[Commlist] New book: Queer Film Festivals and Urban Space

NEW BOOK! *Queer Film Festivals and Urban Space: Reclaiming the City 
<https://www.routledge.com/Queer-Film-Festivals-and-Urban-Space-Reclaiming-the-City/Heath/p/book/9781032572291?srsltid=AfmBOopfb4M2TsxkamazdWaTlHbM4X73PH7Ujqlr0_mKT4wsSRD6TIJY>*, 
Theresa Heath, Routledge, 2025

I’d really appreciate it if any interested colleagues would be able to 
recommend this for their institutional libraries!

This timely and innovative book argues that queer film festivals reclaim 
urban space for queer women and other marginalised queer subjects 
through the mobilisation of both material and diegetic space.

It is a response to the loss of queer urban venues and community spaces 
across many parts of the Global North and a claim for the political 
potential of queer film festivals in the context of late-stage 
capitalism. Drawing from critical events studies, film and film festival 
scholarship, archival research, cultural geography, and research in the 
creative industries, the book deploys an interdisciplinary arsenal of 
tools in order to understand the complexity of festival space. Covering 
the period from 1980 to the present, the volume posits original case 
studies of two long-running festivals, as well as analysis of ephemeral, 
grassroots events. This thorough and critical exploration offers 
significant insight into the strategies deployed by queer film festivals 
to carve out queer geographies in the city, and the potential of 
event-driven place-making to construct alternative morphologies and more 
equitable approaches to urban space.

This volume will be of pivotal interest to students, scholars, and 
academics of critical event and festival studies, film and film festival 
studies, cultural, creative, and media industries, cultural geography, 
sociology, and urban studies, as well as those with an interest in these 
areas more generally.

*Critics Reviews*

"/Queer Film Festivals and Urban Space: Reclaiming the City/ offers an 
exhilarating account of the queer film festival’s transformative 
potential. Writing across film studies, cultural geography, disability 
studies, and queer and feminist theory, Theresa Heath beautifully 
synthesises aesthetic, institutional, and activist approaches to queer 
film festivals and their precarious urban communities. This much-needed 
book animates a history of struggle to create film culture by and for 
marginalised people."

*Rosalind Galt*/, Professor of Film Studies, King’s College London, UK/　

"This book lucidly explores how queer film festivals have the unique 
power to connect the way films represent ideas on screen with the 
physical or digital space of the festival itself. Queer film festivals 
are treated, here, as activist events that boldly claim a space in the 
city. The connection between different forms of queer worldmaking 
creates a dynamic space where the relationship between queer people and 
the city can be rethought, helping to push queer politics forward and 
imagine more inclusive and fair spaces. Dr Heath’s own lived experiences 
inspire her to push boundaries, as a producer and as a scholar. She 
looks into the ways hybrid spaces can produce more accessible, queer, 
counterpublic events."

*Stefanie Van de Peer*/, Reader in Film and Media, Queen Margaret 
University, UK/　

"In this book, Theresa Heath beautifully weaves together a historical 
trajectory of queer film festivals as regionally specific sites of queer 
cinema. Informed by her first-hand experience as festival organizer, she 
connects discussions of programming, activist labor in the face of 
pressures of neoliberal gentrification and pandemic responses between 
AIDS and COVID-19 with the struggle to create space for community."

*Skadi Loist*/, Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, Germany/

---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ commlist.org)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------