Manny de Guerre will be receiving the inaugural International Advocate for Change Award. De Guerre will presented the award by Maria Menounos and Kelly Osbourne at the 25th Annual GLAAD Media Awards evet to be held in Los Angeles on April 12, 2014.
Manny de Guerre is a founding organizer of the Side by Side LGBT Film Festival in St. Petersburg. The festival offers a safe space where straigth and LGBT Russians can come together in dialogue. The main theme of the festival is “different love, equal rights”. Manny de Guerre has also carried out extensive research in Russia concerning the importance of the arts and culture and its social, political, and psychological significance.
The 2013 Side by Side Film Festival was the first held after Russia passed the so-called "anti-propaganda law" and endured five bomb threats. Dustin Lance Black, Bruce Cohen, and Gus Van Sant attended the festival to screen their film Milk, and also were interrupted by a bomb threat. The program garnered international attention as one of many LGBT programs in Russia that faced considerable obstacles.
De Guerre will be presented the International Advocate for Change Award by Maria Menounos and Kelly Osbourne. This fall Menounos and Osbourne participated in a campaign to bring visibility and support to LGBT Russians.
In conjunction with the inaugural International Advocate for Change Award to be presented at the 25th Annual GLAAD Media Awards, GLAAD is highlighting international advocates working through the media to advance equality across the globe. Over the last two weeks, we have profiled 12 LGBT leaders from around the world.
Earlier this year GLAAD launched the GLAAD Global Voices program, which aims to build support for LGBT equality across the globe by sharing culture-changing stories of LGBT people and families in national and international media.
The GLAAD Media Awards ceremonies will be held in Los Angeles on April 12, 2014 at The Beverly Hilton and in New York on May 3 at the Waldorf Astoria New York. The GLAAD Media Awards recognize and honor media for their fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the LGBT community and the issues that affect their lives. The GLAAD Media Awards also fund GLAAD's work to amplify stories from the LGBT community and issues that build support for equality.
GLAAD is proud to recognize individuals such as Manny de Guerre who through their work help promote the international conversation about the inclusion of the LGBT community.