We all accumulate layers. As queers, as outsiders, we are especially aware of what makes up and takes down both our immediate, intimate world and the world(s) outside of our own experience – those which come to inform our social and political alliances and our sexual preferences, and which in turn can/may further develop and convict us of our own personal set of morals, ethics and what all that means as cakemakers of a different kind.
As a queer film festival, part of what is programmed, seen and experienced is about identity and with identity (as with personality) comes layers – layers of meaning, layers of experience, layers of history, layers of political and social awareness and action, layers of sexual desire and gender mindfulness - and layers indescribable, unique and perhaps without categorization.
These queer layers are built and accumulated, both by choice and necessity, to curcumvent and navigate the status quo, and to reinvent, negotiate and celebrate what is different, what is wonderfully contradictory and what is absolutely required for the ongoing challenge of a re-think of gender, sexualised identities and the many different ways in which these are conveyed by queer media artists through and in the context of a queer film and video festival.
With an abundance of short films and videos providing an expanded opportunity to sample a banquet of queer delights from around the world, this years festival is especially layered. The layers are thick and meaty, thin and delicate, moist and fluffly, dense and rich, but ultimately, more is more this year - you can have your cake and eat it too!
Queer City Cinema 12 is a multi-layer cake of images, senses, identities and expressions that will satisfy cravings for queer film and video that are unusually delicious, innovatively shaped, lovingly crafted, beautifully messy, thoughtfully conceived - with the icing on the cake - zero calories, nutritious, tasty and satisfying!
With the idea of layers in mind, the organization that is Queer City Cinema Inc. will celebrate it’s 20th anniversary in 2016! – now that will be a birthday cake! Coinciding with this significant milestone will be a merging of our two festivals - Performatorium Festival of Queer Performance and Queer City Cinema Film Festival and that will now take place together, at the same time, in the same place, over the same weekend in June 2016! Stay tuned for further details of this exciting new confluence of the moving image and live performance.
In the meantime, I hope that you enjoy whatever slice(s) of life that attract you, intice you, draw you in for indulgence and pleasure, move you to an out of body and/or mind experience, or whatever it is that you choose to take away with you from Queer City Cinema 12.
Gary Varro
Artistic Director
Queer City Cinema
May 2015