The Inside Out Film and Video Festival (formerly, Inside Out Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival),[1] also known as the Inside Out LGBT or LGBTQ Film Festival,[2][3] is an annual Canadianfilm festival, which presents a program of LGBT-related film.[4] The festival is staged in both Toronto and Ottawa.[5] Founded in 1991, the festival is now the largest of its kind in Canada.[6]Deadline dubbed it "Canada’s foremost LGBTQ film festival."[7]
The organization also presents a series of film screenings throughout the year outside of the dedicated festival, as well as a touring program of short film screenings in smaller towns and cities within Southern Ontario. The organization's current executive director is Lauren Howes, who succeeded Andria Wilson in 2021.[8]
Toronto LGBT Film Festival
First held at Toronto's Euclid Theatre in 1991,[9] Inside Out celebrated its festival with a small community of people who yearned to see film and video created by and about lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people. The festival was briefly the subject of controversy in 1993, when Metro Toronto council refused an arts grant to support the 1994 festival on the grounds of "community standards", even though the council had given grants to the festival in both 1991 and 1992 without issue.[10] The festival was able to make up the lost funding that year when numerous arts organizations in the city, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Toronto International Film Festival, the National Ballet School, Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, and the Danny Grossman Dance Company made donations to the festival.[11]
The festival has since expanded to incorporate a variety of programs related to the promotion and development of LGBT films and filmmakers in Canada.[12] Currently the largest event of its kind in Canada,[6]Deadline dubbed it "Canada’s foremost LGBTQ film festival."[7] Previously staged at a variety of venues in Toronto,[13] the festival is now staged at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.[14]
Since 2009, RBC Royal Bank has served as the presenting sponsor of the Toronto Festival.[15] The festival bills itself as "a not-for-profit registered charity that exists to challenge attitudes and change lives through the promotion, production and exhibition of film made by and about lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people of all ages, races and abilities."[15]
In 2016, a number of local activists launched the Toronto Queer Film Festival, an alternative intended for filmmakers and audiences who perceive Inside Out's current programming as too commercialized and mainstream.[16]
In March 2020, the festival organizers announced that due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, the 2020 festival, normally scheduled for May, would be postponed to October.[17] In July, they announced that the Toronto and Ottawa events would be combined into a single digital event.[18] Due to the unique online nature of the event, the winners of the juried awards were announced at the beginning of the festival, as a tool to help publicize the winners during the festival,[19] although audience-voted awards were still announced after the festival's conclusion.
The 2021 festival returned to the event's traditional scheduling in late May, although it was still staged online. The event was available to viewers throughout Ontario; the films in the Spotlight on Canada program were screened for free through a sponsorship agreement with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.[20]
The online platform that was used for both the 2020 and 2021 festivals is also planned to remain in permanent operation, both as a year-round distribution platform for LGBTQ films and as an additional accessibility option once the festival is able to return to traditional physical screenings.[8]
In addition to the annual film festival events, the Inside Out organization also offers a number of dedicated training and funding programs to foster the creation of LGBT-themed film in Canada.
In 1998, with the support of Charles Street Video, Inside Out initiated the Queer Video Mentorship Project to provide opportunities for youth to learn video production in a supportive atmosphere.[25] Queer youth under the age of 25 are mentored through the process of making their first videos, from storyboarding and shooting to post-production and editing. In celebration of the festival's 20th anniversary in 2010, Inside Out expanded this into a multi-generational program bringing together LGBT youth and seniors over the age of 55. To date, close to 100 new artists have created work through the project.[citation needed] The works are screened at the festival and many go on to play at festivals around the globe. Each year, the works are compiled and distributed free to schools and community organizations.[citation needed]
In 2001, Inside Out launched the inaugural John Bailey Film and Video Completion Fund. Named in recognition of the contribution of a longtime Inside Out supporter and advisory board member, the fund awards grants ranging from $500 to $2,000 to Canadian filmmakers with work in the final stages of production.[citation needed]
Inaugurated in 2002, the Mark S. Bonham Scholarship for Queer Studies in Film and Video awards a $5,000 cash scholarship to a Canadian student who identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, to pursue post-secondary studies in the field of film or video.[26] The first scholarship was awarded in September 2002 to Adam Garnet Jones from Vancouver.[citation needed] Subsequent recipients were Mary Fogarty, Christopher Sanchez, Jung Kim, Cam Matamoros, Jo Simalaya Alcampo, Rachel Smyth, and Jordan Tannahill.[citation needed]
In 2018, the festival launched the Focus Fund to support work by LGBTQ female and non-binary filmmakers.[27] It also organizes an annual Finance Forum, providing an opportunity for emerging filmmakers to pitch LGBT-related projects in development to potential production funders.[28]
In 2019, the festival partnered with streaming service Crave as a branding partner on the service's new portal for LGBTQ film and television content,[29] as well as launching a partnership with Netflix to support the development and funding of new LGBTQ-oriented film and television content in Canada.[30]
In 2020, through the Focus Fund, the festival launched a special emergency relief fund, offering grants of up to $2,500 to projects impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.[31] The festival was also one of the key partners, alongside Outfest Los Angeles, the Frameline Film Festival, and the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, in launching the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film.[32]
Inside Out Arts Endowment Fund
The Inside Out Arts Endowment Fund was established in December 2001 through the Ontario Arts Foundation to provide a stable base of funding for Inside Out in the future.[citation needed] The fund was created thanks to a generous founding gift from Mark Bonham of $200,000, and it is currently valued at close to $300,000.[citation needed] Supporters of Inside Out can make tax-deductible donations specifically to the Endowment Fund.[citation needed]
"New queer cinema" is a term first coined by the academic B. Ruby Rich in Sight & Sound magazine in 1992 to define and describe a movement in queer-themed independent filmmaking in the early 1990s.
