Meet Alanna Francis
Development and Community Outreach Manager for Three Dollar Bill Cinema
Alanna is the Development and Community Outreach Manager for Three Dollar Bill Cinema.
What is your relationship with Capitol Hill?
Capitol Hill has been a place that I have worked for the last six or seven years. I have worked at a variety of different nonprofits that have served Capitol Hill and surrounding neighborhoods. I’m also a part of the queer community so I have really seen some of the shifts in the last maybe 10 years.
What’s your favorite business to support in the neighborhood?
Retail Therapy it’s just freaking quaint. It’s a little bit radical and a little bit of everything, which is kind of my vibe. Also Kaladi Brothers Coffee Co., they have housemade syrup and their oat milk is delicious.
Favorite restaurant?
Fogon, the food is phenomenal and so are the drinks and the Happy Hour prices. And their regular prices aren’t going to, you know, make you cry a little bit.
Tell us more about Three Dollar Bill Cinema.
We started our flagship program, the Seattle Queer Film Festival, about 26 years ago. It’s had a lot of metamorphosis over the years. The 10-day festival is set for October 14 to 24 this year. We’re already working on it now and looking for what the vibe is going to be.
When we went virtual and found success, we really recognized the importance of accessibility. Now that we have the ability for our films to reach anyone and everyone, we’re really trying to keep that virtual aspect because that is such a powerful part of our queer communities.
We have a new mission and vision this year and we’ve started to implement values as well. As an organization, we want to foster deeper community engagement by showcasing queer film programming, educational experiences, and social dialogue. And then our vision for that is elevating the spectrum of queer stories to help create a just and equitable world.
What does Pride mean to you?
A multitude of realities that I live within — I would say that it means a lot. It’s also a time to rock the boat and an explosion of color. It’s when summer hits the area, we’re coming straight up in the middle of Gemini season and going into Cancer season so there is high energy and lots of emotion.
It’s also a time to celebrate and engage in the freedoms that we have as well as recognize all our privileges, and that we are here because of the people before us. There have been many people left out of our histories and our stories and our conversations, so Pride for me is an opportunity to really make sure that our Black and trans stories, our Indigenous and Two Spirit stories, are all being told in really impactful ways.
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