Monty Wolfe on Loving Cinema

Monty Wolfe

In this profile series, Revry is highlighting authentic contributors to the LGBTQ media and entertainment community. We ask questions to find out who they are and where they are going in the future. The questions remain the same but the answers tell their unique story. It’s time to explore and celebrate true representation beyond the limits of Hollywood. 

Growing up gay in rural Louisiana, Monty Wolfe battled his loneliness by immersing himself in cinema. He found kinship and inspiration in films such as STAR WARS, THE DARK CRYSTAL, and SOME LIKE IT HOT. His VCR became his priest, therapist, and teacher all rolled into one. His love of movies eventually matured into a love of filmmaking, and he made his first films using an 8mm film camera and later a VHS camcorder. After a decade of working in television news, Monty moved to Portland, Oregon where he attended Portland State University School of Film and received a BA in film. As part of his studies, he put together his first award-winning film, IN PIECES. Encouraged by the success of this student film, Monty would go on to write, produce, direct, and edit two more shorts: LOOK UP!, a comedy inspired by European art films of the 1970’s, and TREASURE, a gay love story set in a post-apocalyptic forest. Both films have done well on the film festival circuit winning various awards and accolades, and TREASURE is streaming on Revry. 

What are you best known for?

I guess I’m best known for writing, directing, and editing LGBTQ-themed films that teeter between earnest and ironic, wholesome and decadent. In my films, regardless of genre or tone, the gay protagonists always find love. Characters are drawn to each other, cosmically pulled together, as if finding a same-sex soulmate is fated and inevitable. My films are hopeful and optimistic, no doubt a reaction to the trauma of coming of age during the height of the AIDS epidemic, when the prospects of a happily ever after seemed hopelessly impossible.

What is the first thing you directed?

My first real project was IN PIECES, a gay spin on the self-aware teen comedies of the 1990’s. I developed, wrote, produced, directed, and edited it as my final project in film school. Encouraged by my professors, I entered it in a few festivals where it went on to win several awards including Best LGBTQ Short at the Oregon Independent Film Festival. 

What are you working on that no one knows about yet?

I’m currently shooting my first feature called THE EXPLODING BOY; a gay comedy about a misanthropic teenager, his wistful mother, and a mysterious juvenile delinquent, and how they all become better people by opening up and embracing love.