Queer Film Festival

Rainbow Reels 2008: March 3-9

Queer content has steadily increased in mainstream movies and television over recent years. 15 years ago a Queer Film Festival was radical in itself. Today Hollywood is embracing queer characters and stories. This year's festival is focusing on films that tell queer stories often marginalized even by the queer community.

This year's festival will take place March 3-9, 2008. See the official 2008 website at www.rainbowreels.org

Festival Background

The 8th annual Rainbow Reels Queer Film Festival will be screening this March. The organizing committee, running out of the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group (WPIRG) is excited to make this year's festival one of the biggest and most influential queer events of the year.

WPIRG is a student run not-for-profit organization based at the University of Waterloo. WPIRG's mission is to foster and support students and community members to research, educate, and take action on social justice and environmental issues. The organization takes aim to motivate community participation through integrative processes encouraging social diversity and social equality while operating in a consensus based decision making model. For more information on WPIRG's mission statement, please see http://www.wpirg.org/about_mission.

To this end, WPIRG started the Rainbow Reels Queer Film Festival to satisfy a niche in the community by showcasing a variety of queer experiences on screen. Its objective has been to increase awareness of the many issues that permeate the greater queer community by providing content which spans a diverse range of subject matter and genres.

Short Film Call for Submissions

To encourage community ownership and to feature local stories, WPIRG and the Rainbow Reels Queer Film Festival organizing committee is welcoming the submission of short films to the festival.

The Rainbow Reels Queer Film Festival aims to provide its patrons with short films that satisfy the following areas. The festival is looking to include short films that:

  • Comprise a variety of media types which may include: live action, claymation, stop motion, etc.
  • Comprise a variety of styles which may range from documentary to visual poetry to musical composition.
  • Range in the level of filmmaker skill; from amateur to professional.
  • Represent the greater queer community in their subject matter.
  • Bear in mind WPIRG's mission.

How to Submit

Submissions are due on or before February 1st, 2008.

The WPIRG office will be accepting submissions through both email and post. Be sure to include the following with each submission:

  • A synopsis of the short film
  • Brief outline of film statistics including: format, length, language, etc.
  • The short film

Electronic submissions can be sent to:

RainbowReels [at] wpirg.org

Submissions by post can be sent to:

Rainbow Reels Queer Film Festival
WPIRG, University of Waterloo
Student Life Center, Room 2139
Waterloo, ON
N2L 3G1
Canada

Please note that WPIRG and the Rainbow Reels Queer Film Festival organizing committee will not provide reimbursement for the cost of sending submission by post nor will the committee be able to return any materials sent in.