Queer Festivals

To what extent is queer anti-identitarian? And how is it experienced by activists at the European level? At queer festivals, activists, artists and participants come together to build new forms of sociability and practice their ideals through anti-binary and inclusive idioms of gender and sexuality. These ideals are moreover channelled through a series of organisational and cultural practices that aim at the emergence of queer as a collective identity. Through the study of festivals in Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Copenhagen, and Oslo, Queer Festivals: Challenging Collective Identities in a Transnational Europe thoughtfully analyses the role of activist practices in the building of collective identities for social movement studies as well as the role of festivals as significant repertoires of collective action and sites of identitarian explorations in contemporary Europe.

This book examines the queer film festival and opens the discussion on social enterprises and sustainable lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) organisations. With over 220 events worldwide and some of the bigger budgets exceeding $1 million, the queer film festival has grown to become a staple event in all cosmopolitan cities’ arts calendars. While activism was instrumental in establishing these festivals, the pink dollar has been a deciding factor in its financial sustainability. Pretty gay boys with chiselled abs are a staple feature, rather than underground experimental faire. Community arts events, such as these, are now a creative industry. While clearly having a social purpose, they must also concern themselves with the bottom line. For all the contradictory elements of its organisational growth, this conflict makes the queer film festival an integral site for analysis. This book takes a multidisciplinary approach in examining the queer film festival as a representative snapshot of the current state of queer cinema and community based film festivals. The book looks at queer film festivals in San Francisco, Hong Kong and Melbourne to argue for the importance of these institutions remaining as community events.

This book explores two festivals over ten years: Queer Zagreb and Ljubljana Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Kajinić focuses on the festivals’ participation in a regional network of queer festivals and provides an insight into how these festivals and their audiences negotiated the limits of non-normativity in particularly intensive ways between 2002-2012. By offering an interdisciplinary perspective and exploring the possibilities of critical visual methodology, the author relates the history of these important cultural projects and their organizational practices to the ways in which they impacted the lives of their participants. Post-Yugoslav Queer Festivals will be of interest to readers studying the region of Southeast Europe from a range of perspectives including gender studies, history, politics and festival studies.

While scholars have theorized major film festivals, they have ignored smaller, ephemeral, events. In taking seriously minor European and North-American LGBT festivals which often only exist as traces within archival collections, this book revisits festival studies' methodological and theoretical apparatuses. As the first 'critique' of festival studies from within, LGBTQ Film Festivals argues that both festivals and queer film cultures are by definition ephemeral. The book is organized around two concepts: First, 'critical festival studies' examines the political project and disciplinary assumptions that structure festival research. Second, 'the festival as a method' pays attention to festivals' role as producers of knowledge: it argues that festivals are not mere objects of research but also actors already shaping academic, industrial, and popular cinematic knowledge. Drawing on my experience on the festival circuit, this book pays homage to the labour of queer organizers, critics, and scholars and opens up new avenues for festival research.

"As LGBTQ people gain more legal rights, it's important to think of more complex ways of being included in society. From the Mardi Gras celebrations in the Deep South to the Mummers Parade in Philadelphia to the Portland Rose Festival, communities across the United States gather together to celebrate, participate in parades, encourage tourism, cultivate local traditions, and craft a sense of place. I am interested in large public festivals like Fiesta San Antonio that are intended to include everyone in the city, because these festivals are supposed to be a time when the city comes together as one to appreciate the diverse contributions of people within the city. During festivals, whose culture gets included and valued, which events are allowed, and how different communities are represented, become socially significant and fraught questions. Festival participation can be a rich site for LGBTQ participants to be valued for their cultural differences and find a sense of belonging in the city"--

This book explores two festivals over ten years: Queer Zagreb and Ljubljana Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Kajinić focuses on the festivals’ participation in a regional network of queer festivals and provides an insight into how these festivals and their audiences negotiated the limits of non-normativity in particularly intensive ways between 2002-2012. By offering an interdisciplinary perspective and exploring the possibilities of critical visual methodology, the author relates the history of these important cultural projects and their organizational practices to the ways in which they impacted the lives of their participants. Post-Yugoslav Queer Festivals will be of interest to readers studying the region of Southeast Europe from a range of perspectives including gender studies, history, politics and festival studies.

Movies, stars, auteurs, critics, and the sheer excitement of cinema come together in film festivals as quintessential constellations of art, business, and glamour. Yet, how well do we actually understand the forces and meanings that these events embody? Film Festivals offers the first comprehensive overview of the history, people, films, and multiple functions of the festival world. From Sundance to Hong Kong, from the glitter of Cannes to edgier festivals that challenge boundaries or foster LGBTQ cultural production, film festivals celebrate art, promote business, bring cinema to diverse audiences, and raise key issues about how we see our world. Cindy Hing-Yuk Wong situates festivals within changing global practices of film, including their important ties to both Hollywood and independent cinema. She explores how these events have become central in the construction of cinema knowledge as well as the behind-the-scene mechanics of finance, distribution, and evaluation. By linking general structures and connections to specific films and auteurs, Wong addresses the components and creation of film festivals that continue to reshape filmmaking as art and business.

From Hollywood films to TV soap operas, from Vegas extravaganzas to Broadway theater to haute couture, this comprehensive encyclopedia contains over 200 entries and 200 photos that document the irrepressible impact of queer creative artists on popular culture. How did Liberace’s costumes almost kill him? Which lesbian comedian spent her high school years as “the best white cheerleader in Detroit?” For these answers and more, fans can dip into The Queer Encyclopedia of Film, Theater, and Popular Culture. Drawn from the fascinating online encyclopedia of queer arts and culture, www.glbtq.com — which the Advocate dubbed “the Encyclopedia Brittaniqueer” — this may be the only reference book in which RuPaul and Jean Cocteau jostle for space. From the porn industry to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, from bodybuilding to Dorothy Arzner, it’s a queer, queer world, and The Queer Encyclopedia is the indispensable guide: readable, authoritative, and concise. And perfect to read by candelabra. (The answers to the two questions above: from the dry cleaning fumes, Lily Tomlin.)