Recordings from the Q&As and the conversations during the film fest can be found here:
We are very grateful to all the amazing filmmakers and creatives who have submitted their work to the festival, for their patience.
It has been more than a year since we at QTI Coalition of Colour, set out to organise the queer qandī Journeys and Destinations film fest. A pandemic happened and we ended up cancelling the physical film fest planned for June 2020.
When we initially made a call out we specified films from the Middle East, knowing that this geographical naming of the region is problematic and Eurocentric. The term SWANA (Southwest Asia and North Africa) has been used by feminist and queer scholars to describe the region in a geographical, decolonial, non-religious and non-Eurocentric way. We recognise that this term too will need to be re-examined and discussed as geographical boundaries will always bring separations and divides. We are aware that the geographical limits for the scope of the festival are problematic. We are also aware that any process of participation and selection may lead to a lack of diversity in representation of experiences; from the representation of ethnic minorities and racialised groups in the region to the intersection of ability and queer identities. We realise that the complexity of queer SWANA identity can not be represented by one film festival but we hope that this festival helps to create nuances in the representation of some of the queer SWANA identities. Our definition of journeys includes transcending and crossing of borders and barriers whether they are in the form of nations and places or bodies and identities.
Our definition of journeys includes transcending and crossing of borders and barriers whether they are in the form of nations and places or bodies and identities.
queer qandī Journeys and Destinations film fest is happy to have Dina Nagapetians and Misha Yakovlev from ‘Queer’ Asia as guest curators. ‘Queer’ Asia is a collective of researchers and activists, working to build a global platform from which to challenge dominant ideas, forms, and representations of gender and sexuality. Reach out to ‘Queer’ Asia on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
queer qandī Journeys and Destination Film Fest has been possible thanks to collaboration with Encompass Network in Cambridge and made possible by the generous sponsorship of The Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement and lgbtQ+@CAM at Cambridge University and National Lottery’s 25th Anniversary.
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