The queer community loves an acronym, so LAMag wasn’t surprised when we heard that the long-running film festival Outfest was throwing a spinoff festival specifically for artists identifying as QTBIPOC. This stands, of course, for Queer Trans Black Indigenous People of Color, a Venn diagram of abbreviations that, as Outfest Executive Director Damien Navarro confessed, is simply an attempt to mirror the emerging language of the industry.
The point is: There’s a film festival going on for queer artists of color. So we sent local area homosexual and language critic Ben Kawaller to the event’s opening ceremony at the Japanese-American Cultural and Community Center, where he had a number of interesting conversations about identity, how we talk, and the making of (queer) art.
Outfest Fusion runs through April 2. Tickets and more information can be found at www.outfestfusion.com.
