Q Cinema, the city's LGBTQ+ film festival, returns Nov. 13-15 after a seven-year break from full festivals

Fort Worth's LGBTQ+ film festival is coming back this weekend for its 30th anniversary, the Fort Worth Report reported Tuesday.

Q Cinema runs from Friday to Sunday at Amphibian Stage, 120 S. Main St., in the Near Southside. Single screenings cost $15 and a weekend pass is $125.

The program is smaller than the festival's old format: three feature films, one each day, plus short films. The features are "Bookends," "Clarissa" and "Jaripeo." The shorts include "Pride Kelso: No One Left Behind," which documents the couple behind a Pride celebration in Southlake. Organizers describe the revival as curated and noncompetitive.

The festival grew out of a film discussion group founded in 1996 and became a full festival in 1999. It held its last large-scale edition in 2019, then staged occasional single screenings until 2022, according to the Report.

This year's event is a program of the nonprofit Trinity Pride Fort Worth. Its founder, Roger Calderon, now serves as Q Cinema's director and told the Fort Worth Report he wants to hold the festival every year and draw more submissions from filmmakers and studios. Calderon told the Report the group's mission is to "create safe spaces in the community."

Todd Camp, who founded the original discussion group and ran Q Cinema until 2013, is not part of the organizing team but will display his collection of festival memorabilia in the theater lobby, the Report said.

Over the years the festival screened at venues such as Caravan of Dreams and the Ridglea and Rose Marine theaters, and its guests included director John Waters and the late actor Leslie Jordan.

Sources

fortworthreport.org