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An LGBTQ film festival or queer film festival is a specialized film festival that has an LGBTQ focus in its selection of films. [1] [2] [3] LGBT film festivals often screen films that would struggle to find a mainstream audience and are often activist spaces for awareness-raising around LGBT rights as well as for community building among queer communities.[ citation needed ]
The first LGBTQ-focused film festivals were organized in the United States as part of the awakening LGBTQ movement in the United States in the 1970s. The longest-running film festival with an LGBT focus is the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco, which was established in 1977. [4] Until the 1990s, LGBTQ film festivals were mostly informal screenings in Western countries. In the 1990s, NGOs were founded to create and promote queer-focused film festivals and festivals became more commercialized. Around this time, more queer-focused film festivals began to emerge, especially in East Asia and Eastern Europe. [5]
LGBT film festivals use different labels to promote their focus on LGBTQ topics, for instance "gay and lesbian" (such as the Hong Kong Lesbian & Gay Film Festival); "queer" (such as the Asian Queer Film Festival); "rainbow" (such as the Rainbow Reel Tokyo); "LGBT", "LGBTQ", and other variations of the acronym (such as the Connecticut LGBTQ Film Festival); or they might not use a label in their name at all (such as the MIX NYC). [6]
In 2020, several queer film festivals—Los Angeles's Outfest, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, Toronto's Inside Out Film and Video Festival, and San Francisco's Frameline Film Festival—partnered to launch the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBTQ film. [7]
Dorothy Louise Taliaferro "Del" Martin and Phyllis Ann Lyon were an American lesbian couple based in San Francisco who were known as feminist and gay-rights activists.
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.
Vito Russo was an American LGBT activist, film historian, and author. He is best remembered as the author of the book The Celluloid Closet, described in The New York Times as "an essential reference book" on homosexuality in the US film industry. In 1985, he co-founded the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a media watchdog organization that strives to end anti-LGBT rhetoric, and advocates for LGBT inclusion in popular media.
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.
The rainbow flag or pride flag is a symbol of LGBTQ pride and LGBTQ social movements. The colors reflect the diversity of the LGBTQ community and the spectrum of human sexuality and gender. Using a rainbow flag as a symbol of LGBTQ pride began in San Francisco, California, but eventually became common at LGBTQ rights events worldwide.
The GLBT Historical Society maintains an extensive collection of archival materials, artifacts and graphic arts relating to the history of LGBTQ people in the United States, with a focus on the LGBT communities of San Francisco and Northern California.
Shanghai Pride is a Chinese LGBT NGO who organize LGBT pride events in Shanghai, mainly in the form of art exhibitions and film projections. It was one of the first LGBT event to take place in mainland China. The events organized by the NGO in Shanghai under the appellation 'Shanghai Pride' have been on hiatus since 2020.
Susan O'Neal Stryker is an American professor, historian, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses on gender and human sexuality. She is a professor of Gender and Women's Studies, former director of the Institute for LGBT Studies, and founder of the Transgender Studies Initiative at the University of Arizona, and is currently on leave while holding an appointment as Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership at Mills College. Stryker serves on the Advisory Council of METI and the Advisory Board of the Digital Transgender Archive. Stryker, who is a transgender woman, is the author of several books about LGBT history and culture. She is a leading scholar of transgender history.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) community in San Francisco is one of the largest and most prominent LGBT communities in the United States, and is one of the most important in the history of American LGBT rights and activism alongside New York City. The city itself has been described as "the original 'gay-friendly city'". LGBT culture is also active within companies that are based in Silicon Valley, which is located within the southern San Francisco Bay Area.
ShanghaiPRIDE Film Festival (ShPFF) (Chinese: 上海骄傲电影节), is an annual LGBT film festival held in Shanghai, China. It was first established in 2015.
Seattle has a notably large LGBTQ community, and the city of Seattle has protected gay and lesbian workers since the passage of the Fair Employment Practice Ordinance in 1973. Seattle's LGBT culture has been celebrated at Seattle Pride which began in 1977 as Gay Pride Week. Gay cabaret traveled in a circuit including Seattle and San Francisco since the 1930s. Seattle had gay-friendly clubs and bars since the 1930s including The Casino in Underground Seattle at Pioneer Square which allowed same-sex dancing since 1930, and upstairs from it, The Double Header, in continuous operation since 1933 or 1934 until 2015, was thought to be the oldest gay bar in the United States.
&PROUD is a non-profit organization in Yangon, Myanmar, that organizes LGBTIQ art and culture events. &PROUD is best known for their yearly Yangon Pride festival, which takes place over two weekends at the end of January. The festival includes &PROUD LGBTIQ Film Festival, which usually occurs during the second weekend. In addition, there is an 'On The Road' programme that takes film screenings to other towns, cities and universities around Myanmar.
Vilnius Queer Festival “Kreivės” is an annual LGBT film festival in Lithuania. The term "Kreivės" from the Lithuanian language means "the curves".
It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School is a 1996 American documentary film directed by Debra Chasnoff and Helen Cohen. It provides educators with information on how to teach elementary schoolchildren to be tolerant of gay and lesbian people. The film was noted as the "first of its kind" and was generally well received, although there was some backlash from conservatives. It was released in several film festivals, and had screenings in the 2000s.
Ahead of the Curve is a 2020 American biographical documentary film co-produced and co-directed by Jen Rainin and Rivkah Beth Medow, with music composed by Meshell Ndegeocello. The film is based on the true story of Franco Stevens, one of the most influential women in lesbian history, and the founding publisher of Curve Magazine, a leading international lesbian lifestyle magazine. Portraying themselves in the film are, Franco Stevens, Kim Katrin, Denice Frohman, Amber Hikes, Andrea Pino-Silva, Melissa Etheridge and Jewelle Gomez. The documentary premiered in June 2020 at the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival.