We talk to Martha Kate Margetson, Head of Festival for FRINGE! Queer Film & Arts Fest about hosting their 10th festival in the midst of lockdown 2 in November and how covid has impacted the LGBTIQA+ arts community.
Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest took place on from the 10th to the 16th of November this year. This is your 9th year!? I can imagine it’s been a whirlwind to organise. Can you tell us about how you made it happen in the midst of a global pandemic & lockdown 2?
We had our TENth this year in fact! Knowing it was the tenth meant we couldn’t really consider 2020 a fallow year, and also I was certainly excited about the possibilities of reaching more people with access needs, as well as those shielding due to their physical vulnerabilities to COVID, their principles around transmission, and all sorts of other reasons. We had been excitedly building a programme for a while, and were very excited by the films being sent in and called in from all over, and realised we had to put something on.
Fringe! is usually queer Christmas for our community, and a moment where LGBTIQA+ people from all over come to share their stories, hash it out in panels, hold space for moments of passion and creation together, and raise awareness of conversations and actions happening around the queer world. It’s a site of community reckoning, as well as community love. And this year, we’re all craving that.
Practically, and I suppose on a human level for our (fully volunteer) team, it has been a total whirlwind: we had to retrain, build websites, build a tech and projection office, and completely go in blind on a project that we usually know with our eyes closed, but it turned out to be much easier than a usual festival that spans East London spaces once we launched the festival.
Tell us more about the programming and how the films are selected?
As with other festivals, we’ll attend film festivals around the world when we can, though in 2020 this was limited to the Berlinale in February. Somewhat differently to most film festivals though, we accept film submissions from around the world at an incredibly low cost via FilmFreeway, and provide free access for previous filmmakers and those who can’t afford the submission fee.
The government in the UK has pledged a £1.57bn package in July to support cultural, arts and heritage institutions. Has this trickled down to festivals like yours or others in the LGBTIQA+ arts community? What has the impact of Covid been on the LGBTIQA+ community?
I would say that this has not trickled down to Fringe! and indeed is unlikely to effectively benefit the majority of LGBTIQA+ people in our communities. As far as I have seen this funding, whilst awarded to some organisations we appreciate such as Rich Mix, was also awarded to many mainstream, commercial organisations who already make huge profits and do not necessarily support creatives or staff.
The impact of COVID on our community has of course been that those who were very much part of a physical ‘scene’, who inhabited it fullest, were left initially without income or even often without anywhere to stay, as households began to become policed. It has meant that some queer people have had to return to unsafe family homes, has meant that the majority of us are now unemployed and/or in less safe housing. Many of us no longer have an industry to safely go back to, and many of those who once stood on stages, ran tech, backed bars, made things happen, and so on, are now so disempowered. Additionally, we have lost the ability to gather which made much of the ‘stuff’ of queer life, the value for an area being populated with queer people is now less tangible.
It has also shed a light on the lived reality of those with disabilities or those who are unable to attend in person events, and highlighted the government and wider society’s lack of support for making life safe for everyone, preferring to leave the weakest to suffer. It has also been an opportunity to push through further demolition of the arts in general, with cinemas and bars going the way that libraries did in the past years of austerity. This means less safe spaces, and less culture: less understanding and empathy. Less value to the country.
Your website says November 2020 and all year round. What else can we expect from Fringe! in the upcoming year? If someone is a filmmaker or wants to submit their work where can they find you?
We will continue to do events each month, beginning with a partnership with the London Short Film Festival, whose 2020 festival we opened in January with a night of alt drag short films. We will be continuing to stream cinema online and organise panels, discussions and collaborations in online spaces, in ways which support both our international filmmaker community, audiences, and other amazing organisations in our community. Submissions for our 2021 festival will open later in 2021 via FilmFreeway only, you can keep in touch about important dates and deadlines as well as our year-round programme by signing up for our mailing list or following us on socials: @fringefilmfest and /fringefest on facebook. We were born out of a response to arts cuts carnage in 2011, and we’ll continue through it.
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