Trouble getting entries after a certain date I have a bunch of entries with field eventStartDate and eventEndDate.

First I set the date

    {% set fwd = entry.eventStartDate|date_modify('+30 min')|date('c') %}


When I output the value of fwd, it is 2017-04-21T08:30:00-05:00 

So that's 4/21/2017 at 8:30 AM

Then I query the channel to get events after that date/time

{% set upcomingEvents = craft.entries
  .section('schedule')
  .order('eventStartDate asc')
  .eventStartDate('&gt; ' ~ fwd )
  .limit(5)
  .status('live, pending')
%}


I get events on 4/21/17 starting at 8:00AM, not what I intended.

Is my syntax wrong?
This code works - I double checked. I had a bug further down in my code.

{% set fwd = entry.eventStartDate|date_modify('+30 min')|date('c') %}

{% set upcomingEvents = craft.entries
  .section('schedule')
  .order('eventStartDate asc')
  .eventStartDate('&gt; ' ~ fwd )
  .limit(5)
  .status('live, pending')
%}