Queer Film Festival Studies

A list of links to openly accessible online studies of, or scholarly resources associated with, Queer Film Festivals

Dedicated with thanks to Skadi Loist, who, along with Ragan Rhyne, Ger Zielinski and others in the list below, is a continuing pioneer in this field

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Queer film festivals globally (1977–2012) [click here to see the full, interactive map]

The full, interactive, version of the above map, created by queer film festival scholar Skadi Loist (co-founder, with Marijke de Valck,  of the Film Festival Studies Network, and  one of the key team members at the new Film Festival Academy) shows 256 LGBT/queer film festivals existing globally since 1977. A pin with a dot inside shows a still existing festival, while an empty pin stands for a terminated festival. The historical development of the LGBT/Q film festival circuit is represented by color-coding, each color indicating a specific time period. I follow the four historical phases proposed by Ragan Rhyne in her PhD thesis “Pink Dollars: Gay and Lesbian Film Festivals and the Economy of Visibility” (2007). In the 1st phase (BLUE: 1977–1990) these festivals were established; the 2nd phase (GREEN: 1991–1996) was marked by building relationships between festivals and the commercial industry; in the 3rd phase (YELLOW: 1996–2001) the gay and lesbian film festival model proliferated globally, and in the 4th (RED: 2001–2006) major sponsorship links to television developed (Rhyne: 4-5). The current, final phase (VIOLET: 2007–2012) is largely characterized by network building.

Another great resource for queer film festivals is Wolfe Video’s LGBT Film Festival Guide on Facebook, organised by Jenni Olson. The page works like a feed for all the updates of over 170 queer film fests on Facebook. It’s a neat one stop shop for festival updates, and if you click to subscribe it shows up on your interests page without bombarding your feed with updates. You can also subscribe to updates on Twitter here. Or check out Jenni’s blog Butch.org.

 

The collections of links to resources gathered here are curated by Catherine Grant (University of Sussex and Film Studies For Free). They are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.

News of significant updates will be posted first at the GQC blog.

If you have suggestions for further links (including to studies in languages other than English), or further links categories, or, indeed, any offers of help with, or feedback about, the above, please email us at gqcproject[at]gmail[dot]com. Thank you.