Vancouver Queer Film Festival: Win Passes

The 32nd Vancouver Queer Film Festival (“VQFF”) takes its programming online for an 11-day digital film festival featuring artists from India, Philippines, United States, and Canada.

Vancouver Queer Film Festival

When: August 13-23, 2020
Festival passes and tickets are available online today

More than 60 films from 10 countries are featured at VQFF presented by RBC, along with virtual visits from filmmakers, local directors and numerous local performing artists, in addition to virtual parties and post-screening Q&As. 

Film Highlights

Curated by Artistic Director Anoushka Ratnarajah, VQFF 2020 opens with director Elegance Bratton’s Pier Kids, an uncut guerilla style documentary that unearths Black queer resourcefulness and resilience at its core. The film follows the life of Black Trans woman, Crystal LaBeija and other Queer and Trans youth of colour at the Christopher Street Pier in New York City.

The unifying effects of the Pier Kids resonate through the veil of safety, solace, and the promise of chosen family. Elegance Bratton will be joining the Festival at a virtual Q&A along with producer Chester Algernal Gordon.

VQFF will also feature two special presentations of seminal queer women’s history. Ahead of the Curve is a documentary about the history of Curve Magazine, the longest running lesbian publication in history, featuring interviews with Andrea Pino-Silva, Kim Katrin, Denice Frohman, Amber Hikes, Jewelle Gomez, Melissa Etheridge and Lea DeLaria, and a score composed by the legendary Meshell Ndegeocello. Ahead of the Curve celebrates, honours, and interrogates the legacy of a movement while considering the shifts and contractions necessary to create a more representative future for all queer women.

In addition, VQFF will screen a retrospective of Long Time Comin’, Dionne Brand’s 1993 documentary that charts the work of two Black queer Canadian artists: folk/jazz singer-songwriter Faith Nolan and multimedia visual artist Grace Channer. Using a combination of interviews and vérité footage of the women at work, Brand showcases their projects as well as their thoughts on art, race, and sexuality. 

Festival favourite The Coast is Queer returns, uplifting and spotlighting the work of emerging and established local queer filmmakers. International programming reflects the urgency of queer rights, with A Worm In The Heart. Shot in six cities along the Trans-Siberian Railway, this gripping documentary follows gay couple Paul Rice and Liam Jackson Montgomery as they embark upon a tense journey to detail the lives and stories from the LGBTQ+ community across Russia. Meeting with Nobel Peace Prize nominees, drag queens and ordinary folks, Paul and Liam learn more about the current state of the Russian queer community — providing both broad social and political overviews as well as deeply personal accounts from activists and non-activists alike.

Georgian documentary March For Dignity follows a small group of LGBTQ activists in Tbilisi, Georgia, as they plan for the first ever Pride March in the country. And Goodbye Mother is a Vietnamese family dramedy that will charm and delight audiences. 

Follow the VQFF on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram #VQFF2020 for more info.

Win Passes

I have passes to give away to the Opening Gala (Pier Kids), Centrepiece (Lingua Franca) and Closing Gala (Breaking Fast). Here’s how you can enter to win:

• Leave a comment on this post (1 entry)
• Click below to post an entry on Twitter

I will draw one winner at 12:00pm on Tuesday, August 4, 2020. UPDATE The winner is Bonnie!