A film festival 'outside the sparkly, white, gay male norm'

Clare talks about the DIY ethos of Leeds Queer Film Festival which began in 2005, and the need to see representation of different realities on the screen.

Duration 01:37

TRANSCRIPT

It’s hard to say who the festival’s for. I think, partly it was for ourselves and people like us, and that we wanted something to do in Leeds and we wanted some sort of queer culture in Leeds, and also a politically aware culture, that’s very vague… Yeah, we wanted, we wanted queer culture and wanted that to have politics that we could identify with and think were good. And we wanted just to be doing a little, y’know, having fun and putting this on and creating something ourselves.

I think there’s still the need for representation of different realities, representation of people who are outside the sparkly, white, gay male norm, y’know… All scenes that are outside of some norm have their own norms, and it’s nice to provide a little niche where others are possible, and shown, and where other stories get told. And also to provide a platform for people who want to tell those stories, an audience for them as well. So as a artist – I dunno, it’s good for artists and it’s good for people who want to watch, as well, I think.