About

Mandate

Established in 2016, the Toronto Queer Media & Arts Centre (TQFF) is a collectively-run, artist-run, nonprofit organization located in Toronto, Ontario. TQFF was formed to provide community art exhibition space for experimental, contemporary, and/or social justice themed film and video art by queer filmmakers. TQFF support’s Toronto’s LGBTQ2S+ communities by providing a unique gathering space for marginalized and precarious queer and trans people, including Indigenous people, people of color, people with disabilities, and transgender people.

TQFF’s mission is to provide:

• community-based media arts education programming (workshops, panels, Q&As);
• mutual aid (community meals, grocery, & PPE distribution);
• industry/symposium programming for artists, scholars, critics, and audiences to network and build connections;
  support for and exhibition of artistic works by BIPOC, trans, and disabled filmmakers whose work is marginalized by more mainstream festivals;
• a forum for discussion and debate on issues relating to film and video production as well as timely social justice issues concerning local queer and trans communities;
• exhibition of exceptional work made by international queer and trans artists, especially artists from the Global South;
• a celebration of media art made by and for local, Ontarian, and Canadian gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, 2 Spirit, queer, questioning and intersex communities.

We have five primary mandates:

1. to exhibit queer and trans independent and experimental film and video art;
2. to support the production of independent queer and trans film and video art through community based arts education;
3. to foster queer and trans community development and engagement by removing barriers to access to arts programming;
4. to decolonize artistic and curatorial practices, as well as advocate for centering of principles of decolonization in queer art and activism more broadly; and
5. to center our programming around work made by and for queer and trans Indigenous people, people of color, and people living with disabilities and, especially, to promote and support the work of local filmmakers and media artists

TQFF distinguishes itself from other Toronto festivals and arts organizations that serve the LGBTQ2S+ community by focusing on experimentally formal and social-justice focused film and video and by encouraging the submission— and prioritizing the programming—of work by and about queer and trans people of colour, Indigenous people, people with disabilities and the work of local, low-income, DIY, and/or emerging filmmakers.

Land Acknowledgement

TQFF would like to acknowledge the indigenous territories that we gather on: this stolen land is the territory of the Huron-Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River.

The territory was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and Confederacy of the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes.

We acknowledge ourselves as trespassers, and do so to show solidarity with Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island. We recognize that decolonization must be an active and ongoing process of reconciliation–TQFF is dedicated to creating a space in our programming to promote the creative and political work of indigenous queer and two-spirited voices.

Code of Conduct

TQFF is committed to providing a lower-risk space in which to convene during a time when the coronavirus and other airborne pathogens continue to pose a significant threat to disabled and vulnerable staff and community members. This year, given the economic constraints placed on us by reduced public funding for the arts, the competing access needs of our artists, and the reduced capacity of our staff, we have chosen to follow a zoned masking policy at the Tranzac Club.

Mask Recommended Zones: Southern Cross, corridors
We strongly recommend all attendees and artists wear masks in mask recommended zones. This includes during the events “Deirdre Logue: Very Selected Works, 2005-2022” and “Ash Barbu in Conversation with Deirdre Logue,” which will be held in the Southern Cross.

Mask Required Zones: Main Hall, restrooms
All audience members and artists attending screenings and events occurring in the Main Hall will be required to wear a high-quality N-95 mask.

To ensure the continued safety of our immunocompromised staff, volunteers, audience members, and artists, we ask that all attendees wear masks while using the restrooms.

All TQFF staff and volunteers will be wearing masks while on site and interacting with artists and audience members.

Finally, TQFF strictly upholds the Ontario Human Rights Code. We will not tolerate any open acts of hostility or discrimination towards our staff or community members.

We will supply high quality N-95 masks at the box office at the main entrance and we will practice continuous air filtration throughout the venue.

Some general recommendations:

• Please wear a high quality respirator in the masked zone (e.g. N95, KF94, KN95 equivalent) that fits you well. We will offer free N95 respirators on site.
• We recommend testing before the event if you are feeling unwell or experiencing any cough or flu-like symptoms.
• If you start to feel unwell during the event please keep your mask on, let our staff know, and exit the physical space if you can.
• We also understand that continuous masking may be a potential barrier for some, including those with different sensory needs and those who need to see full facial expressions or who use lip-reading for communication. Please reach out to our staff with any questions concerning our masking policy. access@torontoqueerfilmfest.com.

