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SEARCHVQFF’s new training and mentorship program for BIPOC and 2SLGBTQIA+ film programmers welcome the 2023 cohort.
VANCOUVER – Out On Screen and the Vancouver Queer Film Festival are delighted to announce that Eva Grant, Romi Kim, and Jasmine Monton are the inaugural recipients of the VQFF Programming Disruptor Fellowship, a new training and mentorship program for emerging BIPOC, 2SLGBTQIA+ film programmers.
Led by Out On Screen’s new Artistic Director, Charlie Hidalgo (he/him), the Disruptor Fellowship program seeks to catalyze transformative change in the Canadian film industry and shepherd new talent into a field in critical need of diversification.
“The talent and vision of this group are astounding,” says Artistic Director Charlie Hidalgo. “Each brings a unique lens and robust creative practice to the program, ranging from film, performance, music, cultural programming, and community development. I couldn’t be more excited to collaborate with this brilliant team in the curation of the 35th anniversary of the Vancouver Queer Film Festival.”
The 2023 Disruptor Fellows were selected from a pool of 54 applicants. Each Fellow will receive at least $10,000 throughout the fellowship which will run from February to August. Spanning five phases, the Fellowship program combines masterclasses, workshops, and hands-on experience. Speakers will include Emmy, Peabody, and Critics Choice Award-nominated film producer Alex Schmider (Changing the Game, DISCLOSURE, Framing Agnes) and renowned LGBTQ+ media advocacy organization GLAAD.
“This program is designed to provide participants with a practical toolkit and robust ethical framework that will enable them to approach their curatorial practice in a restorative and impactful way, centering accountability, integrity, and community care,” added Hidalgo. “Over the coming years, we hope the graduates of this program become a force of transformative change in the Canadian film industry.”
The Fellowship program will culminate in the 35th annual Vancouver Queer Film Festival, an 11-day festival taking place in-person and online August 10-20, 2023. The Disruptor Fellows will be credited as Festival Programmers for their contributions in curating films and events for VQFF.
This year’s Festival programming team will also welcome Sarah-Tai Black (they/them) as Festival and Industry Programmer. Sarah-Tai is a film programmer and arts curator who works to center embodied Black, queer, trans, and crip futurities. They are interested in spaces and moments that inspire immediate, all-encompassing feeling, speak back to conventional ways of seeing and being seen, and experiment with presupposed boundaries of form and narrative.
The 2023 Programming Disruptor Fellows
Eva Grant (she/her) is a bilingual filmmaker operating at the intersection of queer and BIPOC storytelling, and the founder of Tooth & Nail Pictures. She is the creator of the dark comedy web series Degrees of Separation, a guest director on Couleurs du Nord, and in pre-production on her short film as an ImagineNATIVE Screenwriting Shorts Fellow. The CMF, IPF, BIPOC TV and Film, ISO, RWSI, BANFF Spark, and AGO have supported her work. Eva is a graduate of Stanford University, where she studied literature and philosophy. Her work is influenced by fantasy, futurism, mythology, death, love, and her mixed St’at’imc Indigenous, South and West Asian, and European heritage.
김새로미 Romi Kim (they/them), also known as SKIM in drag, is a genderfluid, second-generation Korean lesbian. Kim is an interdisciplinary artist that works in video, performance, installation, and photography. Their work has been exhibited in South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Canada, most recently at SUM Gallery and Polygon Art Gallery in Vancouver. They have performed internationally in South Korea, Vietnam, Berlin, San Francisco and Vancouver (Cultch Theatre, Upintheair Theatre, and Transform Cabaret Festival). SKIM is also a co-producer of the all-drag king and thing show Magic Dykes.
Jasmine Monton (they/she), who also goes by the stage name Audder, is an artist of multiple genres and multiple feelings. They are a self-defined “gate-reaper”, combating industry gatekeeping and growing healthy arts leadership. Jasmine values storytelling that brings dignity, depth, and wonder to the queer community. Once acknowledged at a film festival as “the overly enthusiastic volunteer”, they believe film and media are powerful sources of connection to personal identity and each other. Jasmine’s background is in community outreach, youth mentorship, event coordination, and music. They are co-producer of the Filipino Fridays Podcast.
