History of Queer West Film Film Festival and why it was cancelled in 2017

The Toronto Queer Arts and Culture Festival began life as an alternative to pride week events in 2001 for those living west of the city. It was also commonly known as Queer West Fest.

With the support of local businesses and volunteers it had expanded to a three day event by 2006 and a full festival week by 2010. Evolving to meet the needs of the queer community it serves, the range of festival event never remained static. From family picnics, live music events, queer heritage talks, poetry and literary readings (Smash Words), and in  2008, a film festival was added. 

The Toronto Queer Arts and Culture Festival did strive to produce something a little bit different. We are indebted to our past volunteers, performers and event managers, all of whom contributed to queer academia and alternative queer culture in Toronto.

Arts and Culture Festival was put to sleep in 2014 when the last one ran  from Tuesday August 5 to Sunday August 10  We decide to concentrate on making  the Queer West Film Festival bigger and better and TD Bank  begin to help sponsor it in 2015, when we moved from a one evening event to a three day event.

Gay West Community Network Inc. regrets to inform you that the ninth annual 2017 Queer West Film Oct 6-8 @ Revue Cinema, has been cancelled. We can tell you from experience that nothing is more frustrating than six trained volunteers who decided on their own, to discard the plan which had work for eight years, for one of their own. Just because someone volunteers does not give them the right to do whatever they want. Everyone should be pulling their weight, not pushing their weight around. The volunteers were fired, throwing the festival into chaos on Feb 16, 2017.

We should have minimum of six to 10 general volunteers to manage a festival of this size. There is simply not enough time to train new volunteers at this late date. This is the reason for cancellation; we will pay a few bills, and returned the TD Bank funding check on Monday February 20. The Board is putting the film festival to sleep for a couple of years.

Queer West Office:
queerwestinfo@gmail.com
562 Dufferin St. 2nd Floor B1 Toronto ON M6K 2A9. Phone: 416-879-7954
Board of Directors 2017:  Michel F. Paré,  Richa Bhala Shrotriya and Lauren Tenn