Jenni Olson is a writer, archivist, historian, consultant, and non-fiction filmmaker based in Berkeley, California. She co-founded the pioneering LGBT website PlanetOut.com. Her two feature-length essay films — The Joy of Life (2005) and The Royal Road (2015) — premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Her work as an experimental filmmaker and her expansive personal collection of LGBTQ film prints and memorabilia were acquired in April 2020 by the Harvard Film Archive, and her reflection on the last 30 years of LGBT film history was published as a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Queer Cinema from Oxford University Press in 2021. In 2020, she was named to the Out Magazine Out 100 list. In 2021, she was recognized with the prestigious Special TEDDY Award at the Berlin Film Festival. She also campaigned to have a barrier erected on the Golden Gate Bridge to prevent suicides.
NewFest: The New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival put on by The New Festival, Inc., is one of the most comprehensive forums of national and international LGBT film/video in the world.
Outfest is an LGBTQ-oriented nonprofit that produces two film festivals, operates a movie streaming platform, and runs educational services for filmmakers in Los Angeles. Outfest is one of the key partners, alongside the Frameline Film Festival, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, and the Inside Out Film and Video Festival, in launching the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film.
The Frameline Film Festival began as a storefront event in 1976. The first film festival, named the Gay Film Festival of Super-8 Films, was held in 1977. The festival is organized by Frameline, a nonprofit media arts organization whose mission statement is "to change the world through the power of queer cinema". It is the oldest LGBTQ+ film festival in the world.
The Iris Prize, established in 2007 by Berwyn Rowlands of The Festivals Company, is an international LGBTQ film prize and festival which is open to any film which is by, for, about or of interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex audiences and which must have been completed within two years of the prize deadline.
Although same-sex sexual activity was illegal in Canada up to 1969, gay and lesbian themes appear in Canadian literature throughout the 20th century. Canada is now regarded as one of the most advanced countries in legal recognition of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) rights.
The Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers is a Canadian literary award, presented annually by the Writers' Trust of Canada to an emerging Canadian writer who is part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer community. Originally presented as a general career achievement award for emerging writers that considered their overall body of work, since 2022 it has been presented to honor debut books.
Lynne Fernie is a Canadian filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist. She spent fourteen years as the Canadian Spectrum programmer for the Hot Docs Festival from 2002 to 2016, and was described as having a passion as "deep as her knowledge," and it was said that her "championing of Canadian documentaries and the people who make them has never wavered."
Bretten Hannam is a Canadian screenwriter and film director.
Peter Knegt is a Canadian writer, producer, and filmmaker. He is the recipient of five Canadian Screen Awards and his CBC Arts column Queeries received the 2019 Digital Publishing Award for best digital column in Canada.
Sonali Patel, also known as Alyy Patel, is a Canadian LGBTQ+ activist. She is best known for her research, advocacy, and public speaking engagements concerning the issues and experiences of Queer South Asian Women in Canada. Patel has made monumental strides for Queer South Asian diaspora in the Canadian LGBTQ+ movement. Patel is among the first to academically theorize and advocate for the culturally unique discrimination against Queer South Asian Women in North American LGBTQ+ Communities. Patel is a pioneer of research on Queer South Asian Women in Canada. Patel first coined the acronym 'QSAW' to abbreviate 'Queer South Asian Women' as a group or collective identity.
Supporting Our Selves is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Lulu Wei and released in 2023. The film centres on the history of the Community One Foundation, a fundraising and community-building organization which has played a key role in the development of the LGBT community in Toronto, Ontario, using it as a lens through which to view the significant changes in the community over the decades, including the tensions between "old guard" activists who were prominent in the 1980s and contemporary young people who are taking the lead today.
↑ Warner, Tom (2002). "Inside Out Film and Video Festival". Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press. pp.334–335. ISBN9781442677623. OCLC288096774.
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