Welcome to the
Toronto Festival of Queer Arts and Culture 2012

Suggested Theme: Fearlessly Queer

Queer West Fest 2012. Busy shovelling snow and cueing bird songs.

August is a good time for our festival. It let's people get Pride out of the way...and out of mind as well. Gives you something different to look forward to, rather than overlook and disregard. Going for a later date gives the gay and lesbian community time to recover, giving you a nice way to say goodbye to the summer, albeit with something of a far more artistic bent, than Pride

Suggested 2012 Theme - Fearlessly Queer. Exploring who we are, why we are and what we do as queers. Challenging the festival audiences to think beyond diversity, the queer experience and how others see us. “Sex, Politics, Society and Coming Out” ~ Laura Best, queer west arts collective

The Queer West Arts Festival doesn't depend on funding from Toronto Arts Council or LGBT Community One (Rainbow Grants) or Ontario Trillium Foundation grants and or City Toronto Funding. The Ontario Government doesn't hand us annual cheque for $400,000 for tourism, as a matter of fact we get no support from the Ontario government. We do not have an annual operating budget of $2.7 million dollars, as does another gay Toronto festival. Which means our festival will remain small, for the foreseeable future. We still manage to produce a fun filled seven to ten day festival every year. Details for the 2011 festival

The festival is currently paid for by friends of the centre, in-house fundraising, gallery, venue, in-kind services and local business sponsorship and through small entrance fees (Usually PWYC or $5 but 98% of the events are free All performers are paid a reasonable amount to cover costs.

We can pat ourselves on the back about the GOOD THINGS and the small but meaningful accomplishments the festival DID enjoy over the past 11 years. . NO DEBT...NO HASSLES....NO HAND-WRINGING...just enjoyable stuff. LOTS TO BE THANKFUL FOR!!

Having a few volunteer planners is helpful. Minimum of three, but ten would be great. All volunteers receive a Thank You letter (Which can be used for example; as a Letter of Support for refugee immigration hearings)

2012 festival wish list

Queer Authors Night & Workshop- last year hosted by Another Story Book Store, we hope they will join us agin.

UnConference New (Topic, Panelist, Moderator to be choosen) A thought-provoking event that will together some of the world's most influential academics and creatives to discuss their work, passions and communities on being Fearlessly Queer. Location: Parkdale Masaryk-Cowan Community Centre.

3rd annual Tour of six westend art gallleries by bicycle, - close to 100 cyclists did this tour last year, a few of the galleries had small spaces, cyclist then entered in smaller groups. Professional Tour guides Peter Marczyk and Michael Paré from the Gay West Bicycle Club are organizing this event (Visiting 6 different galleries) from 7 PM to 9:30 PM. An average of 20/25 minutes is alotted to each gallery visit. Artists greet visitors and explain their artwork.

8th annual TORONTO PRIDE RIDE on Bicycles for Old Friends, New Friends, LGBTQ Refugees, Newcomers to Canada. (Organized by the Gay West Bicycle Club, current membership 141 cyclists).

Indoor Mix & Mingle Community Fair. (Return?) Depending volunteers willing to take charge, in running this event. We held one at The Rhino Restaurant upstairs, 1249 Queen St W. with 25 community tables, good location, well attended in 2006) The last fair was held at the Drake Hotel in 2008 with 20 tables..

2nd annual Smashwords Poetry Festival (Lula Lounge) - Work this will began Late April. Phlip Arima was our Master of Ceremonies in 2011, we hope to get him again.

5th annual Queer West Film Festival - Location TBA submission for shortly.

7th annual Alterna-queer music concert. (likely at Mitizi's Sister in Parkdale, again)

Walk Tour of west end art galleries and historic buildings (new for 2012)

and possible other unknown affiliated groups, individuals or organizations who wish to join us exploring the theme - Fearlessly Queer?

A festival committee will meet in February Date, time and location TBA. Festival Committee Chair again this year is, Matthew Drobnich a Gen Y'er,queerwestartsfestival@gmail.com

If a festivals is held, it will run sometime between: Thursday August 9 to Saturday August 18, 2012. This will allow any Affiliate Events that wish join us for more publicity to make their own plans.

An Affiliate Event is an event organized, produced and run by a non-profit or business, individual, or group. Your event should wide range of diversity which include, but are not limited to: literary events, visual arts events, performing arts events, family, youth or cultural events, all ages events, adult only events, musical, comedy or similar types of events.

We should be able to launch full or partial listing by July 15 (Maybe sooner). Deadline for Film Festival Submissions and Festival Bookings is June 30, 2012. The Film Festival will be held either weekend of Aug 11 or 18, if we can find a sponsor for Revue Cinema ($400 rental cost. If not we will book a projector and host it in a club or gallery)

We are looking for art student to make simple Festival Poster. (Polina Teif, a U of T arts student, made one for us last year.)

That's the plan. Whether we can pull it off, remains to be seen?