Recently the organizers of the "Bok-o-Bok" ("Side by side") queer movie festival in S-Pb have announced that 3rd queer movie festival would be held on 15-23 October this year in Saint Petersburg.
During the festival around 40 films from all over the world are on the show-list on its numerous scenes.
The "Side by side" programme includes the newest films - winners of last int'l movie festivals as well as famous films of recent years. All films of this festival will have one main idea - the issue of coexistence of sexual and gender minorities in the past, present and future, tolerance and gay hate of the modern societies in different countries of the world, reports a press-statement made by the organizers of this queer-movie festival.
Moreover, documentary, live-action and animation films are included in a contest list of the festival. One of the core events of the festival will be the world premiere of the Russian movie "Piter-Moskva", staged by Dmitry Gribanov from S-Pb.
World known producers - Tomer Heimann (Israel), Iben Haar Anderson and Minna Gross (Denmark), Lasse Person (Sweden) and many others will visit S-Pb.
We'd like to remind you of the facts that organizers of the previous two queer-movie festivals (Side by side in S-Pb) earlier had difficulties in organizing and holding of these events. In autumn 2008 the Fire inspection on the grounds of fire prevention measures had closed all clubs planned to be the scenes of the GLBT movie festival. In 2009 gay hate crowd frustrated some gay events including the meeting with Dr. Igor Kon. Earlier this year GLBT movie festival went on cruise across Russia. In Novosibirsk the festival has got the support of local authorities but in Kemerovo and Arkhangelsk it faced with bold opposition of locals and several nationalist and anti-gay organizations.
Nevertheless, the Side by side int'l queer movie festival has won the authority and support of queer movie goers and foreign queer organizations. The efforts of the Side by side GLBT movie festival organizers were awarded with the Teddy prize during Berlin int'l film festival in January 2010.
English version presented by Yerdna Bananes