Events

The Ticket: Vancouver Queer Film Festival

By Michael White /

Get ready—the city’s second largest film festival is back.

Beginning in 1988 as a series of private screenings among a small group of friends, the Vancouver Queer Film Festival (VQFF) has grown in tandem with the increasing visibility and acceptance of queer culture, marking numerous milestones in the process: its establishment as a non-profit society under the name Out on Screen, the launch of the student-outreach initiative Out in Schools, and its continually expanding role as a plat­form for female and minority filmmakers. Now Vancouver’s second-largest film festival and the largest queer arts event in Western Canada, VQFF is spotlighting indigenous cinema and roles featuring youth and trans women for this year’s 30th-anniversary edition. Besides the workshops, panel discussions and parties, program high points include the Canadian premiere of 1985, Malaysian-American director Yen Tan’s in-the-closet period piece, starring Cory Michael Smith (Gotham) and Virginia Madsen (Sideways), and White Rabbit, in which comedic actress Vivian Bang stars as a queer Korean-American performance artist in L.A. 

The Deets

Date: August 9 to 19Venue: VariousPrice: $12queerfilmfestival.ca

Photo Credit: Angelika Kagan