Reelout Queer Film + Video Festival
Reelout Queer Film + Video Festival is the second largest film festival in Ontario, Canada that caters to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, two-spirit, queer communities and their allies. The festival is usually held annually in the last weekend of January and the first weekend of February in the historic city of Kingston.
History
The idea of providing a queer positive space that champions the work of queer media artists in a smaller, metropolitan center was tested by activist and educator Marney McDiarmid in 1999. With the assistance of academics from Queen's University and enthusiastic community volunteers, McDiarmid held an evening of screenings in the back room of Kingston's only gay bar, Club 477. The screenings featured international documentaries and short narratives and aimed to reflect the gender and [...] diversity of the queer community. The sold-out screenings and the subsequent audience surveys indicated that a city the size of Kingston could sustain a modest film and video festival over a maximum of three days. Thus, the first reelout queer film + video festival was held in an official capacity at The Screening Room, a local art house cinema in March 1999 and continued to exemplify programming on an international scope, but with a strong Canadian component and a large focus on diversity and education. The intentional lower case "r" in reelout suited the scrappy, little festival that could-feel to the event especially due to the geographic location of Kingston situated between two much larger queer film festivals, Inside Out in Toronto and Image+Nation in Montreal. The festival was operated as a working group and later a joint project of Kingston's Ontario Public Interest Research Group and emphasized a consensus-decision making collective of volunteers to make administrative and artistic choices. In 2004, the festival had grown in popularity and international recognition. The festival incorporated as a non-profit under the name Reelout Arts Project Inc. A Board of Directors was constituted and the festival began to hire Directors to manage the greater demands in artistic programming and fund development. The Reelout Arts Project Inc. later became a registered charitable organization in 2007.
Reelout Today
The festival has recently celebrated its tenth anniversary and continue to educate and inspire a new generation of film enthusiasts. The lower case "r" has graduated to a capital "R" now that the festival has entered its second decade of providing pleasurable and thought-provoking film and video to the public.