Accessibility Statement: Care as Resistance

This year all of our symposium programming, except workshops, will be offered with CART captioning while we continue to offer open captioning on all our film programs. Our festival tickets continue to be pay-what-you-can, and no person will be turned away for lack of funds. More details can be found on our How To Attend guide. Our festival this year also continues to be a masked event and we ask all attendees to avoid wearing scents in festival venues.

In a climate where fascism and white ethno-nationalism are unprecedentedly visible and unapologetically embraced by politicians and our neighbours, caring for each other is the most radical action of resistance we can take. We offer this year’s festival on a reduced staff and a very limited budget in the face of declining public arts funding–our staff have in many cases returned on limited contracts and/or reduced hours to mount these events. Given the dearth of public funding in the cultural sector to support accessibility, and given the retreat of public health guidance during an ongoing pandemic, we ask our audiences to mask as part of embracing an ethic of care that works to protect our most vulnerable community members.

Our health and capacity to thrive as a community comes from strong interpersonal and intercultural connection, not from isolationism and moral purity. Disability justice can be achieved only when chronic illness and debility are understood as an outcome of rhetorics of division. We reject capitalism’s scarcity mindset and its abuse of the climate and our communities. Resistance is the project of imagining a shared future founded in abundance and compassion. We are stronger when we work together.

In solidarity,

Toronto Queer Film Festival

Access Guide

To download our access guide with both venue info and accessibility services as an accessible PDF click here.

Accessible seating is available on request. Please email access@torontoqueerfilmfest.com with your request.

Scent Free Event we ask attendees to avoid wearing scents in festival venues.

Gender Neutral Washrooms are available at the Tranzac. While each washroom has an accessible stall, please note that the entrance to each washroom is only 30 inches wide.

PPE is available on demand at the box office at the main entrance to the Tranzac.

Continued Air Filtration will be practiced in the main hall during screenings.

Parking is available next to the Tranzac. Two additional parking lots are located at 365 Lippincott St. and on Spadina Rd next to the Spadina subway station.

TQFF’s Statement Regarding the Practice of Film Festivals Charging Entry Fees

At TQFF, one of our top priorities is to support filmmakers. In recent years, the number of films being made has exploded due to the widespread accessibility of high quality video production technologies. Unfortunately, however, in many ways it has never been harder for for filmmakers who make work without the benefit of large budgets or insider connections to get their projects shown at festivals, precisely at this moment when it has become possible for almost everyone to make films.

There are huge barriers to entry at almost every stage of most festival submissions process, starting with the first step: submitting your film. Submission fees, the requirement that filmmakers and producers pay amounts ranging from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars in order to have a festival even consider screening a film, have become ubiquitous, even on the LGBT film festival circuit. Festivals offer a range of excuses for charging these entry fees, including “we are a non-profit and by paying submission fees you are supporting our festival” to “we are overwhelmed by the number of entries in recent years and thus rely on the fees to hire programming staff to watch all of the entries”.

At TQFF, we are no more impressed by films made with large budgets than we are with the videos of first-time filmmakers who shot their project on their cellphones. We are thrilled that the proliferation of digital technologies is increasingly making it possible for even queer and trans folks with the least resources and institutional supports to make work.

At TQFF, we want to foster and support the production of all kinds of work, and that means dismantling institutional structures that discourage those with the least access and resources from submitting their films, much less have them be seriously considered. While money and resources can sometimes be instrumental in producing great work, they are no substitute for – and, in fact, often wind up being an anathema to – creativity, insight, and a commitment to bettering our communities.

As such, TQFF encourages anyone and everyone to make and submit work that fits with our mission to our festival. We will continue to do our best to reduce and remove barriers to production and distribution of work by queer and trans artists, we will never charge submission fees, and every film submitted will be watched by our programming team and considered for inclusion in the festival.

Such justifications for charging submission fees indicate additional motivating factors:

1. Festivals view themselves as gatekeepers who can demand premiums from artists seeking the recognition and exposure for their work that some festivals offer;
2. A prioritization of supporting their institution and the labor of their staff over the work of artists and filmmakers, without whom, in reality, they would be unable to host their festival;
3. As the number of films being made and submitted to festivals continues to rise, many festivals want the submission fees to be a barrier to entry, especially since many festivals program very few films submitted through open calls and may already be overwhelmed by the number of entries they get even with the large submission fees.

In this manner, festival submission fees have become an accepted practice that is, intentionally or not, designed to restrict access for low-budget and/or marginalized filmmakers to have their work be considered and ultimately programmed at festivals. At base is the assumption that filmmakers and producers who do not have sufficient resources to pay high entry fees to numerous festivals do not produce work worth considering.