Abolition Film Society

VQFF co-presents a short film presentation with Abolition Film Society, curated by Kriss Li.

Abolition encourages us to reconsider assumptions about justice and build support systems that actually make our queer communities safer. Queer people are at greater risk of experiencing homelessness, extreme poverty, sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and other conditions that lead to encounters with police. Queer liberation, as a critical and collective movement against the status quo, is itself central to movements of resistance. In a time when queerness imagines a world beyond what exists, curator Kriss Li uses film to galvanize toward abolition.

Short films were sent to five incarcerated members of Prisoner Correspondence Project, a volunteer-run solidarity initiative for LGBTQ+ prisoners. Films were chosen based on the participants’ interests then distributed within the limitations of the prison system: as stills sent by mail, audio played on the phone, and low quality snippets on a for-profit online communication platform.

The in-person screening of these films is followed by a presentation with Kriss Li covering obstacles in sending materials into prison, vital inside-outside support networks, Canadian vs. American prison systems, and abolitionist practices. ASL interpretation provided.

Join us before and after the program at the “VQFF Lounge” at the same venue.