CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Join our board of directors!
The Toronto Queer Film Festival is looking for volunteers to join our board of directors.
About TQFF:
The Toronto Queer Film Festival is a nonprofit arts collective which launched in 2016 in response to an urgent need for exhibition space in Toronto for work by, and about, marginalized queer and trans people.
TQFF serves the 2 Spirit, queer, and trans communities through five primary mandates:
1) to exhibit queer, independent, and experimental film/video art;
2) to support the production of alternative queer film and video art through community based arts education;
3) to foster community development and engagement by making our programming accessible to all;
4) to support decolonization movements across Turtle Island and abroad, including supporting the call by Palestinian civil society for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel. This support extends to prioritizing the hiring and exhibition of 2Spirit, Indigenous queer and trans people in particular;
5) to program work made by and for queer and trans Black and Indigenous people, people of color, and Deaf, disabled, mad, and neurodivergent people.
TQFF distinguishes itself from other Toronto cultural events that serve the LGBTQ+ community by focusing on experimental time-based media that challenges and expands social, political, and artistic conventions. Our curatorial mandate is to centre the programming of work by and about queer and trans people of colour, Black people, Indigenous people, and people with disabilities, as well as the work of local artists, low-income, DIY filmmakers, and emerging artists.
Our foremost goal as an organization is community building: creating space for queer and trans filmmakers and audiences to come together in the spirit of art and activism.
Description of Role:
The board of directors is an integral part of TQFF and ensures that we meet our legal obligations as a registered non-profit organization in Ontario. The board of directors is an advisory body that assists the collective in meeting its legal and fiduciary obligations while maintaining its accountability to the communities it seeks to serve. The board is not involved in the programming or day-to-day operations of TQFF.
The board of directors meets 4 times throughout the year at a schedule of its own choosing, with a maximum commitment of approximately 5-10 hours per month (or 1-2 hours per week) on average. These hours ebb and flow throughout the year, with certain periods of the year, including financial year end (December 31), the annual audit, and our annual festival, requiring more time than others.
We are seeking volunteer board members who are passionate about TQFF’s mandate. In particular, we are interested in board members with the following backgrounds and/or skill sets:
• Experience serving on non-profit boards, especially in Ontario’s arts sector
• Human resources, benefits, staff management & retention, and/or mediation
• Finance, accounting, and/or fundraising
• Creating community partnerships and outreach
If you do not have any of these skills or backgrounds, but are eager to learn and contribute to TQFF in these and other ways, we also encourage you to apply! Given TQFF’s mandate to support marginalized queer and trans people, priority will be given to Black, Indigenous, and people of colour, and people with visible and invisible disabilities.
How to Apply
To apply, submit your resume/CV and a brief statement (maximum 1 page) of interest outlining:
• why you’re interested in joining TQFF
• the skills you feel you can bring to the organization
• how you would support our mandate
Applications should be addressed to Jon Petrychyn, Director of Business Operations, emailed in a single PDF to jon@torontoqueerfilmfest.com
by June 5, 2023. Selected candidates will be contacted by mid-June to set up short interviews with current TQFF staff and board members, with new board members officially in place by late June.
If applicants need accommodations at any point in the process, including but not limited to ASL interpretation, please email
jon@torontoqueerfilmfest.com