The Frameline Film Festival (aka San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival) (formerly San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival; San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival) began as a storefront event in 1976.
The first film festival, named the Gay Film Festival of Super-8 Films, was held in 1977. The festival is organized by Frameline, a nonprofit media arts organization whose mission statement is "to change the world through the power of
queer cinema". It is the oldest
LGBTQ+ film festival in the world.
With annual attendance ranging from 60,000 to 80,000, it is the largest
LGBTQ+
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is ...
film exhibition event. It is also the most well-attended LGBTQ+ arts event in the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area G ...
. The festival is held every year in late June according to a schedule that allows the eleven-day event's closing night to coincide with the City's annual
Gay Pride Day, which takes place on the last Sunday of the month.
Films screened at the Frameline Film Festival have been donated to the Hormel Center at the
San Francisco Public Library
The San Francisco Public Library is the public library system of the city and county of San Francisco. The Main Library is located at Civic Center, at 100 Larkin Street. The library system has won several awards, such as '' Library Journals ...
. An initial donation was made in 2005, and the library partnered with the
Bay Area Video Coalition
BAVC Media, previously known as the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC), is a nonprofit organization that works to connect independent producers and underrepresented communities to emerging media technologies. It was founded in 1976 in San Francisc ...
(BAVC) for conservation of video recordings.
In 2020 the festival was one of the key partners, alongside
Outfest Los Angeles, the
New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival and the
Inside Out Film and Video Festival
Inside may refer to:
* Insider, a member of any group of people of limited number and generally restricted access
Film
* ''Inside'' (1996 film), an American television film directed by Arthur Penn and starring Eric Stoltz
* ''Inside'' (2002 ...
, in launching the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film.
Awards
The festival's annual awards include
The Frameline Award
Established in 1986, The Frameline Award is given every year at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco to a person or entity that has made a major contribution to LGBTQ+ representation in film, television, or the media arts.
List of Honore ...
given to an individual who has played a key role in the history of LGBTQ+ cinema, Audience Awards for
Best Feature, Best Documentary, Best Episodic, Best Short, and Juried Awards for First Feature, and Outstanding Documentary.
See also
*
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, consisting mainly of major film studios (also known as Hollywood) along with some independent film, has had a large effect on the global film industry since the early 20th century. The dominant style of Am ...
*
List of LGBT film festivals
Notes
References
Further reading
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*
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External links
*
Frameline Program Guides
Frameline Film Festival Collectionat
Online Archive of California
San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festivalat
WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...
Frameline Film Festival Trailers YouTube Playlist
1977 establishments in California
Annual events in California
Film festivals established in 1977
Film festivals in the San Francisco Bay Area
LGBT film festivals in the United States
LGBT culture in San Francisco
LGBT events in California
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