The show must go on: How Inside Out pulled off its 30th festival in the middle of a pandemic
Executive director Andria Wilson explains how the festival pivoted for this October's event
Queeries is a weekly column by CBC Arts producer Peter Knegt that queries LGBTQ art, culture and/or identity through a personal lens.
Turning 30 is typically hard enough, but for Toronto's Inside Out LGBT Film Festival, it was particularly challenging. Initially set to run as it usually does at the end of May, the festival's organizers had to pivot and pivot and pivot again to figure out how Inside Out could properly celebrate its birthday in the midst of a global pandemic.
The fruits of that labour will be made clear starting October 1st, when the festival kicks off a largely virtual 11-day event that is accessible to viewers all across Ontario (save the in-person drive-in events happening in Toronto).
"We reached out to Hot Docs to see what they were planning because they were getting ready to launch their program," Inside Out's executive director Andria Wilson tells CBC Arts of the initial days of the pandemic. "And when Hot Docs had to make the decision, we knew the writing was on the wall: there was no way we would be able to do a spring event."
So they moved it to October.
"It was such a different time for us," Wilson recalls. "We were working with the best information we had available. So at that time, people were saying, 'October, yes ... it's going to be great by then.'"
Of course, the current state of things in Ontario regarding COVID-19 could hardly be described as "great" — but Wilson and her team are ready to roll anyway.
"In this moment, I'm so grateful for that decision to postpone to the fall," she says. "Because even though we made that decision with the hope that it would be an in-person festival, what it actually ended up buying up was the time to develop a solution: to actually build a digital platform, to explore other opportunities for presentation — like the drive-ins, like live online events versus just on-demand platforms — to reach out to all of our filmmakers and find ways to engage them through the program, to pivot our industry programs and our financing event into an online space."
Wilson says having all that time was a considerable gift.
"Some days are easier than others, but I'm trying to still feel grateful that in the end we are still going to be able to meet our mandate and execute this work and show the work that this team has now been doing for a year and a half for this 30th anniversary edition. We're still able to share that with our public, and maybe even with more people than we would have been able to do in person."
The overwhelming majority of the film program will be available on demand via the festival's digital platform the entire 11 days of the festival. But there are a couple of one-time-only events, as well as screenings at the aforementioned drive-ins. It all will surely mark an emotional culmination for Wilson — not just because of how the pandemic complicated the process of this year's festival but because it will also be her last Inside Out in her current role.
Her stamp on the festival will surely be long felt by many. During Wilson's four years at Inside Out, she helped found the world's only LGBTQ Feature Financing Forum and launched the RE:Focus Fund as well as the OUTtv Outspoken Documentary Fund. She also spearheaded a partnership between Inside Out and Netflix to launch talent development programs for LGBTQ filmmakers.
"Obviously, I'm looking back over these past few years a lot right now," says Wilson. "And so much has changed. But I think the example that kind of sums up what I hope will have a lasting impact, not just on Inside Out but on on our industry and our community, is what we were able to do with the RE:Focus Fund. This was the fund that we launched that was supported by Martha McCain to support queer women filmmakers, trans filmmakers, non-binary filmmakers with direct financial support and grants programs."
The program was initially sparked by Wilson and Inside Out's programming manager Jenna Dufton noticing that even as the festival's representation of women and gender diverse filmmakers was increasing in terms of content, when they looked into which filmmakers were able to attend the festival, it was still an overwhelmingly cis white male talent pool.
"We knew that in terms of access and travel support and just getting folks to festivals to represent their work, there was a gap," Wilson says. "So that's where we started with the fund. We started subsidizing travel and accommodations for women and gender-diverse filmmakers to come attend the festival, take part in networking opportunities, make sure they were paid for panel opportunities."
From there, they launched several other phases focused on production grants, post-production grants and then, earlier this year, a relief fund for filmmakers affected by COVID-19.
"We wanted to step in and support and we were able to increase the fund to support 16 projects with COVID relief funds to help them bridge some of their immediate expenses," she says. "So I think that's the piece that I'm the most proud the team has been able to accomplish because there just needs to be intervention in the process. It's too hard to do this alone. And for organizations like Inside Out, if they're going to continue to exist in this unpredictable future, they have to be committed to the development of filmmakers' careers and the development of new content."
One thing that really brought Wilson hope and helped get her through this whole process was the collaboration between festivals and between organizations. When the pandemic started, festivals that had normally seen each other as competition came together unlike ever before, essentially to survive.
"The idea of film festivals viewing each other as competition or with this adversarial energy has had to take a step back because we were literally all in the same position of our core business model becoming impossible in this," she says. "So we have to be creative and we have to work together. That has given me so much strength because one of the challenges that I really felt confronted by in this space is that [competitive] energy."
Wilson says there was always a huge question in her mind around why there isn't there more direct collaboration among festivals.
"Why can't we all see that we're part of this deeply connected ecosystem and that we need all of these all of these communities to be connected? So that has been has been a massive shift and it's something that really does give me hope, because at the end of the day, that kind of collaboration serves our filmmakers and it serves our communities and our audiences. And I think that's the future."
Inside Out runs October 1-11 virtually across Ontario and at drive-ins in Toronto.