Michael Gamilla, longtime program director for the ImageOut film festival, dies at 55 

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Michael Gamilla, who was program director for ImageOut for 20 years and set the agenda for what became the largest film festival in New York dedicated to LGBTQ+ stories, died this week. He was 55.

Since his leukemia diagnosis in 2021, Gamilla kept friends and colleagues informed about his health through candid and often philosophic posts on Facebook, where he also reported his daily Wordle score.

Gamilla programmed the last two ImageOut festivals from his hospital bed.

Gerry Szymanski, a librarian for the Eastman School of Music, said Gamilla made global connections to give Rochester access to important international films.

“He was able to find things that showed so many different aspects of our broad range of sexuality and expression, and gender,” Szymanski said. “It's just amazing the things that he's been able to sort of channel to us.”

Gamilla was born in Manila, The Philippines, and moved to the United States with family members as an adult. Those who knew him said he saw connecting Rochester audiences to global LGBTQ+ experiences as critical to the mission of ImageOut.

“That is Michael's legacy, really bringing us diverse films that tell all of the stories, all of the different LGBTQ+ experiences and bringing us those foreign films,” said ImageOut Managing Director Braden Reese. "It's an incredible legacy that I know ImageOut as an organization looks forward to carrying on in his memory and in his honor.”

Gamilla became the program director of ImageOut — a volunteer position — in 2003 and established himself as bold leader unafraid to take risks.

In 2021, for instance, he convinced Amazon Studios to let ImageOut screen the film adaptation of the musical “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie” before it became available to stream.

Kevin Indovino, a producer, director, and editor at WXXI Public Media, met Gamilla through mutual friends in 1994, when Gamilla had first moved to Seneca Falls and had started working at Frontier Communications. He said that back then, Gamilla was a shy, reserved person.

"It wasn’t until 2003 when we both got involved with ImageOut, when Michael started to come out of his shell,” Indovino said. “ImageOut really gave him the opportunity to make his voice be heard and his creative spirit to be seen. And through his efforts and passion for film over the past 20 years, Michael was able to raise ImageOut to greater heights and notoriety; being recognized internationally as one of the leading LGBT Film Festivals around the globe.”

Gamilla’s reach extended beyond Rochester to international communities. He was a juror for the Teddy Awards, the LGBTQ+ film award given annually by the Berlin-based Berlinale film festival, and he got ImageOut involved in the annual Iris Prize LGBTQ+ Film Festival in the United Kingdom.

His tenure was marked by collaborations with other local organizations, including The Little Theatre, the Jewish Film Festival, and the Rochester Fringe.

ImageOut board member Paul Allen said that Gamilla’s film curation was led by his sense of compassion for people and their differences.

“He was always looking outside the box for new stories, not just for the novelty, but for what they shared with us about people,” Allen said. “People with very different life experiences, or people that were just like us, but in a different time in a different place. And bringing those stories to Rochester was really a big passion for him."

Allen recalled an anecdote Gamilla shared during the closing night screening of an ImageOut festival at George Eastman Museum’s Dryden Theatre.

"He was dressed fabulously, and he gave his usual introduction,” Allen said. “But then he gave a very heartfelt moment when someone had yelled a slur at him on the street. And he spoke about just what that was like, but also that he was proud, and kept going. And I think that was the inspiration that a lot of us got from him — that none of us are really immune to what's going on. And he showed us a way to live fully, with the world as it is.”
Gamilla was selected by the Rochester Pride Festival committee to be the Grand Marshall for the Pride parade in 2022, but he was too sick to participate in the July event.

He was well enough to be present in the fall of 2022 when ImageOut honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award during the festival’s 30th anniversary Pearl Jubilee.

The ImageOut board said fulfilling Gamilla’s responsibilities for programming this year's fall festival, which takes place in October, will be a team effort. The festival’s First Cut Spring Film Festival takes place April 27 through May 7.

In 2013, Gamilla was part of a locally-produced documentary, “Shoulders to Stand On,” and spoke about the importance of the tight-knit community that ImageOut served.

“The most exciting part of going to an ImageOut movie,” he said, “is arriving there and looking around and seeing friendly faces, seeing people you haven't seen in a long time.”

Rebecca Rafferty is CITY's life editor. She can be reached at [email protected].