About Out On Screen
Out On Screen is a charitable organization that illuminates, celebrates, and advances queer lives through film, education, and dialogue. The Vancouver Queer Film Festival creates a dynamic platform for queer cinema that reflects a diversity of experiences while connecting and strengthening our communities. The award-winning Out In Schools program brings age-appropriate queer cinema into school classrooms to combat homophobia, transphobia, and bullying, and to provide the language and tools for inclusion. Out On Screen is proud to be among the leaders in Canada working to create an equitable society where sexual and gender diversity are embraced. www.outonscreen.com
For further information and interview requests, please contact:
media@outonscreen.com
604-844-1615
MEDIA RELEASE
July 12, 2022
2022 LINEUP FOR VANCOUVER QUEER FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCED
FULL FESTIVAL PROGRAMME GUIDE RELEASED
ALONGSIDE MORE THAN 90 FILMS
FESTIVAL PASSES AND TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW AT WWW.QUEERFILMFESTIVAL.CA
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Queer Film Festival (VQFF) released today its complete lineup for the 11-day online and in-person film festival taking place August 11–21, which includes the best in queer film from local and international artists. 97 films from 20 countries are featured at this 34th Festival presented by RBC, along with in-person celebrations featuring local performing artists, post-screening Q&As with filmmakers, and industry and community workshops. Purchase all-access Festival Passes, online-only Digital Passes, or individual tickets at queerfilmfestival.ca. Browse the full programme online or in the PDF of the print Festival guide.
“In the early days of Out On Screen, the act of 2SLGBTQIA+ people unapologetically taking up physical space and putting our films on the big screen was revolutionary. This year’s theme “Make It Yours” is not just an echo of the DIY spirit this Festival was founded upon, but also a roar for our collective future. Our shared experiences and collective dreams are returning to our screens—big and small—again in this year’s wonderful program. I hope you find something you need in these beautiful films.” – Executive Director, Brandon Yan.
The Festival’s Opening Gala screening is the local premiere of Dave Rodden-Shortt’s feature documentary The Empress of Vancouver, an ode to local drag icon Oliv Howe, crowned the 10th Empress of the Vancouver Dogwood Monarchist Society in 1981. In the 80s, Oliv’s punk rock energy, gender-bending performances and DIY glam aesthetic spoke to a political and artistic shift in Vancouver’s drag community. This proudly local documentary brings to light queer artistic legacies and histories that have previously been unseen. This film will be available exclusively in person on opening night, with a fabulous queer royalty-themed Opening Night Party to follow the screening.
Our local shorts program The Coast Is Queer returns for its 25th anniversary year, available in person and online. Also returning are shorts programs: Obidian: Black Queer Cinema, subtitled AS I AM, and Two Spirit and Indigiqueer Cinema, which has been expanded into two shorts programs this year, A Brave and Tender Lineage and Sovereign Bodies.
This Festival proudly presents the Canadian premiere of French film Besties (Les Meilleures), a beautifully shot coming-of-age drama about two young women from opposing groups in suburban Paris navigating womanhood and queer identity. Other prominent feature film programs include local documentary Emergence: Out of the Shadows on navigating queer identity in South Asian families; ground-breaking Filipinx drama Metamorphosis on intersex identity; the delightfully absurdist, queer body-swap comedy Homebody; our Youth Gala film Being Thunder about a Two Spirit teen of the Narragansett tribe; Afrofuturist sci-fi musical Neptune Frost; and Lebanese documentary Sirens about the first and only all-women Middle Eastern thrash metal band.
VQFF’s closing feature is Dramarama, a heartfelt comedy and instant classic about a group of graduating theatre kids in 1994 spending one last slumber party together where tensions and true identities come to light. This in-person only screening is the perfect theatre-going experience to close out the Festival.
In addition to in-person and video-on-demand screenings, VQFF will be hosting its first in-person celebrations in three years, the Opening Night Party and The Coast is Queer 25th Anniversary Celebration, and three workshops on queer arts practice and community-building: Queer Collective: VQFF Programers Talk; We’re Here We’re Queer, Let’s Activate!; and Out In Schools: Beyond SOGI.
For ticketing details, including pricing, and the complete Festival lineup, along with screening dates and times, please visit www.queerfilmfestival.ca.
For interview requests and additional images, please contact Michael Ianni at michael@praid.ca
For more information, please visit the following platforms:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/queerfilmfest
Facebook: www.facebook.com/VancouverQFF
Twitter: www.twitter.com/queerfilmfest
#VQFF2022
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Media Contact
Michael Ianni | Festival Publicist | michael@praid.ca | 604.345.7689
About Out On Screen
Out On Screen is a charitable organization that illuminates, celebrates, and advances queer lives through film, education, and dialogue. The Vancouver Queer Film Festival creates a dynamic platform for queer cinema that reflects a diversity of experiences while connecting and strengthening our communities. The award-winning Out In Schools program brings age-appropriate queer cinema into school classrooms to combat homophobia, transphobia, and bullying, and to provide the language and tools for inclusion. Out On Screen is proud to be among the leaders in Canada working to create an equitable society where sexual and gender diversity are embraced. www.outonscreen.com
