Mission Statement – Queer Cinema for Palestine Film Festival

Queer Cinema for Palestine (QCP) is a collectively-curated global film festival celebrating queer realities and standing in solidarity with the struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom, justice, and dignity.

QCP is a queer artistic solidarity initiative creating a vibrant, decolonized space using film and art to:

  • Foreground progressive Palestinian voices and Palestinian art, with a focus on queer Palestinians’ simultaneous and interconnected struggles for national and social liberation;
  • Express our commitment to LGBTQIA+ liberation, the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice, and equality, and the struggles of all oppressed peoples and communities;
  • Oppose the ongoing violence of Israeli apartheid oppressing all Palestinians, queer and non-queer alike;
  • Reject Israel’s pinkwashing agenda, which uses LGBTQIA+ rights to cover up its crimes against the Palestinian people while erasing Palestinian queers.
  • Acknowledge the long history of solidarity and intersectional struggles with Indigenous, Black, feminist, anti-racist and anti-colonial movements;
  • Break down oppressive barriers, including physical, artistic and curatorial.

As QCP, including our partners, event hosts, co-presenters, speakers and participating filmmakers, we stand in support of the comprehensive rights of the Palestinian people as guaranteed under international law.

We commit to do no harm to the Palestinian liberation struggle by:

  • Respecting the Palestinian civil society appeal to not perform or exhibit in Israel until it complies with its obligations under international law and respects Palestinian rights;
  • Not participating in or submitting works over which we have control to events partially or fully sponsored by complicit Israeli institutions, including the Israeli government-sponsored LGBT film festival TLVFest;
  • Not accepting funding* from complicit Israeli institutions.

*  With the exception of state funding that tax-paying citizens are eligible for as entitlements, provided there are no requirements to serve Israel’s pinkwashing or other propaganda efforts.