[ecrea] CfP "Queer/ing Film Festivals" Special Issue of Studies in European Cinema

Call for contributions

/Queer/ing Film Festivals /

Special Issue for /Studies in European Cinema/ (Taylor & Francis)

Editors: Leanne Dawson (Film and German Studies, University of Edinburgh
and Scottish Queer International Film Festival) and Skadi Loist (Media
Studies, University of Rostock, Film Festival Research Network and
Hamburg Queer Film Festival)

The first LGBT/Q film festival started in San Francisco in 1977 and in
the early years, such festivals served as a safe haven, offering a
counterpublic space to create community and discuss representation at a
time when so few - and often negative - images of LGBT/Q people were
available in the mainstream.

Although the first wave of LGBT/Q film festivals were predominantly
found in North America and Western Europe, Slovenia helped to lead the
way on this side of the Atlantic, with the creation of a gay and lesbian
film festival in Ljubljana in 1984. LGBT/Q people in Germany were
pioneers with the LesbenFilmFestival Berlin taking place from 1985 to
2004, while the Lesbisch Schwule Filmtage Hamburg | International Queer
Film Festival – the latter four words of the name a relatively recent
and inclusive addition – has just celebrated its 26th edition. In the
UK, Gay’s Own Pictures launched in 1986, was renamed the London Lesbian
and Gay Film Festival in 1988, and is now known as BFI Flare. Like the
UK, Italy has hosted LGBT/Q film festivals since 1986, with others
launching in the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and France before the end
of the decade.

Indeed the 1980s brought about many changes: the AIDS crisis spurred
queer activism and artistic output, including films that B. Ruby Rich
would later label the ‘New Queer Cinema’ (1992), which paved the way for
the development of the LGBT/Q film market and significant growth of
LGBT/Q film festivals, which - with approximately 260 active events -
now covers most regions of the globe (see ‘Queer Film Festivals
Globally’ map: http://tinyurl.com/j3rv8p4, Loist 2015).

The start of the 1990s saw the arrival of LGBT/Q festivals in Ireland,
Norway, Finland, Hungary and Austria. Spain has made up for its slightly
later entrance to the LGBT/Q film festival scene – with Fire! in 1995 –
by hosting numerous queer film festivals on the mainland as well as the
Balearic and Canary Islands. Portugal and Switzerland both launched
lesbian and gay film festivals in 1997. Two years later, Greece founded
an LGBT/Q film festival as part of Thessaloniki’s International Film
Festival, while queer festivals launched in the Czech Republic in 2000,
Croatia in 2003, and Romania in 2004. The latter half of the decade saw
the start of festivals in Latvia, Poland, Sweden, Slovakia, Hungary,
Russia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Serbia, with Lithuania and Ukraine
hosting events from 2011.

Alongside the festivals in this potted overview, there is the Pride of
the Ocean GLBT Film Festival on the High Seas, which takes place as part
of a cruise ship’s entertainment programme, and LGBT/Q awards as part of
A-list mainstream festivals, such as the Teddy Award, which just
celebrated its 30th anniversary at the Berlinale; the Sunny Bunny at
Kyiv in Ukraine; the Queer Palm at Cannes; and the Queer Lion at the
Venice International Film Festival.

The queer film and festival landscape has clearly seen huge changes in
the last 39 years, with the growing number of festivals allowing for
more diverse programmes, ranging from mainstream to avant-garde and
pornographic content, and further consideration of intersections of
identity, such as Glitch QTIPOC Film Festival, which, like the Scottish
Queer International Film Festival, launched last year in Glasgow.
Recently, festivals have also been founded in Africa and the Middle East.

The proposed special issue of the peer-reviewed journal Studies in
European Cinema, to be published in celebration of 40 years of LGBT/Q
film festivals, is part of a series exploring Queer European Cinema,
past and present. We invite articles examining the relation between
queer cinema and film festivals today, as well as the function that
these festivals serve. Contributions of approximately 6,000 words by
academics and/or industry professionals should have a European focus
(although content does not need to be exclusively European) and may
include, but are not limited to:

•         film festival history, trends, memory;

•         queer film exhibition and curation;

•         queering mainstream film festivals;

•         film festivals and knowledge exchange;

•         community building and/or activism;

•         audience research;

•         other art and performance within LGBT/Q film programmes.

Abstracts of 400 words and a 150 word biography including key
publications should be submitted by Monday 4 April 2016 to: Leanne
Dawson ((leanne.dawson /at/ ed.ac.uk)) and Skadi Loist
((skadi.loist /at/ uni-rostock.de)). Final articles are due on Wednesday 31
August 2016.

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