The Queer City Cinema tour “will feature film and performance art by Queer and QTIBPOC artists that explore, question and play with notions of identity and utilize queer artistic expression to propose and investigate diverse ways of looking at sexuality, gender, race and film.”
The Qaleidoscope tour has been described by its creators as “a well-textured assemblage of images, characters, ideas, and realities that collide in fantastical, personal, and playful ways to produce an ever changing, multi-faceted film and performance art viewing experience. Some films will focus on image, sound and abstract narratives; others present information, facts, and queer-forward realities; while others share the pleasure and pain of individual and collective identities.”
We spoke with Gary Varro, Executive and Artistic Director of Q City Cinema about the upcoming tour which is scheduled to arrive in Dublin tomorrow;
How did the idea for this tour come about?
We have been doing Canadian tours of our main festival programming since 2001, and with a recent revamp at the Canada Council for the Arts (our main funder) we now have access to funds for international touring, so it seemed like a great opportunity to expand our touring scope to places like Scotland, Ireland and England.
Next year we are going to tour the Balkans (Slovena; Croatia; Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro), funded once more by the CCA. We will be applying to the CCA to tour the Baltic region for 2024. The focus of the tour is centred around QTBIPOC representations and identities, which has always been a mandate of Queer City Cinema in all of its programming since it was established in 1996.
Organisations like Pallas Projects in Dublin, was one of five organisations that I approached as co-presenters/hosts for the tour back in 2020. The process of seeking out willing partners always takes a while, as well as the selection of films, and a long list of other necessary details for a seamless, smooth…