An art exhibition, live music performances and performing arts. The II edition brings a variety of entertaining feature films, moving documentaries and dynamic short films for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and intersex community of eThekwini and indeed the province of KZN.
From Friday 18 to Monday 28 May 2012, the second annual Durban Gay &
Lesbian Film Festival (DGLFF) will take place at the KwaZulu-Natal Society
of Arts (KZNSA) gallery at 166 Bulwer Road, Glenwood, Durban. A project of
benefit to both the KZNSA and the KwaZulu-Natal Gay & Lesbian Tourism
Association (KZNGALTA), the DGLFF will again bring a variety of
entertaining feature films, moving documentaries and dynamic short films
for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and intersex (LGBTI)
community of eThekwini and indeed the province of KZN.
The KZNSA will curate an art exhibition in line with the theme of the
DGLFF, as it did last year. Additional live music performances and
performing arts will compliment the festival line up.
The inaugural 2011 DGLFF has been hailed as a critical success, with the
event reaching out across gender, economic and geographic diversities, as
well as sexual orientations.
Building on the momentum of the first
city-based pink film festival in Africa, festival director Jason Fiddler
is buoyant: "In 2011, we started the festival with virtually no
sponsorship, tremendous partnerships with the KZNSA and Gearhouse, who
provided us with technical assistance and equipment, and a wonderful
acknowledgement by both the LGBTI community and the greater city of the
importance and value of this initiative. The DGLFF is now a crucial part
of the pink calendar in our province and enjoys widespread support. The
move to May rather than in spring takes advantage of cooler and dryer
weather, given that the KZNSA gallery has a great al-fresco café area.
"
Last year saw 5 international feature films, 3 SA documentaries and 6
London-based short films screened. This year alone I've had over a dozen
features, 5 doccies and almost 30 short films submitted for consideration
by our selection group to be included in the 2012 line up so far," says
Fiddler. "From Argentina to Taiwan, Germany to Australia, as well as from
South Africa, filmmakers have been incredibly supportive of our fledgling
film festival. The quality and diversity of stories being told is
breathtaking - this makes our job in choosing the official selection quite
hard!
With the global recession still with us, and a limited culture of
supporting the arts and cinema in particular here in South Africa, it is
poignant that the director of the South African Gay & Lesbian Film
Festival (Out in Africa), Nodi Murphy, recently announced at the opening
of the 2012 festival in Johannesburg that without audience and community
financial support, Out in Africa would be forced to close".
Fiddler takes
this very seriously: "Nodi and her team have for almost 20 years built a
pink culture in support of LGBTI cinema. They've been a huge inspiration
to me and I support them wholeheartedly. The OIA initiative to get
community members to donate is great and I'm personally advocating people
to help out. The good news is that because the DGLFF is still small in
operations and has a great venue partner, our needs are less and as we
proved last year, our festival is capable of breaking even financially.
More information can be obtained at www.dglff.org.za or by emailing
jason@dglff.org.za
The complete programme is on the web site.
The launch of the film festival and the accompanying visual arts exhibition is on Thursday 17th May at 6pm
Kznsa Gallery
166 Bulwer Road - Glenwood - Durban