Vancouver Queer Film Festival Backgrounder

Out On Screen
Out On Screen is the non-profit umbrella organization responsible for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, Out in Schools and the Queer History Project. Its mission is to develop and support programs that advance queer communities through education and cultural expression. Full legal name is the Vancouver Out On Screen Film and Video Society.

Vancouver Queer Film Festival
The Vancouver Queer Film Festival began in 1989 when a group of dedicated volunteers held a gay and lesbian film festival in anticipation of the upcoming 1990 Vancouver Gay Games. Today it is the second largest film festival in the city and the largest queer arts event in Western Canada. The festival has gained a reputation for offering the best of independent queer cinema and the opportunity to meet filmmakers and artists, participate in workshops and panel discussions, attend galas and afterparties and see unexpected performances. This year the festival is celebrating its 21st Festival, August 13-23, 2009.

Out in Schools
Out in Schools began as a pilot project in 2004. Over the past four years it has grown to become an established outreach program that brings films to high schools and engages youth in discussions to promote a safe and diverse learning environment, free from homophobia and bullying. During the 2006-07 academic year, Out in Schools delivered 42 presentations reaching more than 1900 students.

Queer History Project
We are commissioning films that record and tell queer experiences from the past to ensure our stories are captured and told for generations to come. We envision the project will produce a lasting body of work that will enable our stories to take their rightful place in Canadian history.

Each film, roughly 20 minutes in length, is a collaborative effort between established film and interdisciplinary artists. The films receive a premiere screening at the annual Vancouver Queer Film Festival the year in which they are produced.

In 2011, we plan for the body of work to screen together in a special exhibition coinciding with Vancouver's 125th birthday. Part of this exhibition will include a community public art installation in partnership with the Qmunity's Generations.
The commissions so far:

• The Love That Won't Shut Up, by Ivan E. Coyote and Veda Hille (Presented at the 2007 Vancouver Queer Film Festival)
  
• Rex vs. Singh, by John Greyson, Richard Fung, and Ali Kazimi (Presented at the 2008 Vancouver Queer Film Festival)
  
• The Portside by Daphne Marlatt and Aerlyn Weissman (Premiering at the 2009 Vancouver Queer Film Festival)

QueerHistoryProject.com is an interactive website where the Vancouver queer community can create, explore and share our history. It is an opportunity to showcase what was funny, brave, caring, painful, motivating, subversive, routine, ignored, gorgeous and arousing. What happened and what was it like? We invite the community to define its ongoing history.

The website is currently a pilot project. If we are successful in acquiring funding, our long term vision is to create a permanent online, digital collection. We hope to build our community's capacity to document history, with workshops on how to digitize and upload content to the site, partnerships with other organizations and continued outreach to our communities to encourage participation in this project. We intend the site to be a resource that strengthens and empowers our community.

Contact:
media@outonscreen.com