionize the advertising industry has also been recognized by some of the biggest names in publishing—major publications such as The Washington Post, The Guardian, NDTV, NPR, and Qz have all joined the platform. Some of the highest-ranking websites in the world, including Wikipedia, WikiHow, Vimeo, Internet Archive, and DuckDuckGo, are also among Brave's 390,000 verified publishers.

Earn Basic Attention Token (BAT) with Brave Web Browser

Try Brave Browser

Get $5 in free BAT to donate to the websites of your choice.