The annual New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival announced Tuesday that it will provide Arizonans with free virtual access to a selection of this year\u2019s featured films in response to the cancellation of a queer film festival in Phoenix.<\/p>\n
Last month, the organizers of the Desperado LGBTQ+ Film Festival announced that they canceled the event \u201cin direct response\u201d<\/a> to President Donald Trump\u2019s executive order aimed at ending diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at publicly funded institutions. <\/p>\n A student organization at Paradise Valley Community College, which receives federal funds, hosted the festival for the last 16 years in Phoenix.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a publicly funded institution, we must comply with these orders,\u201d the festival\u2019s organizers said in a statement<\/a> on its website last month. \u201cFailure to do so would jeopardize the district\u2019s federal funding, including student financial aid and grants that support over 300 positions across our campuses. The loss of such funding would create a ripple effect, significantly affecting students, faculty, staff, the community, and the educational services we provide.\u201d<\/p>\n David Hatkoff, executive director of NewFest, which hosts the New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival \u2014 the largest such festival in the U.S. \u2014 said hearing about Desperado\u2019s cancellation was \u201ca gut punch,\u201d because it was one of the first instances where he saw the effects of one of the Trump administration\u2019s executive orders in his sector.<\/p>\n \u201cIt felt scary, it felt enraging, and I felt sad for the folks in Arizona who were anticipating being able to engage with this festival and being able to to experience these queer stories,\u201d Hatkoff said. \u201cWe know firsthand how impactful these stories are, and have been, and, in some ways, now more than ever, as these efforts are in place to try to silence queer voices.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that NewFest worked alongside the organizers of Desperado to create the Arizona Queer Film Access Initiative, which will allow those watching from Arizona free virtual access to a selection of the New York City festival\u2019s 130 films for the duration of the festival, which will run from Oct. 9 to Oct. 21.<\/p>\n \u201cIt felt like a calling, in some ways, to step up,\u201d Hatkoff said.<\/p>\n The films Arizonans will have free access to will include all of the festival\u2019s roughly 100 short films, which Hatkoff said run the gamut of genres, including animated, horror and comedy.<\/p>\n People from other states who want to watch the films will still be able to pay for a virtual pass, which Hatkoff said has been available since the start of the pandemic.<\/p>\n Dale Heuser, the co-coordinator of Desperado, said the festival\u2019s organizers are grateful for the opportunity presented by NewFest.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are adapting to new challenges, but our vision remains the same and we look forward to gathering again in 2026 to celebrate queer film, build community, and support LGBTQ+ artists and audiences,\u201d Heuser said in a statement.<\/p>\n Hatkoff said the Trump administration has increasingly targeted the LGBTQ community in \u201can effort to erase us out of existence,\u201d and NewFest is trying to do its part to help \u201cstem the tide.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe antidote to that is telling our stories loudly and proudly,\u201d he said. \u201cSo the loss of this relatively small festival in Phoenix is something we should be paying attention to, because when people lose access to these stories, they stop being able to see themselves. That, in tandem with cuts in suicide hotline funding<\/a> and things like that \u2014 this is a crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n NewFest will announce the full programming lineup for its 37th festival on Sept. 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The annual New York LGBTQ+ Film Festival announced Tuesday that it will provide Arizonans with free virtual access…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":194564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-194563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115135682239987447","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}