LOVE LETTERS

Scott Ferguson

As Inside Out celebrates its 19th festival, and I mark my 9th Festival year as Executive Director, now is a good time to reflect on what Inside Out means to us, and how Inside Out meets the needs of the community.

There's a lot to weigh when putting on the Festival. We try in earnest to represent the full spectrum of the LGBT experience while acknowledging that Inside Out means something different to everyone. We also understand that satisfying the needs of the 32,000 queers, friends and families who come together each year to watch films that educate and entertain, is a lofty challenge.

But this is a challenge we embrace with passion and humility. Our film selections, venues, parties and activities are designed with one major objective-that Inside Out offers something for everyone.

We present stories of hope and heartbreak, repression and freedom, love and loss, sex and camp. Some films will open our eyes to lives lived on the other side of the world and other films will hit closer to home, echoing our own personal experiences.

And yet, the films on screen are only one part of the Inside Out story. Equally important is the sense of community you experience at the Festival. Where else but at Inside Out can you watch LGBT movies in the company of your peers while engaging in discussion and debate, interacting with artists from around the globe and getting down and dirty at our fabulous parties?

So thank you to everyone who helps make this Festival happen, including our funders, sponsors, donors, members and advertisers. My heartfelt gratitude to the brilliant staff with whom I am fortunate to work every day, and to our volunteer Board of Directors and Advisory Board for their commitment, expertise and advice. Thanks as well to all our office and Festival volunteers who dedicate thousands of hours toward making this event possible. Also, thank you to all the artists for sharing their talent and imagination and for allowing us to display their artistry on the big screen for all to experience. And finally, a special thanks to you Inside Out Festival-goers for putting your bums in our seats! Like many other arts organizations, we are trying to stem the tide during this economic storm. Your presence is crucial to help us think bigger, better and more boldly as we prepare to celebrate our 20th anniversary next year. So come out and come often. And tell your friends to experience Inside Out.

Enjoy and I will see you in the dark.

Scott Ferguson

Executive Director

Jason St-Laurent

Inside Out has presented the best of world queer cinema for 19 years and there's no stopping us now! Our tagline says it all: Love! Drama! Sex! Politics! You'll get all four in generous portions.

With our 20th anniversary around the corner, audiences at this year's Festival will get a taste of what is to come in 2010. We want to make your Festival experience unique and that's why we'll surprise you with pop-up performances at screenings and parties, including the newly revamped Local Heroes party that will honour the best and brightest of Toronto's queer music scene.

On Opening Night, we bring you the worldwide hit Patrik, Age 1.5 from Sweden, a technicolour celebration of love. For our Closing Gala, we're delighted to bring you the Canadian premiere of Lucia Puenzo's (XXY) new feature, The Fish Child (El niño pez), a heart-wrenching love story with plenty of thrilling moments. Our Centrepiece Gala screening of Baby Love (Comme les autres) anchors our International Focus on France, which features many works from a country we can always count on for cinematic excellence.

Inside Out is dedicated to reaching out to Toronto's many cultural communities. In addition to diversifying our programming, we initiated some innovative outreach strategies. Our pilot translation project for the past two years has proven so successful that we are pursuing the translation of press releases and certain program notes into the 10 most common languages of our city.

Thank you to the volunteer screening committee for spending their Sunday afternoons pre-screening more than 200 short films and videos. Huge thanks as well to the Programming Committee for their curatorial expertise in selecting the works that made it into the Festival.

Lastly, I want to thank Programming Assistant Claire Egan for coming to the Festival with such big shoes to fill and pulling it off gloriously. The Outsiders sidebar was under her direction and you'll notice new and exciting initiatives in this department, particularly the shorts program Dykes On The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, featuring a virgin sacrifice and a lesbian heavy metal band. Call us crazy!

With more than 80 screenings, special events, parties, artist talks and panel discussions, we know you'll find something (or someone) to love at Inside Out.

Jason St-Laurent

Director of Programming