In November 2024, our Chair Tom Reaney travelled to the beautiful city of Utrecht in the Netherlands to take part in a special event – On Connection: Queer Festival Curation, Practice and Experimentation – bringing together queer film festival organisers, researchers and audiences to explore what is involved in creating queer communities and space through the power of queer film.
Here is Tom’s recap of the day itself!
Arrival and introductions
I arrived in a wonderfully chilly (but warmly-welcoming!) Utrecht, ready for a great day of connecting and discussing all things queer film festivals.
After a short walk through the beautiful city I arrived at Utrecht University and met some of the incredible folx I would spend the remainder of the day with, including representatives from TranScreen, Queer Film Festival Utrecht and Queer.Red.
Opening keynote and discussion
After an introduction from Dr. Marijke de Valck we heard from Prof. Skadi Loist who presented ‘Queer Curation in Context’. This was a great introduction to the history and origins of queer film festivals and events, with reference to historical events. Prof. Loist spoke about the history of queer film festivals, their objectives and challenges, and their curation following the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
You can read more about Prof. Skadi Loist’s research and projects at these links:
Film Festival Research Network: www.filmfestivalresearch.org
Film Circulation on the International Film Festival Network: www.filmcirculation.net
Prof. Skadi Loist researcher profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8299-4103
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skadiloist/
Movement session
Time to get moving! We were safely and expertly led through a community-based movement practice with Hugo de Graaf. There was an excellent exploration of queer movement in a historical context before exploring different types of expressive movement to some excellent music!
More about Hugo de Graaf:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hugo_de_graaf/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@kdegraaf
Bio: https://www.crea.nl/teachers/hugo-de-graaf/?lang=en
Conversations on practice
We then split into groups for discussion around best practices between festival organisers, researchers, and moderators. Speakers presented a recent success story related to their festival / organisation to a small group. This could be, for example: a successful workshop or collaboration, the success of a particular screening, or a story of promotional success. The groups consisted of between 5 – 6 people including a moderator, a film/festivals researcher, another festival organiser and an interested party (e.g. a volunteer, a festival attendee, a film lover). Following the speaker’s presentation, the group worked together to dig deeper into the success of their presented item.
I presented Transforming Cinema as our success story, starting with the 2018 festival recap video. Our group then had a fantastic discussion exploring what made the 2016 and 2018 Transforming Cinema festivals as successful as they were.
Ideas about which actions we as organisers took and which external factors led to success were committed to post-its and we presented them back to the wider group. This was such an informative and eye-opening discussion, not just to learn about other festivals and events and their successes, but to go into closer analysis of what made Transforming Cinema a success for E.D.E.N.
Queer City Walk and book store celebration
After our discussions, we set off for a chilly but beautifully scenic and educational walk around Utrecht on a ‘queer city walk’ – stopping to highlight sites of important queer history. These included a memorial stone dedicated to victims of the persecution of ‘sodomites’ in the 18th century and the former home and studio of Dirkje Kuik – one of the first public transgender figures in the Netherlands.
You can find out more about all of the queer city walk stops here:
https://utrechttimemachine.nl/routes/queer-geschiedenisroute
We ended our work by stopping in for drinks and food at Savannah Bay bookstore, who were also celebrating a significant milestone – their 40th anniversary! A magnificent queer bookstore, with a rich history rooted in feminist and queer history – you can find out more about the history behind it here:
https://www.queerustories.com/canon/1975-de-heksenkelder/
And check out the store itself!
Website: https://www.savannahbay.nl/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/boekwinkelsavannahbay/?hl=en
Screenings and discussions
The evening culminated in a series of short film screenings and post-film discussions in audience groups.
The films screened:
TranScreen – Missed Connections (2017) – watch here
Transforming Cinema – Skeleton in a Beret (2016) – watch here
Queer Film Festival Utrecht – Two Birds with One Stone (2024)
Queer.Red – In The Dark (2018)
Read more about the films here:
https://qffu.nl/en/event/connecting-through-queer-cinema/
Summary
It was such a joyous, celebratory day connecting with others working in the queer film curation space. There is so much exciting stuff happening and some great and hard work taking place to ensure queer community is built and supported through film festivals and events in our areas and on different themes.
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