Queer Film Festival Studies

Click here to visit the full interactive version of the above map.

As identity-based festivals, queer film festivals have a specific relationship to the audience to which they cater. More specifically, most of these festivals have had a strong connection to the political and social movement behind the lesbian and gay/queer agenda and try to maintain this relationship between cultural event and political framework [...]. Because of this history, queer film festivals have a strong tradition of a nuanced critical inquiry into the interconnections of cultural event management, community politics, nation state politics, funding and marketing strategies, and organizational structures [...]. [From Skadi Loist and Marijke de Valck, 'LGBT / Queer Film Festivals', Film Festival Research Network, last updated November 2012]

Festivals are the primary markets for international queer film, but they do not simply acquire and screen the films they show; they actually create the economic conditions that enable their production. This is not to imply that queer internationalism is merely inauthentic or commercial and thus without any kind of political viability. Rather, what it indicates is that scholars, activists, and festival directors must begin to look at the economy of queer cultural production as an essential element of queer collectivities and the institutions they form. Conceiving of an international queer community through cultural circulation and consumption begs significant questions about how U.S. audiences understand the role of the festival in defining a gay and lesbian class identity within this global economy. [From Ragan Rhyne, 'The Global Economy of Gay and Lesbian Film Festivals', GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Volume 12, Number 4, 2006]

As the above two scholarly excerpts indicate, the subject of film festivals is one which raises numerous issues of central importance to cultural studies more generally. For this reason, as well as to celebrate the work of scholars who have shared their findings in particular corner of this field online, Film Studies For Free is delighted to announce that the latest set of links to open access queer film studies that it has created for its sibling Global Queer Cinema website is devoted to the topic of Queer Film Festival Studies. You can visit numerous earlier FSFF entries on film festival studies by clicking here.

This most recent collection in the GQC Resources section includes a link to the full, interactive, version of the map at the top of this entry, created by pioneering film festival scholar Skadi Loist (co-founder, with Marijke de Valck,  of the Film Festival Studies Network), which shows 256 LGBT/queer film festivals existing globally since 1977.

For live-link access to all the below resources, please visit this webpage.

• Chris Berry, 'My Queer Korea: Identity, Space, and the 1998 Seoul Queer Film & Video festival', Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context, Issue 2, May 1999
• Noa Ben-Asher, 'Screening Historical Sexualities: A Roundtable on Sodomy, South Africa, and Proteus',Pace Law Faculty Publications, 2005. Paper 589
• Kaucyila Brooke, 'Dividers and Doorways [on the locational politics of Los Angeles's Gay and Lesbian film festival]', Jump Cut, no. 42, December 1998, pp. 50-57
• Phillip B. Cook, 'Gay Sundance 2013: The Year Ahead in Independent Queer Cinema', The Blog, Huff Post Gay Voices, January 17, 2013
• Michael Guillén, The Evening Class blog, 2006-present
• Mel Hogan, '21 years of image & nation: legitimizing the gaze', Nouvelles «vues» sur le cinéma québécois, no. 10, Hiver 2008-2009
• Jamie June, 'Is it Queer Enough?: An Analysis of the Criteria and Selection Process for Programming Films within Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Film Festivals in the United States', MA Thesis, University of Oregon, August 2003
• Alice Kuzniar, 'Schwul-lesbisches Kino aus Deutschland', in: Bildschön: 20 Jahre Lesbisch Schwule Filmtage Hamburg, ed. by Dorothée von Diepenbroick and Skadi Loist (Hamburg: Maennerschwarm Verlag, 2009)
• Hui-Ling Lin, Bodies in Motion: The Films of Transmigrant Queer Chinese Women Filmmakers in Canada, PhD Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2011
• Skadi Loist, 'Precarious cultural work: about the organization of (queer) film festivals', Screen, 52.2, 2011
• Skadi Loist and Marijke de Valck (2010). “Film Festivals / Film Festival Research: Thematic, Annotated Bibliography: Second Edition.” Medienwissenschaft / Hamburg: Berichte und Papiere 91 (2010). (19. May. 2010 (sections: 1. Film Festivals: The Long View; 2. Festival Time: Awards, Juries and Critics; 3. Festival Space: Cities, Tourism and Publics; 4. On the Red Carpet: Spectacle, Stars and Glamour ; 5. Business Matters: Industries, Distribution and Markets; 6. Trans/National Cinemas; 7. Programming; 8. Reception: Audiences, Communities and Cinephiles; 9. Specialized Film Festivals; 10. Publications Dedicated to Individual Film Festivals; 11. Online Resources; Contact / Bio), 2008
• Skadi Loist, 'Queer Film and the Film Festival Circuit', In Media Res, September 14, 2010
• Skadi Loist, 'Das Queer Cinema und die Bedeutung lesbisch-schwuler Filmfestivals: Monika Treut im Interview mit Skadi Loist'n: Bildschön: 20 Jahre Lesbisch Schwule Filmtage Hamburg. Eds. Dorothée von Diepenbroick, and Skadi Loist. Hamburg: Männerschwarm, 2009. pp. 12–20
• Skadi Loist and Marijke de Valck, 'Film Festival Studies: An Overview of a Burgeoning Field', in: Film Festival Yearbook 1: The Festival Circuit. Eds. Dina Iordanova and Ragan Rhyne. St. Andrews: St. Andrews Film Studies, 2009. pp. 179–215
• Scott McKinnon, 'Taking the Word ‘Out’ West: Movie Reception and Gay Spaces', Participations, Volume 7, Issue 2 (November 2010) 
• Kelly McWilliam, 'We're Here All Week': Public Formation and the Brisbane Queer Film Festival. Queensland Review 14(2), 2007:pp. 79-91
• Jenni Olson, 'Film Festivals', GLBTQ: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture. 2002. 24 February 2007
• Ricardo Peach, Queer Cinema as a Fifth Cinema in South Africa and Australia, PhD Thesis, University of Technology, Sydney 2005
• Renee Penney, Desperately Seeking Redundancy? Queer Romantic Comedy and the Festival Audience, PhD Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2010
• Mel Pritchard, 'the big queer film festival list', QueerFilmFestivals.org
• Marc Siegel, 'Spilling Out onto Castro Street', Jump Cut No. 41 (May), 1997
• Amy Watson, Being Inappropriate: Queer Activism in Context, MA Thesis, Central European University 2009
• Gerald J. Z. Zielinski, Furtive, Steady Glances: On the Emergence and Cultural Politics of Lesbian and Gay Film Festivals, PhD Thesis, McGill University, August 2008
• Ger Zielinski, 'On the production of heterotopia, and other spaces, in and around lesbian and gay film festivals', Jump Cut, No 54, Fall 2012
• Ger Zielinski, '"Queer Film Festivals." LGBTQ America Today: An Encyclopedia. Eds. John C. Hawley, and Emmanuel S. Nelson. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2009. pp. 980–984
• Ger Zielinski in Conversation with Stephen Kent Jusick, Executive Director of MIX Festival of Queer Experimental Film and Video, FUSE Art Culture Politics (summer issue, 2010), pp. 16-23