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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
