Lewis Tice, a longtime champion of queer cinema and longtime friend of WOW, died suddenly yesterday. He was just 44 years old. According to IndieWire:
Tice passionately worked in various capacities within the industry throughout his career. He launched and guided many films to success including Latter Days, Another Gay Movie, and Mysterious Skin for TLA Releasing, where he worked as Vice President of North American Operations at the time of his death.
Lewis also worked at over 20 film festivals including Sundance, the Chicago International Film Festival and Frameline. He served as a film programmer at the Philadelphia International Film Festival and QFest Philadelphia, and also produced several feature films including, ‘BearCity,’ ‘Longhorns’ and ‘Blood for Irina.’
His partner Kevin Kelly had this to say on Facebook this morning: “I just wanted to let everyone know what’s going on. My partner, Lewis Tice, has passed away very unexpectedly. He had been in his office in NYC for the past couple of weeks working, he was due to come home next week. They are speculating it was natural causes, I should know more in the next couple of days. I appreciate everyone’s thoughts and prayers during this time.”
Tice was featured in the WOW documentary When I Knew, talking about the moment he knew he was gay. Apparently, he and his best friend LOOOOOOOVED Bruce Boxleitner (lol) and one night they were pretending to be Bruce and Kate Jackson in The Scarecrow and Mrs King – so ’80s, I love it – and while they were kissing and rubbing up on each other – VOILA! He realized he was gay. Watch the clip below.
Writes TLA Entertainment Group CEO Derek Curl: ”Lewis has been my closest colleague for over 10 years. He was there for most of my firsts in the film business, protecting me from the sharks and introducing me to the people he knew…which was everyone. It is a devastating loss to me personally, to LGBT cinema and to all the filmmakers that relied on his kind soul and glorious laugh to get them through. This most sweet and talented man will be missed by all who had the good fortune to know and work with him,”
See also: A kind remembrance at HorrorMovies.ca
The post RIP Lewis Tice, Producer, Publicist, and Festival Programmer appeared first on World of Wonder.