Film festivals are a huge part of cinema and belong to a film culture that favors alternative cinema over commercially driven mainstream film exhibition.

LGBTQ+ film festivals provide a platform for LGBTQ+ voices to be heard, promote community-building and solidarity, and challenge dominant cultural narratives about LGBTQ+ identities and experiences.

The Pink Film Days are one of the largest LGBTQ+ film festivals in Europe, showcasing a wide variety of films from around the world that explore different aspects of queer culture, identity, and experience. The festival was first held in 1996 and has since become an important event in the Dutch LGBTQ+ community, attracting both local and international filmmakers, actors, and audiences.

It takes place over several days in March, and in addition to film screenings, they also feature panel discussions, workshops, and other events related to LGBTQ+ cinema. Bovenkant formulier

I will talk to Thomas Streetstra, a programmer who works for Studio/K, an independent movie theatre in Amsterdam. We will talk about the choices he must make as a programmer. Because the logic behind programming choices shifts in time and depends on the context of the festival as conversations with festival curators show, as well as on the desired audience.